Online Image Hosting

People are all about taking pictures nowadays.  Since everyone has some sort of digital camera either on their phone or as a standalone device, taking pictures is not easier than ever.  It is also easy to post these pictures online for friends, family and even the whole world to see.  Sharing these pictures online through websites is all possible with online image hosting.

Online image hosting services let people post their digital photos online to websites.  The image host stores the photos on a server and allows the user to select who can view these photos online.  Image hosting sites have an upload tool that is pretty easy to use for anyone.  It is usually a blank space with a browse button.  The user clicks the browse button in order to bring up their file list so they can specify the location of the photo they want to upload to the site.  After finding the desired file, the user clicks submit and the photo is uploaded to the site.  Photos are usually uploaded one at a time, but some sites allow a user to upload multiple photos or folders at once.  Some hosting sites also allow FTP access which allows a user to transfer files from one host to another.

After the photos have been uploaded to the image host's server, they are available to view on the internet by anyone or whoever the user specifies.  Sites like Facebook allow users to only make their photos accessible to friends or other select people.  After the photos have been uploaded, they can usually be embedded on other websites and have inline links available.  Linking is usually done via HTML code or BBcode.  There are also usually thumbnails that link to the whole photo.

Image hosting sites might have restrictions on things like image size and bandwidth.  Photos that are too large will not be allowed on the site and users might have a certain amount of space alotted to them.  This is especially true for free sites.  There are paid sites that allow people to upload as much as they want, but who wants to pay a site to put photos up?  Only professional photographers might actually want to do that, but not casual users, especially when there are so many free sites out there.

Websites that host images have a number of tools for users to apply.  Users can create galleries and photo blogs with the images they upload.  This is so they don't just have a big mass of images without any order.  Users can categorize their photos and have different albums.  That way the photos from their wedding don't get mixed up with a birthday party or something like that.  Photos can be added to a slide show to make them easier to look at.  There is even the option to add notes or captions to photos, as well as tags to make them searchable.  Many online image hosts allow photos to be re-sized so they meet the guidelines for size.  The user might also just want to reduce the photo size or crop it.  Sites like Flickr allow users to upload photos from a camera phone via email.

Most of the popular online image hosting sites are free to use.  Those that are free are supported by ads.  This allows users to upload larger images and more of them.  Other sites offer pay services and don't have ads on them.  These sites are usually pretty cheap and cost less than paying for hosting for a site of your own.  Paid services usually come with more options and allow the user to do a lot more with their photos when it comes to customization.  The different packages and options vary between the different paid services.

Image Hosting Sites

There are a lot of image hosting sites out there.  One of the most popular ones is Facebook.  In addition to allowing people to put up personal profiles, users are allowed to upload as many images as they want.  These photos can be divided into different albums and can also be tagged with the names of other people.  For instance, if you upload a photo of you and your friend, you can tag that person on the photo and they will be notified of the photo.  The photo will then appear on both of your profiles.  If that other person doesn't like the photo, they can choose to remove the tag so the photo doesn't show up in their own profile.  It's good for those that think they look bad in some pictures.

Since so many people use Facebook, there are millions of photos on the site.  Users don't have to pay to upload photos since there are ads on the site and Facebook is worth like a billion dollars.  There are some people that have thousands of photos on their profile.  This shows how much they love themselves.  The site is also a great way to share photos with people while keeping them private so not just anyone can get on there to see them.

Flickr is another popular image hosting site.  The site was eventually purchased by Yahoo!.  The service allows people to post photos and link them to blogs.  Other users can also comment on the photos.  The service is free and has many other features not found on other photo sharing sites.  This site is popular with people that want to do more than just post their photos for people to see.  Users can modify tags and there is a built-in photo editor.

Other popular image hosting sites include ImageShack, Photobucket, TinyPic, PictureTrail, Webshots and many more.  As one can see, there is no shortage of online image hosting sites for people to use.  Most people just use Facebook for all their photos since there are many more users.  Other sites seem to be a little less popular now that Facebook is taking over the world, but they still have their purpose.  Go check them out if you are a fan of taking and posting images online.