David Pogue's Digital Photography: The Missing Manual

Publishing Photos on the Web

Putting your photos on the Web is the ultimate way to share them with the world. If the idea of enabling the vast throngs of the Internet-using public to browse, view, download, save, and print your photos sounds appealing, read on. It's amazingly easy to get your photos from iPhoto and Picasa to the Internet.

Web sites like Flickr.com, SmugMug.com, and Fotki.com are all over the Web, offering a place for you to exhibit your photos for all the world to see and to comment upon.

If you' re more interested in creating a private Web gallery that neatly syncs with your copy of iPhoto/Picasa, both Apple and Google have made it utterly idiot-proof. (How does one click strike you?)

These galleries offer full-screen slideshows, the option to let your fans download full-res copies of your work, posting of new photos that sent from your cellphone, and other goodies that make it even more fun for your admirers.

The two companies take very different approaches to their gallery services:

• Apple. Apple's Web service, called MobileMe, costs $100 a year. Sure, it's too bad it's not free. However, that price gets you 20 gigabytes of storage, which can hold a lot of photos indeed. The Web gallery is also sophisticated, with a wealth of beautiful, smooth, and animated viewing options.

  And membership includes a host of other Web features, not just the Web photo-gallery thing. For example, it includes the infamous MobileMe syncing service, which keeps the email, calendars, address ...