Best ways to share photos with friends

For Christmas or New Years you might send out a nice family photo, but what about the rest of the year for a quick update or a cute candid about your day? Surely photos can be enjoyed at times other than the holidays. Memories and reminiscing the good times are best done with friends and family, but we may just be stuck on the best vehicle to do so. The following are some available, convenient options for sharing photos.

Hard copies

Obviously, the first option we all know and love and have been using for a long time,  is a physical copy of your photo. Whether you go to your favorite photo center to get prints made or print from home, all you need for this option is an envelope, stamp, and an address.

Loose photos are not always the easiest to display, so albums and scrap books start to come into play. There are plenty of beautiful empty albums to keep photos in an elegant binding, and scrapbooks allow you to be creative and resourceful. Craft stores are the most likely to have more elaborate and varied options, but you can find materials at local stores like Walmart and Target. Of course, shopping online is a fast and easy option as well.

Making a photo book is an updated way to keep smaller photos organized in the same spot while keeping a sleek professional finish and still allowing for creative license. There are simple options like Chatbooks, who periodically print and bind the images from your social media for you. Or, if you want to have more elaborate decorations and layouts, try a photo book tool on sites like Snapfish or Shutterfly.

Go for a larger size and have photos framed or printed on another fine material like canvas, wood, metal, or glass. These make for unique keepsakes with an up-scale gallery feel. When you are more of a quirky person, you can also resort to something from our list of amazing photo gifts ranging from socks to photos on candy. These sorts of prints can be found at most of the places mentioned above: Walmart, Snapfish, Shutterfly, and even Costco.

Apps and Social Media

The next options are really myriad choices of mobile or computer applications to share (or sometimes store and share) your favorite photos. Some of these options allow multiple contributors to the same app!

PhotoCircle --

Popular for group events like weddings or birthdays, PhotoCircle allows anyone with the PIN to contribute photos to the same photo album. Only members of the album can share and view, so you have a private party when you want it! Currently this is only available for mobile, but they promise to have web/desktop based apps soon!

[Similar options: Tac Board, The Guest, WedBox]

Flickr -- Add photos and friends to Flickr to share photos or photo albums or even videos! It’s a storage app and sharing app all in one. It’s also free, with free storage up to one TB! Like other social media, you will create a profile and have various ways to view your "feed" of galleries, albums, groups, favorites, etc. This is the most photo centric of social media as far as photography and organizing photos goes.

[Similar options: 500px, Piwigo]

Instagram -- Everyone knows Instagram. One of the pioneers for photo sharing, you can take or post photos right into the app on your own feed, and gain followers or follow others you want to see. You can also make your posts or account private and only available to those you want to see your updates. Different posts allow temporary photos or videos that expire too, for spur of the moment ideas. There are filters available for your posts, and other options to spice up your stories like adding music, text, and Gif stickers. Get creative with sharing your life in photos.

[Similar options: EyeEM, Imgur]

Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms have become some of the most popular ways to share our day-to-day lives especially through photos because of the unlimited space and quick connections with everyone you know. Genealogy sites like Ancestry.com are also great to share memories of people you know who have passed and then read other stories about that same person shared by someone else. You should take into consideration, however, that these places should not always be your go-to for storage as many have file size limits and compression when saving images. You want to keep your memories in top condition!

Cloud/Web Services

If you’re more keen to have an all-in-one storage and sharing option, rather than an album or individual photo sharing app, you might look into websites or cloud services. Often available in app form as well as through your browser, these storage options can be great for keeping your photos organized and available to share in folders, albums, or individually on a case-to-case basis. You’re able to share one-time links to specific photos or groups for more privacy at any given point!

Google Photos -- Google Photos can be accessed through an app on your phone or desktop and also through a web portal. It can be used to store anything from documents to movie files, and also photos. Within Google Photos you’re able to sort and organize your photos and share individual photos or albums with a direct link through email, your favorite texting/messaging app, or even by posting to your social media sites.

[Similar services: Amazon Photos, Dropbox, ICloud by Apple]

Through the internet, we are more connected than ever, and with all of our social media available, we can really use it to our advantage to share meaningful moments with each other. Are there any moments you would love to re-live? If there are photos that would benefit from a touch up, or even a full on restoration, we can help! Getting a photo repaired is yet another reason to share memories again with renewed excitement!

For professional assistance with any photo restoration, retouching, or recreation, please visit us at www.PhotoRepairPro.com