Knowing how to post digital photos to the web can be a valuable skill in any number of scenarios. Whether it’s to liven up an existing website or to create an online album of pictures from a recent service event, sharing photographs with others can be informative and fun.

When preparing to post images, it’s important to think about whether or not you want viewers to be able to make quality prints of the images. This will affect how you go about posting the photographs.

Resolution

Image resolution is a primary consideration when preparing photos for the web. The term resolution refers to the “dots per inch” (or dpi) of an electronic image. The higher the resolution, the higher the quality of the image — the more dots per inch.
Print-quality images have a recommended minimum resolution of 150 dpi. Images that will only be viewed on the web, however, call for no more than a resolution of 72 dpi. Computer monitors are only capable of displaying up to a 72 dpi resolution, so any quality greater than that is, in effect, wasted. The smaller file size of 72 dpi images results in significantly shorter load times for viewers of the web page.

To post higher quality photographs that people can print out, consider dedicating one page per high-resolution photo. This keeps the user from suffering through extremely long load download times on a page that has too many large files. Instead, set up one index page with smaller 72 dpi thumbnail images. If the user wants to print a particular photo or see it enlarged, he can click on the thumbnail image, which then opens the higher resolution image on a separate page.

Image-editing software, such as Adobe Photoshop or one of the shareware programs mentioned below, will help you modify your images to get the desired size and resolution.

If you don’t have your own website, here are two other options for sharing photos online.

Web Albums

You can create a web album using freeware or shareware programs such as Web Album Generator or Jalbum. No need to worry about image resolution or file size because these services allow you to drag-and-drop your photos into the program, which then creates the thumbnail images, generates a slide show, and enables you to customize the look of your album. Many Internet service providers offer free web space as part of the service package — this space can be used for creating your album.

Online Photo-Sharing Services

Online photo-sharing services are very easy to use, and there are quite a few to choose from. Most of these programs offer free photo posting along with other services, such as ordering prints or photo products (like cards, calendars, mugs, etc.), scanning photos to CD, film developing, and more. They also allow you to determine who has access to your online photos. As with the above option, online photo-sharing services create the thumbnails for online viewing and save the larger versions for printing.

Some popular online photo-sharing services are Kodak Gallery, Flickr (a service of Yahoo!), Shutterfly, Picasa, and Snapfish.

Social Media Websites

Web-based social media sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, are popular (and free) tools for creating an online space for connecting with others. They provide simple functionality right at the site that allows you to load photos easily and share them with your network of friends, family, or colleagues. You can decide who has permission to see them. Like photo-sharing services, they also relieve you from worry about file size and resolution of digital photographs.

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