The Best Websites for storing pictures!

I am wanting to get some recommendations from fellow forum readers on the best websites to host photos. What I am looking to factor in:

1. Having my photos stored at original quality

2. Being able to access photos easily, organize and share with other people.

3. Be able to view my photos through a media player.

4. I am okay with paying for this service.

MY contenders are flickr, picasa, google+, SmugMug, PhotoShelter, and Zenfolio. I was reading a good article regarding this topic. http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-...photos-online/

Thanks for any information or tips.

I've been with Photobucket for years and it used to get the job done, but now they're in the process of switching to a new system and the bugs are coming thick and fast and everybody's up in arms about it, i'll give them a week or two to sort themselves out, otherwise I'll have to switch to another image host and will look around for a good one like you're doing.

I tried Imageshack a while back but didn't like it, I should have read the small print carefully..;)

I'm surprised nobody's answered you yet, your post has been up for about 3 weeks.

I prefer flickr and Photobucket. You can keep the original quality of your images. You may try pixlr, it's the same function with adobe photoshop and you can save your images on it's original size and quality.

Currently Box.Com is giving away 50GB's worth of free storage. So, hurry while you still can.

I switched to Imageshack because Photobucket are still having horrendous problems since they recently switched to "New" Photobucket, they messed up the switchover bigtime

Thanks  MickinPlymouthUK - now I don't feel quite so stupid. Opening a Photobucket account really hasn't been a very happy experience for me. I thought at first that I was having problems because I just don't know how to use the site. I upgraded to the 'new' and couldn't do anything with it so switched back to 'old'. Now it seems they will migrate everyone to the 'new' anyway-?! Will see what happens. 

Atleast for me, there are no problems with photobuckets new system. Idk why you guys have these problems.

Good, 67Nero, the new Photobucket system does seem to be better than it was. One problem though, I can't upload AVCHD video files to Photobucket. As an experiment I found a couple of videos from my old camera and they uploaded without problems.

 

Understanding all the different codecs for video files is difficult. I decided it wasn't an option to find out how to convert my AVCHD files but found another solution - SkyDrive! Easy and free. I am able to send a link to the videos with email.

 

Now the question here is:

Does anyone use SkyDrive for sharing photos, videos etc ? Comments and/or helpful hints please.

The new Photobucket is still below par (April 3rd) because among other things there's a silly 1024-pixel width limit on images, meaning if you post any pic bigger than that in a forum, PB auto-shrinks it to 1024, what a cheek!
Imageshack is better (but not perfect) so I'm sticking with Imageshack because it gets the job done fairly well enough.
Incidentally, although you can sign up for FREE Imageshack i wouldn't recommend it because the free version has a "downtime" restriction which means your pics randomly won't display in forums for a brief period each month (i.e. replaced by the dreaded red 'x') whereas a paid subscription virtually eliminates downtime. I took out a 1-year 22 GBP/34 USD sub.
But like people have said, there are plenty of other image hosts around besides IShack and Pbucket so shop around to find one you're comfortable with.

EDIT- it seems Pbucket has fixed the 1024-wide limit so that's something, but there are still a few bugs and glitches need fixing, so I'd still rate Imageshack as better.

Hi, One other stray thought do not neglect to keep backup copies one CD or DVD blanks or an external hard drive just to be safe.

 

Good Luck

Roger

Good, 67Nero, the new Photobucket system does seem to be better than it was. One problem though, I can't upload AVCHD video files to Photobucket.

 

Sorry, I don't know about video files, i've never wanted to upload any.

But whatever you do, keep copies of pics and vids like Rotor123 said, I've uploaded literally several thousand pics to Pbucket and Ishack over the past 10 years and have burnt them all to disk (and 2 backup disks) for safekeeping because a disk is forever..

 

PS- Pbucket are beginning to get the new site shipshape but there are still some bugs and glitches. There are also bugs/glitches in Ishack, so at the moment they're running about neck and neck..

I like photobucket, probably the first image hosting site I've proceeded to keep using. I only use Imageshack for whenever I am uploading a random picture.