So you’ve got a digital camera, and you want to make the most of your digital photos. Here are 40, mostly free, online photography tools and resources that will allow you to store and enhance your photos online, create fun things out of them, and share them with your friends and family. You might even learn a thing or two.

Photo sharing and uploading sites

Flickr – still considered by many as the top photo sharing site. Flickr just got a facelift and now has more social features.

Picasa Web Albums – Google’s photo sharing site has been playing catch up with Yahoo’s Flickr. Despite offering fast and easy photo sharing features, and the ability to explore public photos, Picasa still needs a lot of work to catch up with Flickr’s status. Nevertheless, it’s still a top site, that will no doubt continue to improve.

Photobucket – Photobucket is the image hosting site of choice for many. It is widely used for image hosting by members of social media sites, forums and blogs. Offers image hosting, photo sharing and video sharing.

ImageShack – another major player in online image hosting, ImageShack allows users to upload up to 1GB file size per photo but users must not consumer more than 300 MB of bandwidth in a one hour period.

Zorpia – positioned as more than a photo sharing site, Zorpia is an online community that lets users create photo albums, upload photos, and share them with the Zorpia community.

Zooomr – another would-be Flickr killer, which however continues to be a good place to store, share, sort and search photos. Photos can be shared freely or can be offered for sale in the Zooomr marketplace.

ImageCross – provides free image hosting. Upload images up to 2.5 Mbytes in size. Provides convenient codes for MySpace, eBay, forums, email, and more.

TinyPic – is a fast, simple and reliable video and image hosting site that you can use to share your experiences for embedding in MySpace, eBay, Orkut scrapbooks, message boards, forums, blogs, journals, e-mail, IM, and more.

Webshots – another large photo sharing site, but which lets you upload photos and monitor the number of views and downloads they get each week.

Shutterfly – is a photo uploading and photo sharing site that also provides an online image enhancement tool. Users also have the option of allowing Shutterfly to print their images for a fee, and picking up the prints or having them delivered.

Photobox – is a photo storage and photo sharing site. Offers printing services, as well as a tool for turning your photos into ecards.

Snapfish – another photo storage and photo sharing site that offers mail order photo printing services, as well as other services such as personalized gifts, cards, mugs and more.

MyPhotoAlbum – offers easy uploading, storing and sharing of photos and videos. Lets users create photo albums, photo books, photo calendars and also provides the option of mail order photo printing.

Flektor – is not just a photo sharing and photo uploading site,  it’s also useful for creating and sharing MySpace graphics, surveys, quizzes and slide shows.

ClickFriends – another site for sharing photos and memories online.

DPhoto – allows members to create a digital photography website, as well as participate in a marketplace where they can earn money from their photos.

Snappages – aside from being a photo uploading and sharing site, Snappages is also a full-featured website creation tool.

Imgplace – a photo uploading site that allows up to 50 images to be uploaded at a time.

FreeImageHosting – lets you upload photos of up to 3MB file size and allows you to host your auction photos, share pictures, host blog photos,create photo galleries and publish images on MySpace.

Online photo editors

Picnik – considered by many to be one of the better photo editors, Picnik offers many features for tweaking photos and adding special effects.

Photoshop Express – combining photo sharing and photo editing features, Photoshop Express offers a lot of potential, even though it currently has some kinks. Upload, tweak, rotate, edit, share and store your photos.

Phixr – a free online photo editor that lets users directly upload their pictures to third party sites including Flickr, Fotopic, Livejournal, Photobucket, Fotolog, Buzznet and Dropshots.

FotoFlexer – brags about being the most “advanced online image editor”. It lets you create effects on photos uploaded directly to the site, as well as on images hosted on sites such as Facebook, Photobucket, Flickr, MySpace and Picasa Web Albums.

MyImager – Upload or call images from anywhere on the web and edit them freely with dozens of tools that allow you to resize, trim, add text, or change file formats.

Preloadr – serves as a pre-processing tool for photos before you upload them to Flickr. Provides image manipulation functions like histogram, curves, layers and more.

Pixenate – is a self-hosted photo editing solution that can be embedded into photosharing websites.

Splashup -formerly Fauxto, Splashup is an editing tool and photo manager. It’s easy to use and works in real-time, allowing multiple image editing at once. It integrates with sites such as Picasa, Flickr and Facebook.

Piccyfix – is an easy-to-use, online picture, image and photo editor that lets you rotate, resize, and change the format of your image. Also offers free image hosting.

Miscellaneous tools for creating fun stuff with your photos

Slideshare – if you need a quick and easy way of presenting your photos in an online presentation, Slideshare will do the trick. It allows you to share your slide shows, and also allows you to you embed your presentation on your blog or website.

RockYou – this is a favourite amongst MySpace and Friendster users. RockYou allows you to upload photos and share them with your social networking friends through online slideshows you embed in your profile.

Slide - Another favourite of social networking fans. Slide lets you to publish photos and other digital content on social networking site such as Facebook, MySpace, Friendster and more.

Picture2Life – a simple and easy-to-use online image editor that also allows you to create collages and animated gifs. Integrates with sites such as Flickr, Photobucket, Imageshack, MySpace and Hi5.

MagMyPic – another fun tool enjoyed by social networking users, it lets you create cool magazine covers featuring your photos.

Mostrips – lets you create movie strips out of photos taken using your mobile phones.

Scrapblog – lets you create multimedia “scrapblogs” out of your online photos or from photos you’ve uploaded.

Digital camera reviews and photography tutorial sites

Dpreview – covers anything and everything about digital photography, offering digital camera previews and a database of digital camera reviews.

Shortcourses – described as an online library of digital photography, Shortcourses offers an online bookstore of printed and digital photography books, of both printed and ecopy, online tutorials, and more.

Digital Photography School – a site for learning about digital photography. Offers digital camera reviews, tips and tricks, and an online forum for digital photography enthusiasts.

Photo.net – one of the biggest online communities of digital photographers with features such as forums, reviews and photo galleries.

Five Minute Photographer – a subscription-based site that offers short photography tutorial videos

Smugmug – a subscription-based site that allows you to create a digital photography site to showcase your photos and videos.

Do you have a favourite online resource that we’ve missed? Feel free to mention it in the comments.

Related:

Web-based photo editing, not just for professionals

Adobe launches Photoshop web-storage and Elements 7, with new tools

Web-based photo-editing coming for Mozilla’s Ubiquity add-on

SplashUp: A free online photo editor

Fotoflexer: A free photo editor with some professional features

Entry was posted on Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 at 5:49 am under Photo editing software, Photography tips.

Read more entries by Arnold Zafra.