Shoot, Click, Share

By Anita Hamilton

Do you have a love-hate relationship with your digital camera? If you adore being able to view your pictures onscreen within seconds of taking them but abhor trying to figure out the best way to share them with friends and family, you're not alone. E-mail attachments often don't come through correctly or take forever to download. And most online photo albums have limited viewing and saving options. Here are three smart new alternatives:

SHAREALOT This program sends photos directly from your hard drive to your recipients', bypassing everyone's e-mail. When you download the program from sharealot.com a yellow icon of a digital camera will appear on your desktop. Select the "create a new share" option, and follow the clear directions for selecting and sending pictures. Files are automatically compressed to save upload and download time. When the photos reach their destination, an alert pops up on the computer, and recipients can immediately click to view the already downloaded shots. ShareALot works on Macs and PCs; recipients need the program too to see the photos.

OURPICTURES While ShareALot is the simplest photo-sharing option, OurPictures offers a more attractive interface and lets you edit photos before sending them. Photo-editing tools include rotation, cropping, red-eye reduction and brightness controls. Recipients don't have to download any software. From an e-mail notification, they simply click on a link that takes them to a website where they can view and download pictures. Available for download in a free test version at ourpictures.com the program will cost $20 a year (for senders only) once the final version is released.

PHOTOSITE This new online photo site stands apart from competitors like Ofoto and Snapfish by offering better-looking albums with a variety of virtual frames, styles and background colors. To create an album, download the PhotoSite Album Builder software from photosite.com Next, select the pictures you want to post online, design the look of your album and click the publish button. Friends will receive an e-mail invitation to view the pictures, which they can save to their computers easily and at no charge. PhotoSite is free for the first 150 photos or $70 a year for an unlimited number of pictures.