As photo albums turn digital and e-mail addresses become commonplace, modern families are building their own Web sites, contributing to an increasingly popular part of the Internet where you can find everything from elaborate wedding invitations to vacation pictures to the first photo of a newborn.

You don’t need advanced computer skills anymore to create a family Web site. Today, sharing photos online is as easy as pressing the Enter key to upload images to a photo site. And you can create a wedding or baby site by simply filling out a form. Even if you want to create a customized Web site, the software programs and resources available now make it easier than ever to personalize the way you share family stories and memories over the Internet.

Read the full story

If you’re looking for an easy way to share photos online, but you still think it’s nice to have a physical, tangible photo printed on paper, you may be happy to discover the services listed in this sidebar, which provide both free online photo album services and an easy way for you — or anyone else with access to your photo album — to order prints.

To create a photo album, you just upload your images; they become instantly available on the Web to anyone with your user ID and password. (Passwords are required to ensure privacy so you can restrict who views your personal
images.) You don’t even have to optimize your images (optimizing involves reducing the file size of images so they download faster), so you won’t need an image program such as Photoshop. Indeed, sites such as Ofoto and Shutterfly encourage you to upload high-resolution images because the better the resolution, the better the print quality.

Read the full story

Many parents wonder whether it is safe to put their children’s photos on the Web; others simply don’t want to share their stories with the world for fear that they may attract unwanted attention. Although there have been some highly publicized cases of children running into trouble because of someone they met online, such incidents are rare. I consider a child’s photo appearing on a Web page to be roughly equivalent to his or her image appearing in a school yearbook or in a sports team photo in a local newspaper.

Read the full story

The www.mori.us Web site, shown in Figure, features photos and stories from everyone in the Mori family, but there’s no question that the children are the stars of the show. In addition to a photo gallery and guest book, the Moris have included a section called Jared’s Anecdotes filled with fun stories about their son. Visit the site to see a great example of a clean, simple design, with lots of great photos and clever stories about the kids.

Read the full story