Overview: Uploading pictures to the web

When you choose to share your digital pictures, you’ll probably want to upload them to the web, where you can make them available to a select audience—just a few friends, family, and co-workers—or allow everyone on Earth to see them.

It turns out that there’s no single way to upload pictures to the web. It depends upon where on the web you're trying to store the pictures. In this article, we'll discuss how to upload pictures to a few common places: a social-network site like Windows Live Spaces, a photo-sharing site like Flickr.com, and an online photo-printing store like Shutterfly.com.

Uploading pictures to Windows Live Spaces

The goal of Live Spaces (and similar social-network websites like MySpace and Facebook) is to make it easy for people to share stuff. So it’s not surprising that Spaces has an easy-to-use uploading tool.

To use the uploading tool, sign in to your Live Spaces page, and then click Add an album. On the Photos page, you can type a name for this photo album (or leave the default name, which is today’s date), and then click Add photos.

If this is the first time you’re uploading pictures to Spaces, you might need to install the Windows Live Photo Upload Control. To do this, just click Install Now and follow the directions.

After you finish installing the Upload Control, click the Your Computer tab, locate the pictures you want to upload to Spaces, and then select each picture you want to upload.

When you’re done, click Upload Now to send copies of your pictures to an album on Spaces.

You can rename, rotate, and even crop your pictures before you upload them. When you rest the mouse pointer over a picture, you can see options to rename and rotate. To make more changes to your pictures, click the Edit Photos tab. Then, when you're done editing, click View Thumbnails.

Top of page

Share your pictures on Flickr

If you want to make a lot of pictures available online, photo-sharing websites like Flickr are a great place to do it.

To upload a photo to Flickr, go to the Flickr website and, if you don't already have an account, create one by clicking Sign Up.

After that, open your Flickr page, and then click Upload Photos.

Flickr lets you upload up to six photos at once: click Browse, find the picture on your computer, and then click Open.

After you have selected up to six pictures, you can optionally type tags to attach to each of the pictures (be sure to put a space between each tag), and then click Upload.

Uploading photos with Flickr Uploadr

If you're looking for a more efficient way to upload pictures to Flickr, you can use a free program called Flickr Uploadr. To install it, open your Flickr page and then click the Tools link in the Help section at the bottom of the page. On the Tools page, find the version of Flickr Uploadr for Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows 2000. Click the link and follow the instructions to install it. Once you've installed Flickr Uploadr and you're ready to upload pictures to Flickr, you don’t even have to open your web browser. Instead, start Flickr Uploadr (to find it, click the Start button , and then, in the Search box, type flickr). You’ll need to authorize the program the first time you use it—just click Authorize, wait for your web browser to open your Flickr page, and then click Continue. Next, drag pictures from your Pictures folder or from Windows Photo Gallery into the Flickr Uploadr program window. Uploading pictures to Flickr using the Uploadr When you’re done, click Upload. At this point you’ll have an opportunity to add a tag to your photos and assign the pictures to a photo set on your Flickr page. Click Finish to upload them. You can customize Flickr Uploadr by clicking Settings, and then specifying how Flickr should resize your pictures. It’s a good idea to select Always resize the longest side to and then choose an option like 1280 pixels. This way, Uploadr will not pester you to resize each and every picture you upload; it will do it for you automatically.

Print Your Pictures Online

Another common destination for your digital pictures is an online photo-printing store. Getting your pictures uploaded to these locations is quite easy, since the ability to send your photos there is built into Windows.

To upload your pictures to an online print shop, open Windows Photo Gallery, and then select all of the pictures that you want to upload. Click Print, and then click Order Prints. In the Order Prints dialog box, you can choose from among many common print stores.

Click the photo printer you are interested in, and then click Send Pictures. From there, just choose the kind of prints you want and follow the directions. Your pictures will be automatically uploaded to the photo-printing store, and a few days later you'll get completed, professional prints in the mail.

Top of page