JPG Magazine
JPG Magazine started out as a new concept, a photo sharing community started by photographers for photographers with only one rule—no Photoshop. Most of its members are or have dreams of becoming professionals. JPG Magazine started out as a quarterly publication published by an independent publisher and can now be found in bookstores around the US like Barnes and Noble or can be downloaded on the site.
What makes JPG different from other photo sharing sites besides the fact that all their contributors have a chance to get their work seen in print is that all contributors can write stories for their magazine. In addition to giving photographers more exposure votes of the community members go toward choosing the photos and stories for the print publication.
Like other photo sharing sites JPG lets contributors keep all the rights to any published content on and off the web. JPG Magazine features multiple themes for each issue such as Delectable, Street Fashion and Faith which explores what faith means to its contributors through the art of photography.
Picasa and Traditional Photo Sharing Sites
Google’s answer to Flickr is Picasa, a hybrid online/offline photo sharing communities with its own software users download to store and share photos from their home computers. This is a benefit to Google because it reduces the amount of information which must be stored and accessed from their servers.
Users must also have a Google account and Mac users have a separate download for a special installer because the original Picasa software is not supported on Mac computers. In addition to the corresponding software users download to access Picasa Photo Sharing this site also offers photo editing which other web-only photo sharing communities do not offer.
Webshots by AG Interactive
Webshots is a more traditional, family-related photo sharing community which also allows you to share video and order prints. It is run by AG Interactive which is a division of American Greetings. This site has two membership levels which offer different levels of photo sharing ability starting at 1,000 photos and ending with 5,000.
Webshots also has a free desktop application users can download which offers many of the same features as Google’s Picasa. This site also has one unique aspect, their “Pro Shots” category which features professional photographers.
The “Pro Shots” program offers professional photographers the chance to gain exposure to millions of viewer’s world-wide from a viewership site-wide of 7.2 million each day.
Bubble Share
Bubble Share was started in 2004 as a photo sharing community focused around family photos and virtual albums more than individual pictures. This site also makes it easy to make slideshows for MySpace, Facebook and other social networking sites.
As stated in the site’s “About Us” page Bubble Share was created to make photo sharing easy and to help their users tell stories with their photos. Unlike Flickr Bubble Shares Members’ links are automatically private and viewable only to those who the members choose to give them to.
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