With cameras built into every smartphone, people are taking more photos than ever. With so many photos being taken every day, it is no surprise that people end up looking for somewhere to store them. Cloud storage offers a secure spot to store your photos without having to worry about them taking up room on your devices. Plus, it lets you access the photos from any device. This makes sharing your photos simple.
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So, which cloud storage system should you use for your photos? Although there are many free and paid cloud storage choices, here are some of the best.
Adobe Creative Cloud
Professional photographers who are willing to pay for photo storage should consider Adobe Creative Cloud, which has several cloud-based solutions for storage. This storage solution is designed with photos in mind. It offers many convenient features, such as Group Libraries, plus integration with other Adobe software, such as Lightroom and Elements. While the plans are expensive, they do include software access to either Lightroom CC or Photoshop CC.
Dropbox
Dropbox is an excellent paid service for storing your photos in the cloud. It is simple to use and lets you store any type of file. It also has a great history and is highly versatile. The Dropbox Basic account gives you 2 GB of storage for free, but most people will fill that up quickly. You can get more storage for free by referring people, and you get a nice discount if you pay for a full year of Dropbox Plus.
Flickr
If you want to store your photos on a cloud website that is dedicated solely to photos, then Flickr is definitely worth considering. In the past, Flickr offered 1 TB of free storage, but this is about to change to 1,000 photos and videos. The annual or monthly fees are lower than the non-photo-specific competitors if you need more storage. The only downside to Flickr is that you cannot use it with RAW files. However, it makes up for this with the photo stream and other viewing features, such as the ability to share photos or make them private and let others comment on pictures.
Google Drive/Google Photos
Those with Android smartphones will want to strongly consider using Google Drive (with Google Photos) for photo storage. Drive makes it easy to upload photos and also works with a range of file types. The best way to take advantage of Drive for photo storage is via Google Photos, which gives you the impressive ability to store an unlimited number of high-res photos of up to 16 megapixels in size. If you want to store higher-quality images, you get 15 GB of free storage across all Google accounts (including Gmail) but can buy more. As a bonus, using Google Photos lets you take advantage of its AI tools to help you search with metadata, such as the date and place, as well as automatic labeling of people.
Microsoft OneDrive
If you already use Microsoft Office for productivity tasks, Microsoft OneDrive can help you store your photos. Once again, this is not photo-specific, so the focus is on storage, not necessarily viewing the photos. A high point of OneDrive is that you can get 1 TB of storage for much less than the competitors, and that figure includes Office 365.
Other Cloud Storage Options to Consider
If none of the above cloud storage options for your photos caught your interest, consider looking at some of the other popular choices. They include Amazon Photos, Apple iCloud, Canon Irista, Nikon Image Space, Shutterfly, SmugMug, and Sony PlayMemories Online.
What to Keep in Mind
Before choosing which of these cloud storage options you want to use to store your photos, keep the following in mind:
- Accessibility Across Devices
- Internet Speed
- Supported File Formats
- Price vs. Size Limits
- Ease of Use
With the right program, you can access your photos from anywhere and rest easy knowing they are safe, even if your device crashes or gets stolen.
