Greensburg — A few weeks ago this column spent some time featuring the website picnik.com. Since that time, I've heard from a few folks who've shared some of their favorite photo-publishing sites. While their preferred photo sites are ones I've heard of, I've never taken much time to explore them until now.  

Shutterfly.com is an internet-based photo publishing and printing service. It allows you to upload and store all of your pictures free of charge, while offering various services for nominal fees. From ordering prints, to sharing photos on personal web pages that you create through the site, to producing unique photo books, Shutterfly has thought of everything. The photo books, in particular, are impressive.

You can use existing popular templates like Baby, Wedding, Travel and more, and insert your own photos to create an attractive, personalized memory book. It's also a great place to design custom-made invitations and announcements, allowing you to insert the picture of your choice into designated artwork. With just a few clicks, you can feature your child's face in the center of a daisy, or on top of an ice cream cone.

When you upload your photos to Shutterfly, you can take advantage of great organizational tools. You can create albums of specific events, and file like albums in specific folders. For example, you can download all of your Christmas pictures into a Christmas 2009 photo album, then file that album into a "Holidays" folder. Photos within the albums can be easily renamed, relocated or even sorted by name, upload-order or date. You can learn more about these features and consider their practicality by taking a tour of the Shutterfly site. Just go to shutterfly.com and click on the My Pictures tab, and then "Take a Tour."

Similar to Shutterfly is Snapfish.com. Snapfish offers many of the same bells and whistles. You can set up free accounts, enabling you to pick and choose what services and products you wish to purchase. Prints can be ordered, as can more elaborate products like pillow shams, blankets, scarves, sweatshirts, puzzles and charms, all featuring a photo of your choice. Snapfish also offers border options for your pictures and editing tools like cropping and red-eye removal so that you can dress up your pictures or correct their flaws. Snapfish calls its photo sharing feature "Group Rooms."

Aside from Shutterfly, Snapfish and Picnik, various retail stores also offer websites that allow you to download pics and purchase products like invitations, mugs, and posters that feature the photo(s) of your choice. Given the popularity of scrapbooking, the possibilities are seemingly endless when it comes to being creative with your photos.

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Given the numerous product options available, however, just be sure those pictures aren't also worth a thousand dollars. Shop smart and compare prices. Be it on Snapfish, Shutterfly, Picnik or some retailer's site, there are plenty of fun digital options available for you to scrapbook to your heart's content or create unique, personalized keepsakes. And keep in mind that these sites and your photo-downloading experience will be that much more fun with a quick internet connection. Photo downloading can be a time-consuming and frustrating process without the right internet speeds.