A popular way to electronically share pictures these days is via online photo services that publish web page galleries of your images. Only a few years ago, setting up an online gallery was a cumbersome process requiring some knowledge of web page design. But easy-to-use online services such as Flickr have streamlined this process so that anyone with an Internet connection can publish photos.
In addition to sharing pictures, these services allow you to write short captions, add titles, and even include "tags" that serve as keywords allowing you to easily find specific types of photos, such as landscapes. Once you've uploaded your pictures to the online service, you can notify all of your friends and family via email. The advantage of this method is that you're only sending them a text link to your photo web page, not actual images that they'll need to download. Also, since the photos are on the service's computer, they won't take up your viewers' valuable hard disk space.
Another advantage of this approach is that viewers can often post comments to accompany the pictures for everyone to read. So, for example, if you've published images from your sister's wedding, everyone in the family can remark on how beautiful she looks and which ones are their favorite shots. This type of photo sharing enables people all over the world to participate in the experience, just as if they were all sitting together around the kitchen table with an open photo album.
Some printing services, such as Kodak's EasyShare Gallery (http://www.kodakgallery.com) and Shutterfly (http://www.shutterfly.com), provide free online sharing with the added benefit that visitors can order prints from your galleries and have them shipped directly to their homes. They can even use those images to create calendars, personalized coffee mugs, and greeting cards.
Online photo-sharing services have become as easy to use as taking the pictures themselves. If you find yourself spending a lot of time emailing photos to friends and family, take a look at Flickr, Kodak EasyShare, Shutterfly, and other offerings.