Google Picasa
If the idea of hosting your photos online in order to make them accessible sounds appealing, then Google’s Picasa service (now part of Google+) will appeal (assuming you like to use Google products, of course). You get up to 15GB free online storage – shared with Google Drive and Gmail – and it bends over backwards to make your photos as accessible as possible across a variety of platforms.
Despite the fact Google officially dropped support for the Picasa photo-editing tool on Linux some time ago, you can technically install it via Wine, but crucially the upload feature doesn’t work, so while you might be able to prep your photos using its tagging tools, you can’t then share them that way. Thankfully, you can connect to your Google account via other applications: a good example is Shotwell ( http://yorba.org).
Once your library is up and running, simply select the files you wish to share, then choose File > Publish. From here select your Google account, then click Login to link your account to Shotwell Connect. From here you can choose which album to upload your photos to, as well as set a preset size for those photos and choose whether or not to include identifying information before uploading. Finally, click Publish and your photos will be uploaded and automatically published.
Going forward, you can access your Picasa Web Albums from other devices – you could, for example, open a desktop web browser and visit https://plus.google.com/photos. If you have an Android phone or tablet, you’ll already know that your camera snaps can be automatically backed up, and that you can manage them using the built-in Gallery app. If you’re looking for something a bit more sophisticated, try Colifer Lab’s clumsily titled ToolforPicasa, Google+Photo app ( http:// bit.ly/ToolforPicasa) which also supports casting your photos to Chromecast. If you have an iPad or iPhone, we recommend investing £2.49 in the WebAlbums app from Pixite ( http://webalbumsapp.com), which lets you automatically back up photos from your iOS device as well as browse and manage your Picasa Web Album photos directly from the app. It also supports streaming photos to Apple TV via AirPlay. You should then scour your other connected devices to see whether a dedicated Picasa app is available – both the Roku and Now TV boxes offer one, for example.