Most people when they want to post their photos online will turn to Flickr, Picasa, or Facebook. There’s nothing wrong with any of them, but sometimes you just need a quick and dirty way to post your photos online.

And two services, DropMocks and min.us, allow you to do just that. Let’s take a peek at both of them.

DropMocks

DropMocks is incredibly easy to use. Just navigate over to the site, open your computer’s file manager, and then drag and drop your photos into your browser’s window. Depending on the number and size of photos that you dragged and dropped, they can take anywhere from a minute to several minutes to upload.

Once your files have been uploaded, you’re given a URL which you can share with your friends and family.

As for the gallery (called a mock) itself, it’s quick and dirty. But it works. You get a basic carousel. The image you’re currently viewing is in the center of your browser window, and thumbnails appear to the left and right. Click on a thumbnail to bring that photo to the front.

While you don’t have to sign in to DropMocks, you might want to just so you can manage your mocks. You can sign in using a Google Account, and from there edit your mocks or delete them.

min.us

min.us works a lot like DropMocks. Again, you can just navigate over to the site and drag and drop your photos into your browser window. You can also upload files the old fashioned way using a file selection dialog box. Once your uploads are finished, you’re given a URL to share.

The interface is a bit more cluttered than with DropMocks. And instead of the carousel effect you get a slider effect. But people who visit your min.us URL can download all of the images in a gallery in a zip file.

Like DropMocks, you don’t need to set up an account with min.us to use it. However, you might want to do that if you need to manage your galleries.

On top of that min.us has a number of tools that make it easier to work with the site. There are desktop uploaders for Windows, Mac, and Linux; mobile applications for Android, iPhone, and Windows Phone 7; and Web browser extensions.

If you’re using one of the desktop or mobile uploaders, don’t upload one photo at a time — min.us will create a gallery for each image.

Final Thoughts

Sometimes, you just need a fast and simple way of putting your photos on the Web for your family and friends to see. Both DropMocks and min.us do just that. They’re easy to use and are a very efficient way to get your photos online.

Photo credit: ilco

The post Create an Instant Photo Gallery with DropMocks and min.us first appeared on Techerator.

One problem with large photo collections is that it can become extremely difficult to find pictures of specific people.  If I wanted to dig up a picture of one of my college buddies, I’d have to spend quite a bit of time skimming through photos, hoping the correct one pops up.  But with Picasa, you can use the fantastic Face Detection feature to tag your friends.

Face Detection works similar to Facebook’s photo tagging feature, except Picasa will automatically show you a list of unnamed faces for you to tag.  Once you’ve given them a name, you can easily find that person again in the future.

Picasa will automatically scan your photo library for your friends’ faces.  To start tagging pictures, click the Unnamed entry under the People section (this will say Scanning if it’s still identifying faces).

The Unnamed People album will contain a huge list of faces.  If you know the person, simply type their name into the Add a name box and press enter.  You will then be able to create a contact for that person (which can be reused whenever tagging photos).  If you don’t know the person, simply click the X to ignore them.

After you’ve tagged a few pictures, Picasa will begin suggesting photo tags for you.  Look for the orange question mark (?) next to a person’s name, then you can click the green checkbox if the tag is correct or the red X if it is incorrect.  I must have an easily-guessable face, because Picasa guessed me correctly in every picture.

The more photos you tag, the better Picasa gets at guessing faces.

After your pictures are tagged, you can use the buttons under the tagged person’s name to create slideshows and movies from their pictures.  The recently-released Picasa 3.8 includes a new feature called “Face Movies” which makes a slideshow that revolves around a single person’s face.  If you’re making a video for a wedding or birthday, this would be a killer feature to utilize.

Now if only there was only a way to integrate tagged photos in Picasa with people on Facebook!  Picasa is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux.  [Download Picasa]

The post Tag Your Friends’ Faces in Picasa for Easy Photo Organization first appeared on Techerator.