Which photo sharing site is right for you?

— -- You've taken the time to learn how to take better photographs, and you've organized them neatly on your computer, so what's your next step? Sharing your masterpieces with your friends, family and the rest of the world! Of course, there are dozens of photo sharing websites out there, so how do you know which one is right for you? We'll run down some of the most popular options and help you decide for yourself.

Flickr and Picasa: The big kids on the block

The first names that probably come to mind when you talk about photo sharing are Flickr and Picasa and with good reason. More than a million photos are uploaded to Flickr in a typical day And Picasa is fully integrated with Google+, as well as having a robust desktop app, which makes it incredibly easy to use.

How do they stack up?

What you get for free: A basic account is free on both Flickr and Picasa. With Flickr, this allows you to upload two videos and 300MB of photos every month; your photostream is limited to the 200 most recent images you've posted. Flickr lets you tag, caption and set copyright permissions on your photos, as well as organize them into collections and sets.

Picasa gives you 1GB of space to upload photos and videos, with the only other restrictions being 20MB per photo and 1GB per video and a limit of 10,000 web albums and 1,000 photos per album. Also, photos smaller than 2048 x 2048 pixels and videos less than 15 minutes don't count toward your free storage limit. With Picasa, you can organize your photos into folders, choose privacy settings for each album or individual photo, and tag and caption each photo. Unlike Flickr, Picasa also has a variety of photo editing tools, such as image enhancement, saturation and red-eye removal.

What you get if you upgrade: A Flickr Pro account, which costs $24.95 per year, gets you unlimited uploads and storage, unlimited sets and collections, access to your original files, stats on your account, ad-free browsing and sharing, and HD video uploads and playback. Picasa doesn't have a pro account setting, but if you want to upload more than 1GB of files, you can purchase more storage in amounts ranging from 20GB for $5 per year up to 1TB for $256 per year.

Facebook and Twitter: The social networking giants

Facebook and Twitter aren't specifically for photo sharing, but you can certainly use them to get your pictures to the masses. Of the two, Facebook has the more robust media integration. Facebook allows users to upload 200 photos per album, with no limit to the number of albums. You can add photos easily via the web or the Facebook mobile app, and it's simple to tag other Facebook users in your photos or add a location and other notes.

Remember that tagging people in the photos you post (or allowing others to tag you) can affect the privacy level of that photo. Check Flickr's Tagging FAQ for more information.

Twitter also has integrated photo uploading for both its web page and mobile apps. Uploaded photos are automatically included in your user gallery, where the 100 most recent images will be displayed. Once you've posted more than 100 images, however, older ones will no longer be visible, so it's not a great option for long-term storage.

Tumblr: Mini-blogs for photographers