Sharing sites take vacation pictures to the next level

— -- Sharing vacation photos and videos with friends has never been easier. New Web tools make it possible to tie together your photos, videos and thoughts in one central place — instead of, say, posting a few photos at Flickr, videos on Facebook or random getaway musings on a blog.

With the added functionality of the Web, you'll want to give a little more thought to your presentations. Simple editing tools are available on most computers to add a little music, credits and pizazz to your travel photos in a video montage.

When you're traveling, keep the final product in mind as you snap photos. Do you really want endless shots of yourself in front of monuments, or do you want to show your friends your experiences visiting a faraway land?

For tips, we checked in with a group of experts to make your travel photos memorable.

Dan Heller, author of Digital Travel Photography, recommends shooting liberally and leaving home with a big memory card — 8-GB cards now sell for $30 to $40.

"Shoot 10 pictures instead of one; that way you'll end up with one that you want," Heller says. "When you do a group shot, keep shooting and shooting. Ask them to make a funny face. Usually immediately afterward, they all start laughing, and that makes a great shot."

Jeffrey Housenbold, CEO of online photo site Shutterfly, says that in addition to the tried and true — standing in front of the Louvre, or holding up a fishing pole — have some fun and tell a different story.

"I recently went to New York with my son, and we took pictures of every restaurant we went to — and every meal. The theme was: 'We ate our way through New York.' "

Use the video mode on your point-and-shoot to bring the sights home in moving pictures, too, Housenbold suggests. On his trip to New York, he shot a video while on a carriage ride through Central Park. "It adds an extra sensory experience."

Edit video for pizazz

Videos don't have to be straight-from-the-camera unedited clips. It's easy to slice out the excess and keep the good parts in a presentation that can be married to your pictures in a creative visual offering.

Free software such as Windows Movie Maker and Apple's iMovie resides on most computers. You can use them, or more robust programs such as Adobe's Premiere Elements ($99.99) or Apple's Final Cut Express ($199.99), to tell your story visually, mixing pictures and video together for a video montage.

Many travelers opt for software from Austin-based Photodex, because its ProShow Gold ($69.95) and Producer ($249.95) offer more manual controls, transitions, zooms and fades than competitors. The software also works with photos and video, and gives the director (you) many more choices than a program such as iMovie or Windows Movie Maker.

Regina Johnson, a hospital worker in Edgewater, Fla., used Photodex software to make videos of trips to Ireland, Arizona, Maine and the Catskills. Putting the pictures together into a montage and adding music, "makes the pictures look better than they really were," she says.

Where to post videos online

There are many places to post video montages online — from YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook to a couple of new choices that have recently popped up.

Shutterfly, the top site for photo prints and related goods, has expanded its "Share" pages to include video.

Now anyone can create mini-sites with vanity Web addresses ("yourname".shutterfly.com) that feature vacation photos, captions, videos and social-networking tools that let you and yours share thoughts about the trip.

But what if you spent two days in Paris and never got around to snapping the Eiffel Tower?

Not a problem. ThisMoment.com lets you tell the story of your trip with your own photos and video as well as other material publicly available on the Web, via partnerships with Flickr Photos and Google's Picasa and YouTube.

Most great travel videos make use of locally flavored music to give the feeling of authenticity to the project. Usage rules are murky when it comes to copyrighted music in travel videos.

Buy the song for 99 cents online, and you own it, right? Yes, but there are limits to your ownership.

Dan Newton, the leader of Minneapolis-based Cafe Accordion Orchestra, has seen his work pop up in France travel videos.

"If somebody is selling a travelogue DVD, then we should get a royalty," Newton says. "But if it's for personal use, and they find our music fits, that's cool."