A Beginner's Guide to Photo Sharing on Flickr

I've stored photos on Flickr several times, often for my work here at Yahoo! Tech, and I like how easy it makes sharing photos. If you've been curious about using Flickr to share photos with family and friends but are not sure about how it works, I came a across a helpful "Newbie's Guide to Flickr" on Webware that I think will answer most Flickr newcomers' questions. (Thanks to Lifehacker for the find.)

The first thing you'll need to do is upload your photos to the free web-based Flickr site after you have an account. (You just need a Yahoo! ID). You can do that either by uploading up to six photos at time with this tool, or you can download what's called a batch uploader so you can transfer many photos at once.

One of the best things about Flickr is the tagging system, which allows you to enter keywords about photos that will help you and others find them later. The guide does a nice job explaining how to tag photos, and how to tag several photos all at once.

You'll also learn about geotagging—dragging and dropping your photos on a map that shows where they were taken.

Since the main purpose of Flickr is to share your photos, you have several options for sharing—with everyone (public) or with friends or family or both friends and family. Of course, you can keep your collection private until you have it just the way you want to share.

If you're ready for some more advanced uses, it even gets into how to embed a Flickr photo into a blog or a social-networking site profile. The guide also walks you through how to create sets and collections of photos. It takes the mystery out of what may seem overwhelming to the novice online photo sharer. Check it out, then share those photos!

Want another guide to the site? Here's Flickr's version. 

Disclosure: Flickr is anl online service owned and offered by Yahoo!, Inc., which also owns and operates Yahoo! Tech.