Earlier this week we asked you to share your favorite tips, tricks, and tools for sharing photos with friends and family. Now we're back to highlight the ways HTG readers share their pics.

Image available as wallpaper here.

By far the most popular method of photo sharing was to upload the pictures to cloud-based storage. Many readers took advantage of sizable SkyDrive accounts. Dragonbite writes:

I used to use PicasaWeb (uploaded from Shotwell) until I got the SkyDrive w/25 GB available. My imported pictures are automatically synchronized with SkyDrive and I then send out a link to whomever I want.

I have another (desktop) computer where all of the pictures are stored from mine and my wife’s camera’s imports so if I need to free up some space on SkyDrive or my Windows 7 laptop, I double-check they are in the desktop computer before deleting them from my laptop (and thus from SkyDrive as well). I wish SkyDrive enabled some features like rotate, or searching by Tagged person.

If Google Drive could come up with some similar solution of having imported pictures go to Picasa Web (with all of its features) instead of Google Drive AND enables not having it automatically shared in Google+ then I could switch back. Right now to upload to Picasa Web it is another process completely independent of Google Drive (I could do the same thing with my current SkyDrive storage and place them in both with no extra steps).

If I had a larger space available for Dropbox (2GB vs 25GB is a no-brainer) there is the import feature for Dropbox as well and I would be tempted to use that. But with 14 GB in my SkyDrive it obviously would not fit in Dropbox.

In Ubuntu I would do something similar with Ubuntu One except their web interface doesn’t do anything for gallery viewing.

Even users who had shifted away from using Skydrive were still tempted to return to it. Jer writes:

Picasa is king. Lots of iPad apps link directly in, Android – of course links in. Family anywhere can view family pics moments after I sync the folders/albums on the home PC. It really is that easy and quite simple to lock so only those I want can view my albums. If you attach your Google+ account, your space for 2048p images is unlimited. If you run out space – you’ll get a warning, but can still upload. (silly error they haven’t fixed yet) If you don’t like that, Google is very generous for purchased space.

Cons: I really don’t like how Google is slowly stripping Picasa and absorbing it into Google+. If Google changes things too much, I’ll be using my Skydrive. Way to go Google, drive me to Microsoft. Hear me Google?!

Dropbox has made a few attempts to gather the pic sharing crowd. I may begin trying their new services.

Also debating SmugMug for my pro-shots, not food for family pic sharing, but excellent for pro-level stuff sharing.

Shinigamibob uses a blend of cloud-based and personal server storage:

I import my photos directly from my camera via Adobe Lightroom where it tagged, categorized and stacked. The stacking is great for HDR shots and panoramas. I do most of my editing in Lightroom and then export selected photos to a shared Dropbox folder with my closest buddies.

For larger exports, I use the LR plugins to upload to G+ and Flickr. For insta-sharing, a couple select shots go to Facebook – but those are always copies of whats on G+. The LR plugins really make it easy to keep even the newest edits to my published photos in sync – it’ll update any old photos on G+ and Flickr with the latest edits I make.

The majority of my exports however, go directly to my webserver at home which is running Gallery3 (http://gallery.menalto.com/). From there I can make specific albums and sharing sets. I send family specific links to well.. my family. Keeping the most private photos at home gives me the greatest peace of mind knowing that all my data is safe at home. I don’t have to bother with handing them over to a 3rd party.

Sending single photos to random people is usually via the public folder in my Dropbox. Drag ‘n drop, copy the shortened URL, email it and delete it 2 weeks later.

The ones that ARE hosted on a 3rd party service are always the more generic photos.

For more tips and tricks, hit up the original comment thread here.