Photosharing Sites

When I first got engaged I had wanted to do the disposable cameras on each table to be sure that I got candids and other pictures that our photographer might miss. I'm a scrapbooker, so I looove photos and wanted to get as many different shots as I could. After some thought and discussions with past brides, I decided against this because:

1) The cost of the cameras and developing film
2) The quality of pictures you get with disposable cameras is not that great
3) People may not use the cameras or may leave half a roll unshot
4) Most people will have their own high-quality digital camera (and let's face it...digital is the way to go these days)

I saw some knottie bios where brides created "photosharing cards" and encouraged guests to upload the pictures from their cameras on a photosharing site.

I love this idea, but I am still not sure where to host the pictures.  Here is my wishlist for the site:

1) Allows easy download of all images at full-resolution
2) Large/unlimited capacity
3) Easy to use
4) Does not require users to create an account or download any software

I've done a bit of research, but I'm still not sure which photosharing site to go with. The front runners are Flikr, Picasa, Shutterfly, SmugMug, and MobileMe Gallery.

Flikr has a Pro service for $24.95/year which would allow unlimited uploads and the ability to download images at full-resolution.  Many people use and are familiar with flikr, but personally, I find it confusing and haven't quite figured out how to organize and manage my photos.  Collections, sets, groups, galleries...what's the difference???  I know I could easily learn, but I am too lazy.  I need something a little more intuitive, especially for my non-techie friends and family.

Picasa is a free option with a web interface as well as a program you can download onto your computer for more features.  I like it because it is a part of the Google suite of products and many of my friends and family already have Gmail accounts.  I know a few of my friends also regularly use the Picasa albums for their personal pictures.  One thing I don't like about the Picasa site is that in order to download a full album of pictures, you will need to install the Picasa software on your computer.  I have this software on my computer, but when I've tried downloading albums, it has been slow and often times I get errors and incomplete downloads.

Shutterfly has a share site feature that I really like because it will allow me to create a nice, personalized page for my guests to use.  I can add notes, stories, a blog, and photobooks to the page to make it more than just a repository for photos.  I also like it because I use shutterfly a lot whenever I want to print photos and create photobooks -- having the photos hosted on this site will save me the trouble of downloading from one site and uploading on another one to make prints.  The downside is that you will need a shutterfly account to download images and they will not be at full-resolution.  In addition, each photo will need to be downloaded individually -- there is no batch downloading feature available.

Smugmug is not a free service, but one that I've noticed a lot of professionals and serious photographers use.  There is a yearly fee ranging from $40-$150/year depending on the features you want.  Smugmug offers more options to view and share your pictures (like password-protected albums and the ability to disable downloads).  They also allow full-resolution downloads, but you will need to download each one individually.  There are third-party applications that allow you to do bulk downloads, but it looks a little confusing.

MobileMe Gallery is a program I just heard of while doing my research.  It is actually part of the MobileMe software package sold by Apple for their Macs.  We just bought a Mac a couple months ago with the intention of using it to create a slideshow for the wedding using the iPhoto software.  Well, now that we have the Mac, this is a new option that is open to me.  The software is actually quite expensive ($99/year) and it was really designed to wirelessly sync your computers and iPhone easily.  The Gallery feature seamlessly interacts with iPhoto and provides easy uploads from your computer.  Friends and family can easily access your albums on the web and can upload and download full-resolution pictures and albums without having to download any software.  They don't need to create a user account either.  You can password-protect your albums, but it is a little tricky because it must be done by creating the album in iPhoto.  This is a software I haven't heard a lot about or had a lot of experience with yet, so I'm still undecided on it.  I downloaded a trial version of the software and will try it out to see how it works.

Anyone have any suggestions or experience with any of these programs?