So now that I have this Picasa Web Album...

[AlphaDog]

Is it true that anyone who wants to view the photos needs to create an account? What happens if I choose the "public" option? I have some photos up there, and I sent a link to a friend, but I used the "share" option. She couldn't get to the photos without creating an account (or signing in to an existing account.) I haven't put in all of my photos nor fine tuned anything yet, so I can still change my mind about using it.

Yes, I'm very challenged when it comes to this kind of stuff, so don't waste band width mentioning it.

[SDGuy]

Everything you need to know is here


In a nutshell:
Set your album visibility to 'Public' to make them viewable to anyone who knows the URL of your public gallery.

Set your album to 'Unlisted' to limit who can see your album. All unlisted albums have an authorization key in the web address; the key is a combination of letters and numbers which make the web address very difficult to guess. Anyone that has the exact web address will be able to see your unlisted album.

Select the 'Sign-in required to view' option to set the highest level of privacy for your album -- you specify who has permission to view it, and those viewers must sign in to their Google Account to verify their identity.

[sunfalcon]

I've got all my pictures in the public area. Nothing more of a pain than making people "sign-in" and create yet another account to view your pictures. It works much the way the old iphoto worked with .mac - simple, easy, and easy to share. I love it.

[AlphaDog]

Once I get the pictures fined tuned, I'll go ahead and make it public. I decided to create a new gmail/Google account as a throwaway. I'm not really paranoid, but I figure it isn't a bad idea to separate it from my primary account. Thanks for the information and the vote of confidence for the site.

I never could find an answer to one of my questions in the Picasa Help, so I guess I didn't phrase my initial post very well. I've worked around it now, so it doesn't really matter any more.