14 DAY TRIAL // The transition from the old-fashioned Yahoo Photos to the new Flickr starts today, Yahoo's employees struggling to make the migration with minimum action from the registered members. Some time ago, Yahoo announced the closure of Photos, all the users being forced to upload their photos on Flickr, the other photo sharing service owned by the Sunnyvale company. "Yahoo! Photos is closing on September 20, 2007. That's in 98 days," the official site of Yahoo Photos says today.
"We're sorry. Yahoo! Photos is closing on September 20, 2007 so we are no longer accepting new accounts or allowing users to upload photos if you don't already have photos in your account. We've decided to focus all our efforts on Flickr - the award winning photo sharing community that Time Magazine has even called "completely addictive"," it is also mentioned.
If you don't intend to move your photos to Flickr, you have several other options to keep the pictures. For example, you can upload them on Kodak Gallery, Shutterfly, Snapfish and Photobucket, similar services with almost the same functions. Yahoo enhances the transition straight from the Photos account so you're not required to do complicated stuff.
Also, you can download the entire collection but, as far I can see, it is quite difficult because you're forced to download only one photo at a time, which means you have a lot of work to do if you have a huge collection. Moreover, you can buy an archive CD with all the photos published in your Yahoo Photos account. "Select the archive CD option, verify your Yahoo! account information, and begin creating a CD of your photo collection, at the original uploaded resolution. Our partner Englaze will be offering discounted pricing of $6.95 for 700Mb of photos," Yahoo said.
Anyway, you don't have to rush into taking a decision, because you can choose your alternative for Yahoo Photos before September 20, the official date of the product's closure.