Newport Beach, Calif., Dec. 15, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Adding cool effects to photos was rated as the most useful thing by more than half of consumers surveyed using free online photography services, according to CatchFree (www.catchfree.com), a free online service that helps people find the best free mobile and web applications to perform useful tasks.

According to CatchFree, which sifts through the responses of tens of thousands of users, the most important uses of free photo sites and applications include:

• 51 percent chose "adding cool effects to photos."
• 24.6 percent chose "creating photo albums."
• 20.5 percent chose "sharing photos."

"With so many free photo tools out there it’s easy to miss what really matters to people," said Sean Ellis, Founder and CEO, CatchFree. "Intuitively, it might seem that sharing photos or creating albums are what users value most. Yet, like most innovative products, the most important use for photo apps was a surprise."

While many photo applications can do similar things, the best one depends on what a user wants to do. Here are CatchFree’s users’ top five free recommendations for:

Sharing photos from a mobile device:

• Instagram
• jAlbum
• BeFunky
• Flickr
• PhotoRocket

Adding cool effects to photos on a mobile phone:

• Instagram
• Pixlr
• Snapbucket
• BeFunky
• Skitch

Creating online photo albums

• Flickr
• Picasa
• PhotoRocket
• Keepsy
• MyAlbum.com

CatchFree also discovered that iPad users behave very differently than iPhone, Android Phone and Android Tablet users -- judging the sharing of photos more valuable than adding cool effects.

iPhones

• 48 percent said "adding cool effects to photos" was their most useful activity
• 28 percent said "sharing photos"
• 24 percent said "creating photo albums"
• 58.3 percent said they would be "very disappointed" if they could not use their photo app/service on their iPhone.

iPad

• 45.5 percent said "sharing photos" was their most useful activity
• 27.3 percent said "creating photo albums"
• 9.1 percent said "adding cool effects to photos"
• 80 percent said they would be "very disappointed" if they could not use their photo app/service on their iPad.

Android Phone

• 70 percent said "adding cool effects to photos" was their most useful feature
• 13.3 percent said "creating photo albums"
• 13.3 percent said "sharing photos"
• 55.2 percent said they would be "very disappointed" if they could not use their photo app/service on their Android Phone.

Android Tablet

• 55.6 percent said "adding cool effects to photos" was their most useful feature
• 33.3 percent said "sharing photos"
• 11.1 percent said "creating photo albums
• 44.4 percent said they would be "very disappointed" if they could not use their photo app/service on their Android Tablet.

"Technology is inherently complex, and yet every day it seems as if there is a new product or service that promises to make our lives easier. Finding the most useful tool for the task at hand is often not very practical for many of us because even the providers of these tools are often unaware which use-case their own users think is most valuable," said Ellis. "CatchFree strips away the complexity and makes it extremely easy to find exactly the right tool for the task at hand."

Products examined included: Keepsy, Picasa, PhotoRocket, Tracks, Flickr, Photobucket, Shutterfly,Snapfish, PictureTrail, jAlbum, MyAlbum.com, Inbox.com, Instagram, Facebook, Twitxr, Skitch, picplz, kapturem, Posterous, Path, Lightbox, Snapbucket, CamWow, pixlr, BeFunky, Twitpic, Twitter, yfrog, Picnik, Aviary, FotoFlexer, LunaPic, Ookaboo, 3DToad and TinEye.

Additional details and survey methodology can be found at http://catchfree.com/press.

About CatchFree
CatchFree (www.catchfee.com) is a free online service that helps users find the best mobile and web apps to perform everyday tasks for free.  Based in Newport Beach, California, CatchFree was founded in 2010 by a team that was tired of the challenges of trying to compare free alternative solutions on the details that really matter.

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