It used to be a pain to get photos off of our phones and to the web where we could share them with others, but both Dropbox and Google make it really easy thanks to auto-uploading. Still, once they're uploaded, both services offer different storage limits, sharing options, and editing tools. Let's take a look at which one is best for your shots.
Dropbox: Plenty of Storage and Sharing Options, Not Too Many Editing Features.
Pros:
You get total control over your original photos and files.
You can control the organizational structure within Dropbox.
You can create galleries on the web too, if you prefer.
Dropbox gives you more sharing options for your photos.
Dropbox is ideal for someone who just wants to get their photos backed up, no fuss, and would prefer to either organize them manually or not organize them at all. You get a good amount of space for your photos, and if you prefer to use another tool to edit, organize, or process your photos, having them all automatically uploaded and then synced to your desktop without lifting a finger is a huge boon.
Cons:
All of that said, Dropbox isn't perfect. While you do get a good bit of storage for your photos, that 3GB is nothing compared to what a number of other services offer, either just for signing up or for uploading your photos (more on that in a moment.)
The flip-side of Dropbox giving you so much control over your photos is that you don't get built-in editing or management tools. On the web, the only things you can really do with a photo are download it, view the original, share it, or perform basic file operations on it (copy/rename/move/delete/etc). If you're looking for ways to edit or organize your photos beyond putting them into galleries, or even the option to crop, resize, or rotate photos, you'll have to look elsewhere (or, use your preferred desktop or mobile photo editor to modify the photo in-place, so Dropbox doesn't lose track of it).
Google Drive/Google+ Photos: Tons of Editing and Organizing Tools, Not So Much on Sharing
Google Drive, Google's own combination of cloud storage service, web-based productivity suite, and back-end data storage for several Google Apps (like Google Keep, for example), is actually a great place to save your photos if you're looking for a home for them. You can dump them right into Google Drive and share them like any Google Doc from the web, and you can have them synced to your computer in your Google Drive folder. Use Picasa on the desktop and you can sync to Picasa Web Albums, although once you've joined Google+, the service will try to push you over there. As for Google+, if you turn on Auto Upload on your iOS or Android device, Google will give you 15GB for all of your files and photos, but that storage is shared across Gmail, Google Drive and Docs, and Google+ Photos. Since Google+ Photos is clearly the direction Google is going with both Picasa and photo sharing in general, we'll focus on that in this piece.
Pros:
You get remarkably powerful web-based editing tools.
Google's Auto-Enhance is actually useful.
Google supports videos, too. Unlike Dropbox, if you want to host and share videos, you don't have to do anything aside from take the video with your smartphone or tablet. Google's auto-upload will upload the video, in whatever quality your phone supports, and post it to Google Drive as well so you can share it with others or post it to YouTube.
Google automatically organizes your photos for you into galleries.
Google+ certainly makes the backup process seamless, and they go a long way towards making sure you don't have to spend a lot of time organizing your photos and getting them into shape before you let the world see them.
Cons:
Like we mentioned, Google isn't the perfect host. For one, even if you have Google Drive installed on your computer, you don't get access to the raw versions of those photos if you're using Google+. You'll have to log in to Google+ and head over to the Photos tab in order to even browse them (assuming, like we mentioned earlier, you're not using Drive as a dumping ground directly), much less download the originals and move them to another photo editing app. Unlike Dropbox or other strict file-syncing services, you can't just point another tool at the photos you've taken, or get at the photos you took with your phone on your desktop or laptop using another editing tool. Google wants you to log in to Google+ for everything. That lack of control can be infuriating if you want to do more with your photos.
To be fair, getting your photos back from Google+ Photos isn't difficult; you can download individuals or whole galleries at once with a few clicks. Plus, they're still on your phone, where you can just sync them to your computer. However, it's clear that Google wants you to stay in its playground and share your photos out from there.
Speaking of sharing, if you want to share any of the photos you've uploaded to Google+, you'll have to share them first on Google+. It goes without saying that you'll need a Google+ account to use any of these features, but you can't just touch up a photo and send a friend a link, or post the photo to Twitter. You'll have to share the photo on Google+ first, and then you can share that link with anyone you want to see it. On the upside, people can comment on your photo, re-share it, post the link elsewhere, and you can keep track of views and who's shared or commented on it at any time. Still, all sharing goes right through Google+, one way or another.
The Bottom Line: Which Should You Trust with Your Photos?
If you just want a place to store your photos easily and then get at them with another tool later, Dropbox is the way to go. They make uploading simple and easy, and leave you with total control over the original files. However, it's not ideal if you want a service that doesn't just host your photos, but helps you edit them as well.
Google Drive/Google+ is ideal if you want a service that will both host your photos and help you edit, tweak, and organize those photos all from the same interface. You get pretty solid editing controls, and Google's "Auto Awesome" features actually do improve your photos. The trouble with Google however is that sharing photos is locked in to Google+, which may or may not be a good thing. If you need more space, need editing tools, and like using Google+, Google is the way to go.
Alternatively, you could just use both. Personally, that's what I do, and it never hurts to have your photos backed up in more than one place. Cloud storage is easy to come by these days, and if I need to edit and share at Google+, I can, but if I want to post to another network or categorize and upload my photos into galleries on another service like Flickr, I pull them out of Dropbox. Bottom line: You can choose the one that's right for you, or use them both whenever either is best; it's up to you.
Source:Life Hacker
