Yahoo Photos is being shuttered in favor of growth engine Flickr. As USAT’s Jeff Graham explains, acquired by Yahoo in 2005, Flickr grew 22 percent from April 2006 to April 2007 (3.6 percent to 4.5 percent) while Yahoo Photos lost 60 percent of its audience (14.4 percent to 5.7 percent). The process will take several months with service scheduled for shutdown in the fall. Users will be offered one-click transfers to Flickr or competing photo sites but Hitwise’s Bill Tanser told USAT he doesn’t expect most of the entrenched YP users to go to Flickr.

The story is best read with the chart on top photo sites for reference, which shows that neither Yahoo site comes close to being $1. If Yahoo wants to lead in photos it will need to acquire Photobucket, which has an estimated 40 percent of the market compared to 25 percent last year.