When sharing photos with family and friends you have to set up email groups so that when you click SHARE you can send an email to each person with a link to your album.
If you join Google+ you can then develop networks (called circles) of friends, family of any other group you decide to setup. Then when you want to share your photos you just click on an album in Picasaweb, click on the SHARE button, add a comment, click on ‘+add more people’ and then click the groups or ‘Circles’ of friends that you want to send the photos to.
This is a much quicker way to contact people HOWEVER at this stage you may not have many friends who have joined Google+. Perhaps you could encourage your family to join Google+ and your family circle to speed up the transfer of photos. Just one word of warning – Google+ does make your photos a lot more public since they can be resent by your family or friends to other circles. Read this article