|
Forums >
Photography Talk >
flickr vs. smugmug vs. zenfolio vs. livebooks vs..
hello all! where do you guys host your photos? what are the advantages/disadvantages? why did you choose your site and what do you use it for? i currently host with flickr and smugmug. both rock! smugmug is more customizable, but flickr is a bigger community. rock on! Jan 04 10 05:58 pm Link Livebooks is a professional portfolio hosting service. Flickr is definitely not that. Smugmug is questionable. These are very different beasts. I use Flickr for dumping images for feedback and self-promotion or things that I might want to hot-link in my blog or other sites. It's definitely not suitable as a portfolio host. Jan 04 10 06:05 pm Link i dont like flickr. it's for anybody who just wants to share their pics or host it somewhere. i use imageevent. it's nice. Jan 04 10 06:07 pm Link Livebooks is really nice looking but its WAY expensive. You don't have to splurge to have a nice site. Others I like and am looking into are qufoto.com viewbook.com bigblackbag.com Seem to have very good quality and much more affordable than livebooks. Thats like a whole new lens you could buy! Jan 04 10 06:31 pm Link For students live books has a educational discount its what i use and i love it. Jan 04 10 06:35 pm Link Ive been looking to setup a page with smugmug, they pretty good and if you are a photographer who is selling your photos you can do that with their site and the starting rate is $39/year. Jan 04 10 06:46 pm Link I love smugmug, unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited uploads, etc etc, all for $150 a year for the Pro account. Or if you do not need to sell your photos then you can go for one of the cheaper accounts and still get those benefits. I also use flickR, as mentioned, great place to upload photos so that you can easily link back to them on a blog or forum. I also dont mind feedback from other people or checking out other peoples works. Jan 04 10 08:57 pm Link I have been using www.shutterbugstorefront.com for close to a year now. $99 a year for unlimited storage, uploads and downloads. I like that they allow you to use your own url without any mention of their site. I like that they have such a wide range of products, having them take the orders and ship them out is like having a part time employee that only gets paid when they work. We sold ice skating photos mostly last year, this year it is time to branch out a bit. Nice to be in Bellingham and get orders from Uncle Fred and Aunt Wilma in Illinois! The pages load fast and everything seems to be working nicely. The Help desk is very responsive and friendly. It is pretty butt ugly though. I think that is as much my fault as theirs, have not tried to customize anything yet. Jan 04 10 09:29 pm Link Cherish the Moment wrote: +1 Jan 04 10 09:32 pm Link i'm loving the ease of use of smugmug, its been my 'interim' website for two years now and I don't have any immediate plans on developing anything else, its meeting all my current needs for promotion, storage, and distribution Jan 04 10 09:36 pm Link I agree with one response that livebooks is for pros and the rest are a waste of time. My simple take is that Flickr is for armatures who just steal images they find on the web, Photobucket is about the same, but not as bad as Flickr. If you want to be a sucker helping a corporation make money on on-line advertising then contribute to Flickr or Photobucket. If you are a pro get yourself a URL and create password protected galleries for your customers. Chuck Jan 04 10 09:37 pm Link BCADULTART wrote: Trolling much? Jan 04 10 11:59 pm Link I've been using fotki to hold my photos for when i present them to people. This is what I have so far. http://gilriegojr.fotki.com the model archive is locked, but some events are open if you're interested in seeing them. Jan 05 10 03:40 am Link i need a place to put images for proofing and printing because a lot of my business comes from events, weddings, and client assignments. i use zenfolio. choice of printing vendors, customizable pages, many options including watermarking of images with one click, etc. $100 a year. Jan 05 10 03:48 am Link Jan 05 10 03:56 am Link i host my site with webphotomaster.com. their pricing was great and their flash designs are slick. the deciding factor was the SEO optimization features with their flash designs. Jan 05 10 05:31 am Link Ricardo Sevilla 2 wrote: I think you've just convinced me to start with SmugMug !! Jan 06 10 05:23 pm Link BCADULTART wrote: WTF.... I use Flickr Jan 06 10 05:30 pm Link I like SmugMug quite a bit. There's a bit of a learning curve as far as customizing your site (at least there was for me) but once you get the hang of it you can make a pretty impressive site. I like the commerce feature too, as I'm much too busy (ok, lazy) to take print orders from weddings. Jan 06 10 05:47 pm Link Ricardo Sevilla 2 wrote: Wow, that's organized alot better than mine. I need to spend some more time on that. Jan 06 10 05:49 pm Link BCADULTART wrote: Totally skewed and lop-sided comments. Flickr has some great groups with very accomplished photographers contributing to those as well as a vibrant community. Agreed it has its downsides too - but a total high handed brush off as above, is an absolute NO NO. Jan 06 10 05:56 pm Link Ricardo Sevilla 2 wrote: Pretty slick! Jan 06 10 06:02 pm Link SteveBradleyPhotography wrote: So SmugMug is "harder" to use?? Jan 06 10 06:33 pm Link LifeStyle Images wrote: I wouldn't say that it's hard to use. It just took me a while to figure out how to customize the look of my page. Once you pick up on it, it's pretty easy. I'm pretty impatient when it comes to learning my way around a new format, so that whole learning curve thing was probably more because of me than them. Jan 06 10 06:41 pm Link I've been with Smugmug for several years and love it. Great tech support and forums. Jan 06 10 06:46 pm Link BCADULTART wrote: Agreed that this is a BS post. Jan 06 10 06:54 pm Link Tom Brooks wrote: Have to agree with Tom. Looked at about all of the options, but livebooks, smugmug, zenfolio are much more selling and business oriented than the others mentioned. There's also much better means for protecting your images built in. There's a lot to be said of the networking function and value of flickr, for instance, but its not a good model for a professional presentation (IMO) to existing or potential clients. Jan 09 10 08:47 pm Link SteveBradleyPhotography wrote: Ditto! Jan 09 10 09:02 pm Link Neither Smugmug nor Zenfolio comes anywhere close to what I need are there other options? Right now my domain, business email and webhosting are on Tripod/Lycos. I do have a number of requirements. 1. I have an existing directory structure that I would like to keep intact, or at least have it available alongside any auto-generated directories. For example, I have thousands of images in www.lumigraphics.com/images and www.lumigraphics.com/models/images right now. I need to be able to recreate those paths (and I'd like to be able to create arbitrarily-named directories as well.) This is a must to keep from losing thousands of links I have sent people over the years. 2. I strongly prefer ftp/sftp access to a web uploader or stand-alone program. I'm on a Mac so Windows software is useless to me and I've found web uploaders to be slow and cranky. 3. My primary genres are landscapes, commercial/lifestyle, glamour, boudoir, and fine art. The last three do often include nudity. I don't shoot anything pornographic but I would need assurances that I can upload and display nude work without it being removed (presumably in private galleries.) 4. I sell microstock through iStock but want to sell rights-managed digital downloads. I need a way to attach/display a specific license for downloads and offer digital fulfillment. 5. For prints, I want to offer custom matting and signing. I need the option for prints to be shipped to me for custom work and not just directly to the end customer. And the option where a print order can sent directly to me for fulfillment (where I print it or order prints from my supplier rather than go through the partner print house.) 6. I offer custom photo notecards which I make, I need a way to offer those through the shopping cart. I have thought of selling custom screensavers as another product as well. 7. I do not wish to do business with PayPal in any manner. For custom products, use of PayPal cannot be requirement. I want the host to process credit cards if possible so I can avoid having my own merchant account. 8. I need email and DNS with an account. If I cancel my service with Tripod, I will need an email host for my domain and would like that included in whatever image hosting account I pay for. Jan 09 10 10:13 pm Link I'm going to go with model portfolio shoots and senior pictures on smugmug - more printing options there and less for me to deal with. So (I guess they have them) if mom or dad wanted a picture of their son in his football uniform on a coffee cup they can do it, or something else, where as that would be a pita for me to do a one off or something. My fine art prints (not nudes) are going to be hosted by me on my site. Just easier that way, and I want to do it that way. Then I have control over the product and can sign and number the prints. Any nude shoots I do would be done though offline transactions as far as prints and stuff, and I have no interest at all to get into the so-called "fine art nude" market. Jan 09 10 11:05 pm Link I've looked at many hosting sites (currently using zenfolio) but haven't found any that will let you zoom in on an image! Yes, some have small/medium/large but I mean like zoom in like a standard image viewer and pan around to check out the details. Does such a creature exist? The other minor quirk with zenfolio is that it doesn't seem to let you create a defined hierarchy of images. While it organized them this way, I'd like to have a few broad categories on the main page like 'people', 'places', 'things', and then be able to drill down. like under 'people' you might have, family, friends, groups, models. then under models you might have nude/non-nude, then male/female ect... www.quantafoto.com Thanks, Davey Feb 11 10 10:59 pm Link Tom Brooks wrote: Me too. I use it for the same reason Feb 11 10 11:04 pm Link BCADULTART wrote: If this advice is as qualified as your stock photography advice, I'm going to go sign up for a Flickr account now. Feb 11 10 11:14 pm Link quantafoto wrote: Not quite the same, but you can zoom in with Firefox (command-control and scroll wheel) Feb 11 10 11:23 pm Link For my portrait and wedding clients, or "regular people" I use Pictage, several reasons why they work for me. The back up everything for life and I never have to fill out a print order... Ever! For my commercial clients I use livebooks. They go to my site click the client link and enter a password and view their images privately. It works for me, if smugmug or the others work for you then that's what you need to do. For me I have found what works for me, it may cost me more than the others but I make a lot more in the long run! Just my 2 cents.  Feb 11 10 11:27 pm Link Feb 11 10 11:46 pm Link Be original. Pay someone to create a site. Feb 12 10 12:20 am Link Feb 12 10 12:38 am Link favorite host (lunarpages, godaddy, whatever) + wordpress + nextgen gallery. i'm too paranoid to trust that anyone like flickr wont just shut down one day (yahoo is not doing well). for online backups of edits etc, its hard to argue with $5/year for 20gb from picasa/google. of course, this wasn't about backups. i think your own domain on a hosting service with a custom page (or even slightly modified wp theme) is the way to go. Feb 12 10 01:32 am Link I use livebooks and love it! Feb 12 10 01:34 am Link |
