Photo Hosting Sites

[Tucson T4R]

After reading about SmugMug I checked it out. I am now a new convert. I used to use the free Photobucket hosting site but SmugMug's significantly improved quality and functions swung me over.

Posted from Photobucket:

Same posted from SmugMug:

 

[winch wench]

nice....

i use image shack..

 

[unwiredadventures]

Beautiful photos.

I use Flickr.

 

[Pskhaat]

....is there supposed to be a difference? What benefits to you receive?

 

[unwiredadventures]

....is there supposed to be a difference? What benefits to you receive?

I like the social community on Flickr.

I've gone on overlanding trips with many people that I have come to know on Flickr. Last week 4 days in Mojave. They're great trips since we all enjoy photography.

 

[Tucson T4R]

....is there supposed to be a difference? What benefits to you receive?

Photobucket limits your images to 800 pixels and the compression takes a lot away from the image quality.

SmugMug allows full quality uploads and a choice of sizes to either link for postings or downloads. They also have a ton of custom options to personalize your site if you are so inclined.

If you are concerned about copyright, they have lots of copyright and security protection settings you can control. I am not personaly concerned about copyrights for my pictures, the quality is what motivated me to change.

I also like how you can hover over an image and display the details of what camera took the photo and what all the settings were.

The image of the night stars shows the most difference in my examples.

 

[unwiredadventures]

SmugMug allows full quality uploads and a choice of sizes to either link for postings or downloads.

....they have lots of copyright and security protection settings you can control. I am not personaly concerned about copyrights for my pictures, the quality is what motivated me to change.

I also like how you can hover over an image and display the details of what camera took the photo and what all the settings were.

Flickr has the same, full quality uploads and a choice of sizes to either link for postings or downloads and copyright and security protection settings. You can also view the EXIF details of photos. Unlimited space.

I especially like the geotagging features in Flickr. I now shoot with a Nikon D200 with an attached GPS. Almost all my photos have the coordinates in the EXIF information. Flickr supports this so if a photo has GPS information inbedded, it'll display a "Map" button so you can see on a map where the photo was taken.

This is a very powerful feature. Last October I took a week long trip in my Land Cruiser on the Arizona Strip (with 5 Jeeps).

You can see some of my photos from this trip and where they were taken on this map link in Flickr. It may take a moment to load. Zoom out and pan around and you can see other photo locations from the trip. Use the left and right "Arrows" on each end of the photo strip and it will show more photo locations on the map.

I've heard about lots of good features for photographers in SmugMug. I need to take a look.

 

[photoman]

I am a smugmug user as well. They offer many features that other hosting sites do not the biggest advantage is unlimited space.

I have over 19gigs of photos on my site with a good portion of those hidden and password protected. You can do this for individual galleries. There are also several themes you can choose from- this again can be done by gallery.

For more info go here: Smugmug

If you decide to sign up you can save $5.00 by using my e-mail address: anwmn1@msn.com

There is also a fantastic photo forum associated with smugmug. It is dgrin.com

In the end pick whatever site works best for you.

 

[Rob O]

smugmug is great if you want to show the highest quality online version of your images and, IMO, is the place for pros and enthusiasts who intend to sell or earn from their photos; the order/print tools in place are outstanding. It's also a much higher caliber community than flickr, generally speaking.

Flickr is great for hosting/sharing, for the API features (particularly greasemonkey scripts with Firefox) and the social community ... if you like that aspect. There are a LOT of nutjobs, uber amateurs, etc and the countless 'pools' (groups for everything you can imagine) mean invites are inevitable. I like the social aspect, for the most part, but it can virtuous (lots of circle jerks on flickr).

I also think flickr suffers from general trends -- cliche photos, if you will. HDR, vivid seascapes, nekked women, flowers, etc will always get you lots of views (and with it said group invites and nutjob followers). Flickr is also insanely narcissistic; I can't believe how many people are so full of themselves (and how many sheep follow them).

And the one thing that bugs me most about flickr, but can be a benefit, is that they screw with images after upload (they clearly compress, despite saying they don't). I like that this means someone trying to pirate my stuff isn't getting a great copy ... and I rarely upload anything bigger than 800px at 72dpi anyway. But it also means my stuff isn't as clean and sharp on flickr as it really is. You almost have to post process with flickr's inherent compression in mind to optimize how your photos will look once uploaded to your stream.

I know a lot of people who use both flickr and smugmug (myself included). Flickr is hard to beat for $25/year and unlimited bandwidth, especially if you're using API tools (either for viewing, like scripts, or via your own web presence/interface and flickr as a backend).

 

[Lost Canadian]

I like the feedback aspect of flickr although sometimes it's, .... well Rob put it best. 1X is much better for real kick you in the butt feedback.

One great thing about Flickr is they have teamed up with Getty. If you're looking for the best of Flickr, check out the Getty collection. Getty uses the same terms with Flickr photos as they use with pro photographers, which is really cool.

I use and like smugmug, I wouldn't sell anything through them, but you really can't beat the price for a half decent display of your photos. There are better formats out there like livebooks, unfortunatly they are much pricier then either Flickr or Smugmug.

 

[Every Miles A Memory]

What on Earth is that subject in the 1st photo? It looks really cool what ever it is.

I agree with you about Smugmug, great site and has some of the best Customer Service I've ever dealt with. You can send them and email asking a question and usually get a answered question within minutes.

Trevor, why wouldnt you use them to sell anything? I've sold a ton of images off their site and all my clients have said the end product was very nicely done and service was great on their end also.

Just like to hear your thoughts on that.

 

[Tucson T4R]

What on Earth is that subject in the 1st photo? It looks really cool what ever it is.........

It's a petrified alien egg found outside of Roswell, NM. :sombrero:

Well, it's really a Philabaum blown glass "Faceted Reptilian Egg". Philabaum is local Tucson glass artist that makes some amazing pieces.

http://www.philabaumglass.com/corporate-gifts/corporate-products

 

[Lost Canadian]

Trevor, why wouldnt you use them to sell anything? I've sold a ton of images off their site and all my clients have said the end product was very nicely done and service was great on their end also.

Just like to hear your thoughts on that.

1) The biggest reason for me is it's cost-prohibitive. Once the items ship to Canada, I get smacked with duty, brokerage fees, yada yada. It's cheaper to get it done at a local lab.

2) Lack of control over the final output. For cheap snaps Costco is a better deal. You can get each stores printer profile online, proof your shots, and you'll get an accurate result at, for me anyway, a much lower price. For fine art prints, I go through Elevator out of Toronto. My sister works there so I kinda have an in, not to mention with them I maintain full control over the output, and I can print tiff's.

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with smugmug or the way photos are sold through them, but once the jpgs get compressed a few times, going from your computer to the smugmug servers, from their servers to the print labs, the quality of that original shot would have deteriorated some. It's just personal preference of mine to get an output as close to the original file as I possibly can. My next big photographic purchase will probably be a nice epson printer.

 

[Every Miles A Memory]

Thanks for the explaination.

I wasnt thinking about the duties involved with crossing borders

For me, to shoot an event, upload the images to my gallery and have customers browse through, buy what they like and me not to have to deal with the printing, packaging, handling of money and everything involved on that end, I cant think of a better way to do business.

I've owned both Epson and Canon printers, and wouldnt want to get involved with the hassle of printing my own work for customers. I tend to waste wayyyy too much ink and paper getting everything calibrated.

I'll just stick with online printers on that end of my work

 

[Lost Canadian]

I hear ya. I guess it depends on what you do, and your output goals. I totally see the value in smugmug if you're taking and moving heavy volumes of shots. For me though, photography is more of a creative avocation so I only sell or give away 1 or 2 shots here and there. Because I have the time to do so, my focus is driven more by absolute quality to which having my own, properly calibrated, higher end printer, is a bit of a lustful desire of mine.