flickr, SmugMug etc?

I guess it may be a good idea to just do everything! Have a flickr pro site for hosting, post stuff to my blog from there (although as MartinL pointed out, my blog isn't really a photo only place), and also have a dedicated photo site of my own.

Seems there is a market for re-skinning flickr though, I may look into that. :)
 
smugmug costs more than flickr, although pretending to offer more - at least breaking service into 3 levels. Go figure if that extras are more than flickr offers and if you need them.
 
marduk said:
I use flickr but I'm not pleased with the way how some of the black and white photos look on its white background. Perhaps I could make up for this by applying frames of some particular style but I'm not fascinated by playing with frames. So I signed up for a trial at SmugMug when I had a series of b&w landscapes to show and it worked well for me. I can't imagine myself switching over to SmugMug though as its audience is much smaller.
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What he said...x 2 :)
 
Duncan B said:
What he said...x 2 :)
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SmugMug offers more design and layout options, and I think is a better looking site. But, Flickr is the go-to place for people looking for images. Adding good tags to each photo, at either site, or at any site, helps ensure search engines find your stuff. However, Flickr is obviously much more well known than SmugMug. People go there directly to look for images, bypassing search engines altogether. For example, notice how questions here about a particular lens or film often prompt a recommendation to go to Flickr and search on that name. Every photo tagged with that name will be located.

So, if you want people to find your pix, put them on Flickr. If you want your pix to wear nice clothes, SmugMug is better, but you may be the only person who knows they're there.
 
I have been using Zenfolio for more than 2 years. It works very well for me. The interface is very elegant and fully customizable. The price is $40 per year for an unlimited account. I use it to backup my pictures (you can organize files in directories and protect some of them from public viewing or restrict access to users with passwords) and I have more than 40GB of pictures online. Here are links to slideshows of some of my pictures on Zenfolio:

http://abbazz.zenfolio.com/p1046243946/slideshow

http://abbazz.zenfolio.com/p276148366/slideshow

There is a free 2 weeks trial. If you like it, don't forget to type my referral code (29C-TR8-GZK), so we both get a $5 bonus :).

Cheers!

Abbazz
 
I have had Smugmug power account for nearly a year and I will renew. I like the way the pix look. The audience is smaller than Flickr but the pix look better and there are many more options.

I have a couple of free accounts on Flickr and may upgrade to pro. More people see the pix.

I think they each serve a different purpose.
 
I never gel with the look and feel of Smugmug, and I know that I'd have to craft my own website to achieve the proper "professional" look.

So, I went with flickr not with the eye towards using it as my professional front-end, but rather a place holder for images, and for the community-sharing aspects.
 
Some interesting discussion here. I am using flickr rather shortly and still have only the 'basic' account. However I would consider 'pro' mode.

As there seem to be some 'in the know' concerning the FLICKR I would like to ask a few questions:

1) what one really gains with the 'pro' account - apart from the stats. There is no limit on the size - but what is the advantage of uploading large photos? Just to show that your image is technically well done and would actually be usable for commercial usage - or is there anything else?

2) concerning the copyrights - I did just change mine to Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons - but where one can see this when viewing the photos? I still find on the bottom-right (under the column with tags All rights reserved.

3) important one - how to tag a photo properly? I do realize that some photos of mine still miss the description (which I want to update), but all are tagged - are they tagged insufficiently? It seems to me that the few views I got are only from linking the photos/sets to forums. Could you - just for example case - briefly look at THIS photo of mine - would you consider the description/tagging OK?

I do intend to add more photos for the future - also of different style and would like to know how to increase the "hit" chance.

thanks ..
 
I use both Flickr and Smugmug. Flickr is mainly for fun, the hobby side of my photography obsession. I network with a lot of other photographers around the world, but especially here in Hawaii. We meet up several times a month. I would say, for me, Flickr is "recreational" while Smugmug is "professional". I utilize Smugmug for hosting client proofs and edited galleries. Smugmug is good for that as you can just give the client a URL and a password instead of requiring them to sign up for Flickr, that is if you want to make their gallery private. I'm currently looking into an alternative to Smugmug, possibly a stand-alone site template that can handle a blog and hosted, private galleries.
 
Matus, it's a bit of a guessing game, but I try to use tags I think a large number of people might search on. Sometimes, they're very generic. E.g, if i posted a cat picture, I'd use "cat" as one of the tags. Looking at your photo, I might include "mountains".

That said, links to photos, as with everything else on the web, build less through search engines than through word of mouth and viral buzz these days. Our pictures, too, are just grains of sand in a huge beach full of imagery. When someone searches for, let's say, "skiers" on Flickr, they're likely to get thousands of photos thrown at them.
 
Hi, I am using both flickr and bluemelon. I like flickr for its big community and bluemelon for its looks and features. Also, you may want to have a look at snapfish, if you do not mind some downsampling - the great thing is that you get free unlimited storage. Bluemelon, both free (1GB) and paid stores the originals and does not limit you in any way but for the storage.
 
From a marketing perspective, Flickr is a no brainer. For a working pro photog I would also recommend a stand alone web site in addition. There are many reasons to do both and they don't compete with each other in terms of marketing goals.

There aren't many good reasons to ignore Flickr, whatever your feelings about the site's origins. Google loves it, the world loves it, and those two factors make a difference if you want an audience.
 
gerbilthemistake,

SmugMug does NOT normally allow you to upload TIFF files. You need to purchase an additional service called SmugVault to do this. It's not too expensive, though.

In general I much prefer SmugMug over flickr, in any case. I don't care about reaching a wide audience with my photos, they're mainly for family and friends and other people I provide links to.
 
Im suprised nobody uses Pbase here, I am currently using Pbase but I think I'm going to migrate in the near future to Flickr because its the most famous photo repository right now.
 
sabrewolf said:
Im suprised nobody uses Pbase here, I am currently using Pbase but I think I'm going to migrate in the near future to Flickr because its the most famous photo repository right now.
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I use Pbase, and I've posted in this thread. "Most famous" or popular has its advantages, but I sort of like the more unique look I can achieve with Pbase.

Here's a broad, probably unfair generalization: Because of its popularity Flickr on average tends not to display as high a quality of photos as Smug, Zen, PB. So when I link to a Flickr site I have slightly lower expectations. I'd compare this to a bias one might have for the "character" of particular neighborhoods: the neighborhood may say nothing about any one house, but on average a visitor might anticipate quality or style.

I post photos primarily for people I already know and not for browsers who might find me via tags or file names. So I'm not concerned about the widest possible exposure.
 
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