Photo Gallery - which one?

[idleowen]

Hi,
I'm looking for some advice/guidance/info on what are the options for placing photos in a gallery for viewing. For example somewhere like RedBubble/Smugmug/Flickr etc . I've recently taken photos at different events and had requests from people for prints, so I've tried sending the JPGs so they can print but realised that this is a slow process using email/photoshop mail etc.
My wish list would be:
- easy to upload for viewing
- option for people to buy photos
- option for people to have free downloads of jpgs
- option to restrict access to personal/family photos etc
- dont mind paying a subscription

I dont want to jump into building my own website,so would appreciate any advice on some of the more popular options used by members.
thks,Nigel

[johnd]

Hi Nigel,

I've been with SmugMug for a year and a half now and I'm very satisfied. You can do all the things you asked about OK and as the site comes preconfigured, you can get it going with minimum customisations. I think I was up and going in under an hour. I have done a few customisations using the various examples SmugMug provides and am very happy with the way my site works. I've probably spent no more than 2 or 3 hours total customising my site and I am by no means a web site programmer, so it must have been easy.

Take a look if you want. My site is in my sig below.

Cheers
John

[Jeff]

Second vote for Smugmug although I haven't been able to understand how to customise too much.

Jeff

[Geoff]

Smugmug is awesome and continually improving.

[the foto fanatic]

Ditto SmugMug.

Really good value for a continually improving offering.

[kiwi]

OK, to me I don't think you can go past hosting your own website for control and branding. You can then have your own emails, domain name etc.

These days most providers provide almost completely automated tools to build your own website, blogs, galleries etc - with you having absolutely no need to know any geek stuff like HTML, PHP etc

Witness my site - not the best I'm sure - but dead easy to set-up. And I know NOTHING about websites apart from using the end result.

I user http://www.servage.net but also there are plenty others.

By the way - if you do decide to go down this track please PM me for a coupon code.

[Frankenstein]

One more vote for Smugmug.

Twice in the past year or so, I've signed up for web hosting and set up my own photo site. I used freely available tools to set up the web pages and galleries and was very happy with the results. However, I eventually went back to SM both times just for the ease of use on so many levels - uploading images, site customisation, and setting it up for photo sales (no luck there for me ). And the Digital Grin forums are very helpful.
If you do decide to join, there's a thread somewhere on this site where you can get a discount code on your membership.

I guess it all depends on how much time you want to spend tweaking your own site.

Good luck.

Frank
(ps my domain name is not working at the moment, so if you want to see my gallery use http://frankenstein.smugmug.com)

[who]

I've nearly signed up for zenfolio.com a couple of times, but then got too busy.

But I will sign up to one fairly soon I hope.

[idleowen]

thanks for taking the time to reply,thats narrowed it down to a couple of options for me.whether to offer 'local' printing or not is tormenting me,dont know whether to just simply take orders (got to be optimistic!) and do the legwork getting them printed or go with a service that offers printing via the website..........a la Snapfish type of option...?

[bwhinnen]

thanks for taking the time to reply,thats narrowed it down to a couple of options for me.whether to offer 'local' printing or not is tormenting me,dont know whether to just simply take orders (got to be optimistic!) and do the legwork getting them printed or go with a service that offers printing via the website..........a la Snapfish type of option...?

My old argument to this one is if you get them sent to you first (whether that is via a remote lab or walking down to collect them) you can perform your own quality control on the prints to ensure you are giving the client what they see on the screen.

[zafra52]

Fascinating! Does SmugMug provide you with your own domain?

[Jonesy]

Smugmug allows you to use your own domain name. you can bring one with and change the CNAME setting via your account otherwise they have recently set up a deal with godaddy, where the setup is, almost, all done for you.

http://www.smugmug.com/help/power-custom-domain

My old argument to this one is if you get them sent to you first (whether that is via a remote lab or walking down to collect them) you can perform your own quality control on the prints to ensure you are giving the client what they see on the screen.

I agree. I'd sooner organise the printing myself and see the prints before they go out the door