Galleries, Blogs, Etc.

[rodman]

So I've used photobucket, wordpress, and coppermine to host/show photos.

I wanted to get a feel for what you guys use out there ... pros and cons ...

I've never used Flickr but I see a lot of you guys use it.

I've always browsed pbase.com for nice pictures and have thought about using them.

 

[Big Mike]

I used to use Photobucket but I'm usually behind a firewall at work and for some reason it blocks 'most' images on Photobucket....which is a real PITA.

Since I now have my own website, I just use that to host my images for displaying on forums. Works great.

 

[rodman]

Mike how do you like Blogspot? I thought about joining ... but wanted to get some insight.

 

[Big Mike]

It's not bad...but not great.

It's very easy to set up and make simple posts etc...but the interface for creating a editing posts is pretty lame. I usually have to edit a post 10 times before I get it how I want it....and that includes a few tweaks to the code that I had learn how to do.
There are ways to customize it quite a bit by tweaking the code...but this isn't necessarily straight forward.

I've tried one or two other blog sites and it's still better than the others...so there you go.

 

[rodman]

Hrrrmmm that sounds like some of my experiences with Wordpress.

 

[impressme]

I use nextproof.com for photo proofing- if I didn't already have a custom site I'd use bigfolio.com for hosting my site and they offer an amazing blog! So I use blogspot- not a huge fan but it'll do for now...

 

[inTempus]

I have used Photobucket for years, mostly to host non-photography related images... stuff for boards and such.

When I got into Photography I discovered their system trashes images. The system compresses them, or otherwise modifies them so that pictures often look slightly off. Not horrible, but noticeable to me in many cases. The nice thing about Photobucket is that it's free up to a point. I paid $20 a year to have an unlimited account and I keep all of my junk images there. They also have a deal with Target so friends and family can print images and pick them up locally. Handy, but the print quality is marginal at best.

So I began a quest to find a photography oriented website. That, and I created my own site too (http://www.intempus.us).

The site I found with the best image quality and which allows you to control that image quality (you can set default sharpening, etc. or turn all modifications off) is SmugMug Photo Sharing. Your photos look better here..

Smugmug has three different subscription plans. One for personal use, one for heavy use and another for professional use. I really like this system because unlike Photobucket, Flickr, ImageShack, etc. you can fully customize your page and even point a custom URL to your directory (they are partnered with GoDaddy). Here's an example of my SmugMug system I just set-up: inTempus Photography- powered by SmugMug

SmugMug also has great printing services. They mail you the prints, but they look amazing. I think they have one of the best printers out there, or so far that I've found. Friends and family can order prints from your page. The site also works with the iPhone (special free app). You can geotag your images and have them appear on your home page. It's a very cool feature.

If you sign up for SmugMug, use this code KAMvZpioBsAvk and you'll save $5.

I hate Facebook, it completely trashes images. Black and White images are completely washed out as are the colors in color photos. Forget that option. MySpace is a joke too...

I haven't tried Picasa yet. I probably won't given my recent discovery of SmugMug.

Flickr pains me because I hate their menuing system. I think it's horribly laid out. But some folks like it. I have an account, but given the lack of customization I avoid the system.

YMMV

 

[Overread]

I used to use photobucket but in light of this:
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...3635-photobucket-terms-conditions-change.html
I no longer host my images with them (I had to relink everything to my now flickr account). There are also similar clauses in facebook so nothiong gets hosted there either

I now use a paid flickr account and for hosting images I have no real problems aside from the fact that they don't have an auto resize option between 1000pixels and 500pixels - but aside from that its reliable and I have no problems with the interface. the only downside to flickr is that you cannot use hosted images to generate in income - ergo you can't host your website images on flickr, however as I have no sale website (And if I did it would host the images) this is not a limitation.

For blogging I use Wordpress and have had no real problems there - though I have to rewrite part of the flickr code for image hotlinking its simple and quick to do.

 

[Big Mike]

I can't really confirm it for sure, but I think one of the big problems that people have when uploading images to hosting sites...is that they don't resize and compress the images properly/enough. Many sites will resize or compress images when they are too large...but don't when they fit the size and file size limitations. I never had a problem with Photobucket messing with my images.

 

[mariners2010]

Yeah i use photobucket too.

 

[inTempus]

I can't really confirm it for sure, but I think one of the big problems that people have when uploading images to hosting sites...is that they don't resize and compress the images properly/enough. Many sites will resize or compress images when they are too large...but don't when they fit the size and file size limitations. I never had a problem with Photobucket messing with my images.

I think Photobucket limits the size to 1024x768, that may vary depending on the free account vs. the paid... not sure. But I rarely export my images from Lightroom to that resolution. I export at a much higher resolution. That's when Photobucket decides to resize them for me I believe. Somewhere in that process my images don't look right to me, especially if I upload one image (full resolution) to Photobucket and another to SmugMug, then compare them side-by-side. The SmugMug image always looks better. But then I have all modifications turned off on my SmugMug site... what gets posted is exactly what I created.

I could be on crack.

 

[Big Mike]

When I host images on Photobucket (or wherever) , my purpose is always web viewing...so I keep them to less than 800 pixels and usually less than 200kb.

 

[rodman]

Just took a look a SmugMug and it looks impressive!

I might be going with the "Power" package!

Thanks tharmsen

 

[Overread]

I think the sharpening codes for flickr are better than most sites - though even there if you try to upload a non-JPEG file (like a TIFF) it wil get remade into a JPEG and some image quality is lost. Like Mike my uploads were always for webviewing so I kept to 1000 pixels on the largest side and uploaded my own resized smaller versions.
At least with flickr now the smaller auto resized versions its makes are sharp enough to be usable so I don't have to save 4 copies of each shot

 

[RebelTasha]

I use Fotki.. they offer co-branding, you can set the price you want to sell your pictures for,, or just use it as a gallery or both.. it has a ton of features regarding how you show off your pictures with regards to sizes etc.. any way I could go on all day but without knowing specifically what you're looking for i'll stop..
Links in my siggi, after you pay for the first year which is like $30. they send offers where you can sign for 3 years for like $45 etc..
I love it, I tried Flickr etc and the others that offer similar are too expensive for me..
Photo hosting sites must be a very personal thing because I love mine soo much but yet i'm the minority of people on here that use it.. haha