Photo sharing websites...

[Rebel]

Do many of you use these, if so, which ones are your favourites and why?

Or do you prefer to host your images on your own dedicated website?

[JR1]

Do many of you use these, if so, which ones are your favourites and why?

Or do you prefer to host your images on your own dedicated website?

Dedicated and Facebook

[mrinmoyvk]

My favorite: Picasa or google+ you may say
Security: I keep the privacy as "only me/private" and share the album with link on email with required audience
Reason: Get access to google drive content from google+ account where I backup my photos which would not require sharing

Recently started exploring flickr but cannot find the option to share photos with only intended recipients. Its either only me or public

Facebook drastically reduces image quality. Better to make picasa album as public and share that link on FB timeline.

[Donald]

Do many of you use these, if so, which ones are your favourites and why?

Or do you prefer to host your images on your own dedicated website?

Matt - I think it very much depends on what you want to achieve with your images. And it also needs to take in to account what we mean by 'photo sharing websites'.

In respect of the latter point, there are photo-sharing websites such as SmugMug. These are very different creatures to the likes of Flickr. I have a SmugMug site, but it is customised by me to, effectively be my dedicated website (the link is in my signature at the bottom of this message). You can, of course, also go down the road of building your own bespoke site, or having it designed and built for you. Both of these options cost money.

On the other hand many folk are perfectly happy with the ideas of a resource such as Flickr being their primary 'showroom'. I find that Flickr tends to change things every now and again. I'm sure they all do. This is, ostensibly, to improve the user experience. In my experience it just causes mayhem and confusion as you try and work out where your Flickr images are and how the 'improved' processes actually work.

[DanK]

I agree with Donald. I use Flickr sometimes, but my primary site is Smugmug, which I have used for years. It is quite customizable, and you can have different sections for different audiences. For example, my publicly available pages, which you can get to from my signature, won't show directories that I have set up for what I call working images (things that I am not certain warrant public display), galleries for events that only attendees need to see, and so on.

[Chris]

500px works really well for me.

[Rebel]

Facebook drastically reduces image quality. Better to make picasa album as public and share that link on FB timeline.

This is one of the reasons I started this thread, I noticed a major drop in image quality when I uploaded a few photos to Facebook recently.

I have tried 500px and Flickr, both are pretty good I thought. I've heard of SmugMug but not used it, will give it a look later.

Cheers for the responses guys

[Donald]

One of the things I was told/read when I started using Facebook (I was a very late adopter), was to upload images as .pngs and not as .jpgs.

Now I have no idea whether that makes one bit of difference. But it's a habit I've got into (make a png and jpg of each image I think I'll upload).

[Manfred M]

Facebook (and other similar sites) are not photography sites, so don't expect miracles when you post there. They use imagery and videos to supplement the text and other offerings of the site. Image quality is not their primary concern.

I use two different sites; all of the images I post here come from my Flickr account, and my best images are on Adobe's Behance, where access is part of the Creative Suite package I subscribe to (that is where the link at the bottom of this screen takes you).

Wordpress, which is not a photo sharing site either, gives you a lot of control and lets you build custom web pages, using either their free site or if you have a website of your own, their software lets you easily create a self-hosted site.

[NorthernFocus]

As others have said it depends on what you are looking for. SmugMug and Zenfolio are good for displaying your work and have features for selling also. You can set up public galleries of lock them for private and/or client access. If you have a URL name you can use it as an address for your galleries. Their fees are based on the level of service that you choose from a basic sharing site to full blown professional services. Both Smug and Zen can be highly customized without needing any real web skills. They have limited associated "communities" via user forums.

Pbase is another sharing site at very low cost ($25/yr). It is highly customizable but requires some website publishing knowledge. It also has limited community.

I know little about the technical aspects of 500px. It is a much more active community than the others mentioned above.

When I looked into a standalone site it was much more costly and required a lot more work than the other options.

[Mike Buckley]

I find that Flickr tends to change things every now and again. I'm sure they all do. This is, ostensibly, to improve the user experience. In my experience it just causes mayhem and confusion as you try and work out where your Flickr images are and how the 'improved' processes actually work.

I use Zenfolio, though for no particularly strong reason other than that I like the look of it. They recently changed the platform the customer uses to make changes to his or her site. I was dreading the change for the very reasons you mentioned. Surprisingly and happily, the new platform is more intuitive and, thus, easier for me to use. I have no idea what the general customer response is to the new platform.

[NorthernFocus]

... I find that Flickr tends to change things every now and again. I'm sure they all do. This is, ostensibly, to improve the user experience. In my experience it just causes mayhem and confusion as you try and work out where your Flickr images are and how the 'improved' processes actually work.

I've had a pBase account for over seven years and it hasn't changed anything. Same price, same features, same user interface. A couple of years ago the did upgrade the editing function interface but it is optional, not a wholesale change for the "better".

Mike, our experience with the currently ongoing "upgrade" to the UI on Zenfolio is 180 out. I hate it and am currently rather upset about it. They have changed (or moved/hidden) some seemingly minor features that were relatively important to me from a business standpoint. I've spent a lot of time setting up my site and now feel like it's been run through a blender. The buggers....

[Geoff F]

When I was first looking around for a photo sharing site I looked at quite a few but couldn't make any sense of how to use most of them; or I didn't feel safe using the site.

Eventually I found P base which made perfect sense to me and was the easiest of all to use. I couldn't even work out how to access some sites!

There are small charges for P base if you have above certain usages. But you don't get any adverts or other problems like that. Images show in good quality, at a variety of sizes, and because you are paying for your actual usage you can show larger images. I always resize my photos to the required upload size before uploading them.

It is simple to link from P base to other sites like CinC.

As a sample, here are my P base Galleries.

http://www.pbase.com/crustacean

[Mike Buckley]

Mike, our experience with the currently ongoing "upgrade" to the UI on Zenfolio is 180 out. I hate it and am currently rather upset about it. They have changed (or moved/hidden) some seemingly minor features that were relatively important to me from a business standpoint. I've spent a lot of time setting up my site and now feel like it's been run through a blender. The buggers....

I'm not using any business capabilities so maybe they weren't able to screw up the relatively few remaining capabilities when they made the changes. I was certainly expecting the frustrations you're experiencing.

[Shadowman]

I post on here (CiC) and it usually ends up on Google.

[Krawuntzel]

Do many of you use these, if so, which ones are your favourites and why?

I do not use any of yours or other mentioned sites; I do not trust them at all. I tried many and was disappointed by all to say the least (professionally I read through all the terms of trade, especially ownership and security)

Or do you prefer to host your images on your own dedicated website?

I do prefer it - knowing that my audience is restricted to the few persons that (get to) know my site. A thing I prefer over "world renown".
I do understand that there are many good reasons to come to another conclusion.
Erwin

[Rebel]

I do not use any of yours or other mentioned sites; I do not trust them at all. I tried many and was disappointed by all to say the least (professionally I read through all the terms of trade, especially ownership and security)


I do prefer it - knowing that my audience is restricted to the few persons that (get to) know my site. A thing I prefer over "world renown".
I do understand that there are many good reasons to come to another conclusion.
Erwin

That is another factor to consider, I've "heard" that you transfer ownership of the images when you upload them to some of these websites.

[Mike Buckley]

It has been so long since I have reviewed Zenfolio's promotions that seeing this thread motivated me to check them out. Two of the promotions still being displayed expired last year and one expired two years ago. Gotta love it -- a website designed in part to make it easy for us to keep our photo site up to date yet they don't keep their own site up to date.

[davidedric]

II happen to use Smugmug, for no very good reason except it does what I want, which is twofold: to share images with family and friends, and to provide a host for linking to forums. I don't use it to "showcase" images, so I don't reference it in signatures. I find it easy to use, though I expect I could find cheaper options.

Dave

[rpcrowe]

I agree with DanK when he states: "I use Flickr sometimes, but my primary site is Smugmug, which I have used for years."

Smugmug has been my main site for quite a few years. I like it quite a bit but, had some problems when it changed formats. However, I still use it. It costs about $5.00 USD per month but there are no ads on it. I also like it because it is very easy to tell someone how to find it on the Internet. Here is my Smugmug site.

http://rpcrowe.smugmug.com/

I also have a Flickr account because I was asked to post certain images on flicker by an organization that supports us rather generously. Here is my flickr site:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/127242428@N06/