Photo Website advice

[Crovean]

Thank you Chriss.

I think I’ll get some samples done. Probably pick up a couple of their calibration prints, load the profiles and see what I come up with by way of comparison.

Appreciate the links. That was one of the pages I had hoped to find while I’m looking at Smugmug.

I guess since you haven’t soft-proofed, then do you allow the print labs to do any corrections they deem necessary, or do you disallow that for your prints and have them printed precisely as you submit them?

Do you have a preference of Bay or EZ?

As a comparison, I think I might consider sending them a soft-proofed (with corrections disallowed), and the same shot straight out of Photoshop with corrections allowed by the lab.

I haven't tried Bayphoto yet since their prints are a little higher in price and they are based in San Francisco.(which it might affect the shipping schedule since i'm in the east coast & EZ print is in Atlanta)

So far, from the prints I have ordered it end up as they look on my monitor even with color correction enabled.

[Loose Canon]

Thank you for that Chriss.

I'm kind of looking around trying to find an on-line printer that I know will give predictable results. And also how I can set myself up to get those predictable results, which I thought might involve soft-proofing. It would be nice if I didn't have to soft-proof, but I'm thinking that is going to be the best way to get consistency. One that I can be pretty sure that if I order prints when I'm on the "road", I'll know they are going to be what I expect when I get back. Or if somebody actually wants one (which is now starting to come up), I can be relatively sure that I would approve if I don't actually get to see it for myself before they get it in their hands.

I might even consider a sharing site as well.

Appreciate the kickback, Chriss.

[Ronny]

Harpo:

I started the research about a year ago and I built my site from a template by following a 12 weeks webinar for 6 month. I used the newer method from wordpress.

First you have to create/find a good domain name and that is not very easy, because there are many companies, who are making it their business to create names and want to sell it to you. Some domain names you can buy for as close as $100, but the most expansive one brought up more than a million and that is sex.com.
The best site to check out if a certain name is still available is http://www.whois.com. This site tells you exactly who owns it or if it is for sale or available. I have tried more than 100 different names and I have registered http:www.LetPicturesTalk.com, which was a standard template that I have learn to modify to my liking. Still this site is just basic, but soon another guy, who is good with html and ccs coding will help me to make my site look more professional.

As soon as you have find the right name for your site, you need to register your domain name like a patent.
I have registered 5 domain names for 5 years with http:www.godaddy.com, which is the largest in the usa and also one of the cheapest.

Now you own a domain name, but to build a weblog your new domain must also be hosted and one of the lowest cost in the nation is http://www.hostgator.com. I went with their baby program. In this program you may host one or 100 different names for the same price, I guess is still $6.36 a month. I did it here also for a 5 years period.
With each domain name you are able to add as many as you want email names, like harpo@mydomain.com

If you have done all the above you can start thinking of the kind of concept your website or weblog should look.
Are you a person who can build his own site, no problem. But if you need others, then find a person who can help you. Good web designers are not cheap and they will easy charge you a couple thousand $$. And even when the site is build you still have to know how to add pictures and stories to that site. And can you maintain it?
Here are a few sites/templates examples for photographers. http://dobeweb.com/2010/best-photo-g...ss-themes.html You can look at them by opening one by one and see what you like.

The sites like flikkr.com belongs to somebody else and you may use for a certain amount to park your pictures there.
If the owner sells that site you have nothing to say. If the owner raise the rent, you just have to except.
That is the same with people who use for their email adress hotmail, aol, yahoo, gmail and name them. these emails are not own by the people, but that company owns it. What if one day these big companies decide that the people with those sites have to pay a yearly rent? And from a marketing point it is better to have a www.LetPicturesTalk.com weblog and an email Ronny@LetPicturesTalk.com do not you agree?

I hope this will help you.

[Ronny]

That would knock out SmugMug. Unless there is an option on Smugmug I'm not aware of, you can see my site in the signature below and the domain name is part of Frostbyte.SmugMug.com.

Sorry FrankMi, but you do not own that site. They created for you a sub-domain name and forwarded it to their own domain.

[Peter Ryan]

I use Clikpic (there is a link on my web site - my choice not theirs). I use my own domain and can sell prints linked to Paypal. You can have multi user accounts but I am not sure how private they are as I have never needed to persue it.

[Crovean]

Sorry FrankMi, but you do not own that site. They created for you a sub-domain name and forwarded it to their own domain.

Ronny,

One of my online photo gallery is Photos.crovean.com and I also own the domain name crovean.com but this gallery is actually a smugmug hosted gallery. Which I pay them to host(Park as you say) my images. Honestly I could host my images myself but to save me the trouble of going thru all of that I just paid $150/year. What I get from it? A fully operational eCommerce site and an online gallery. By just saying that it made the $150/year so cheap now doesn't it?

To get back on the topic, if you are really serious with your photography try to get smugmug or zenfolio. This two is what I can recommend. I would favor smugmug more since I use it myself.

What if one day these big companies decide that the people with those sites have to pay a yearly rent?

Competition & Advertising money keeps them free. Now what if smugmug raise their fees? I doubt they would, there's a lot of competition out there that you can just move. Well maybe not me. I could still pay for it as long it has value to me.

[Ronny]

Ronny,

One of my online photo gallery is Photos.crovean.com and I also own the domain name crovean.com but this gallery is actually a smugmug hosted gallery. Which I pay them to host(Park as you say) my images. Honestly I could host my images myself but to save me the trouble of going thru all of that I just paid $150/year. What I get from it? A fully operational eCommerce site and an online gallery. By just saying that it made the $150/year so cheap now doesn't it?

To get back on the topic, if you are really serious with your photography try to get smugmug or zenfolio. This two is what I can recommend. I would favor smugmug more since I use it myself.


Competition & Advertising money keeps them free. Now what if smugmug raise their fees? I doubt they would, there's a lot of competition out there that you can just move. Well maybe not me. I could still pay for it as long it has value to me.

When I open your site crovean.com I see on top a menu bar and one said "web design" and another "web hosting"
Is that also from you? Do you own a web design business and a hosting company. Or is the top information from smugmug?
What happen if you quit your $150 deal. Do you loose all your crovean.com information? I may and can move my weblog to any place I want, because I am the sole owner. Do you?

[Crovean]

When I open your site crovean.com I see on top a menu bar and one said "web design" and another "web hosting"
Is that also from you? Do you own a web design business and a hosting company. Or is the top information from smugmug?

Yes, I am a web designer that offer hosting and do photography at the same time (FYI, I resell hostgator's web hosting for $2.50)

What happen if you quit your $150 deal. Do you loose all your crovean.com information?

If I quit smugmug, I would only loose smugmug and it's functionality. crovean.com would still be there because crovean.com and it's files is mine. Now I could spend several thousand dollars on a system like smugmug which I could own but that doesn't make any sense if you could get the same functionality plus more for $150/year.

I do have it integrated with my domain as if it looks like smugmug system(eCommerce & gallery) is mine, maybe less on the footer where it shows a smugmug copyright ^_^ That's how I got the http://photos.crovean.com

I may and can move my weblog to any place I want, because I am the sole owner. Do you?

Oh yes, I can do the same.

[Ronny]

Yes, I am a web designer that offer hosting and do photography at the same time (FYI, I resell hostgator's web hosting for $2.50)

Yes, that is the only option. My analyses was right. But not to many people has that knowledge/options.
Good for you.
To learn how to work and update my site is the result of the webinar that I followed for $299. There were 25 hours involved, 10 classes of instruction and 2 days later 10 classes of Q&A. Once it has been coded and done (especially the needed three different grey colors) I am able to maintained my site myself.