What service do you use to show off your images?

[smilinmonki666]

I'm looking into what service to use to create a portfolio of my images. With having a Gmail account I've been looking into that, but have also seen Flickr but I need a Yahoo account & can't be bothered to set it up at the moment.

Which do you use & why? Also, what would you like to see?


Thanks?

 

[Tesselator]

My own desktop machine running an HTTP server or my ISP's free 10gig allotted space.

Why? Complete control over every aspect of content - logging - delivery, speed, and both those options are free.

 

[bertpalmer]

Well I have my own website but I keep that for a portfolio to show clients.

My main source of sharing is flickr. Some people don't like the way it looks and whilst agree photos look better on black I don't think it is SO bad.

Very easy to use and great to share your photos with a WIDE audience.

 

[rogersmj]

I maintain a gallery on my own site that I update every so often (this is good for one-off answers to "Can you show me some of your work?"), but my daily place is Flickr in order to expose my images to as large an audience as possible. I've had an account for awhile, but just started being really active there a few weeks ago, so I'm still struggling to get a lot of people to comment and look at my shots. I make the rounds every day though and find other people's pictures to comment on, and it's improving slowly. I'm a little jealous of some of my contacts -- they post a picture, and often within 2 or 3 hours they've got 20 comments!

 

[Ryan1524]

I use flickr at the moment, but will probably have my own website once I get really serious about it.

 

[Clix Pix]

I use PBase.com or Zenfolio.com to share and show off my images in a really nice gallery format. Smugmug is also an excellent site as well. All three of these will present images in a much nicer, more professional looking format than Flickr. Depends upon what you want. If it's simply social networking and sharing snapshots with family and friends, Flickr is probably the best choice. If you are interested in presenting a portfolio, any of the other three. If you are thinking about selling images, then Zenfolio and Smugmug are the way to go.

 

[jaseone]

I'm looking into what service to use to create a portfolio of my images. With having a Gmail account I've been looking into that, but have also seen Flickr but I need a Yahoo account & can't be bothered to set it up at the moment.

Well it depends on what you want to do exactly, do you just want to put your photos out there for people to see & comment on or do you want a profesional looking portfolio?

Flickr is hands down the best when you want to share your photos and get feedback on them without also posting them to forums like this one.

I find Google's Picasa to be best for sharing photos with friends/family simply because Picasa isn't blocked on a lot of the corporate firewalls.

If you want a professional portfolio then you are looking at the likes of SmugMug, Zenfolio or rolling your own, using a service like SmugMug or Zenfolio has the added benefit of including the ability to easily order prints and if you get a pro level account you can charge for prints/downloads as well.

If you go with SmugMug don't fall for the trap of using a referral code from an existing user but rather google for smugmug coupon codes and get one of the Flickr related 50% off coupon codes.

 

[canoeman]

I have used Flickr and find it has nice slideshows, etc., and also a very wide audience. I have also found any number of friends getting lost in the menus trying to get signed in, find my albums, etc. Several have just given up and I know from the number of views that some others never got to all the albums. They have recently redesigned their interface and made it more cluttered, and I even get lost myself trying to get directly to "sets" of something I know are there.

I would advise with Flickr that you make a direct link to the sets you want them to see so they can bypass the signin.

I am in the process of setting up my my own website that is "myname.com" so I can just tell friends to go to that and they won't have trouble remember where or getting on.

Agree with others re. Zenfolio looking more professional and pretty easy to get around in.

 

[pdxflint]

I've been using Picasa Web Albums, and it's pretty straightforward and easy to use, and link to. Also, Picasa software (free) makes using it a snap. It's really good to start out with... and you already have a gmail/google account. Give it a try. I also have flickr, but I find it to be a bit tedious in comparison.

 

[herkyjerky]

If you want to sell, try exposuremanager.com. Good price and easy to use.

 

[termina3]

SmugMug

 

[Wingnut330]

I use Picasa web albums as well. I plan to switch over to my .Mac / Mobile Me account soon.

 

[Cliff3]

I've had my own domain since 2000. It's hosted on Linux servers and I have around 400GB of disk space. I run Gallery 2 software on it, among other things.

 

[smilinmonki666]

Thank you for your replies so far. I'm very impressed with smugmug, shame it's not free. What feature do you look for in a online service? Smugmug seem to have them all to a point...?

 

[termina3]

I'm very impressed with smugmug, shame it's not free. What feature do you look for in a online service? Smugmug seem to have them all to a point...?

SmugMug isn't free because they aren't willing to sell advertising space.

I look for ease of use and reliability first and foremost. The site should be easy to manage and not breakdown.

Then looks and style. This is highly subjective.

Then customer service. SmugMug has some of the best customer service ever. Responses within 20 minutes are commonplace anytime of the night (or day). That said, I'm disappointed they haven't gotten around to coupons... grrr

Then all the ancillary topics (sales, prints, etc) that may be more important to you than to me.

 

[osin]

Are you looking for free service only? If not, I will go with zenfolio.com if I were you. Simple and nice looking themes and awesome customer service...
You can open a 14 day free trial and see for yourself if you like it...

 

[Edge100]

Smugmug. It's not free, but if you can come up with the $30/year, it's well worth it. Absolute top-notch service.

I'm working on a portfolio that will be separate from my Smugmug account, but I use SM as a main repository.

 

[anubis]

Smugmug is definitely superior for what I need... there's not much it can't do and is a great service for the money... great customer support, too. They basically helped me custom code my web site for free

 

[Stratification]

I've been using Virb personally, it can be set up to display and feature photos in a number of ways. It's also pretty flexible, particularly if you're willing to get into the advanced editing of your profile.