Before I go on, I need to confess that I don’t particularly like web apps. They are great for some things, but most of the time I would rather have the power of a full-blown, locally installed application. When it comes to photos, however, I just need something that will allow me to document, store, and share the photos. If I want to edit them, I’ll use the GIMP.
Keeping these simple needs in mind, smugmug does everything that I want/need, and looks great doing it. The interface is intuitive and easy-to-use, and the philosophy of the company rocks. Yeah, it costs a little bit of money, but they do allow unlimited storage and the features that come with the service make the price tag look more than fair:
- Ability to set comprehensive permissions for your photos.
- No advertisements – seriously.
- A really slick AJAX-style interface.
- Integrated photo purchasing support for families, friends, and fans.
- An intuitive interface that allows for easy upload and organization of photos.
If you’re looking for a way to manage your photos and make them available to others, you should definitely check out smugmug.
Listening to My Morning Jacket – Z…
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
This is timely information since I’ve been looking for a new online photo site. I just spent about 40 minutes wandering around their site and it looks great, I’ll definitely give it a try. thanks for the info.
Brian,
Glad to help! I just realized that I forgot to mention the free two week trial that smugmug offers to new customers. It is a true free trial, with no credit card needed to sign up.
Nate,
I’ve created my own photo thing on my site, and while it was kinda fun to create, I’ve been thinking that I need something that I don’t have to maintain, and I’m certainly going to check out smugmug again (I look at it very early on, and was kinda iffy on it then)
Cheers,
Dave
Dave,
I checked out your gallery. It is definitely smooth and well laid out. I was using Lokesh’s Lightbox JS 2 at first, but never added any photos, as there was just too much manual work involved (even though, to be honest, it’s not all that much work).
I’ve decided – and it sounds like you have, as well – that it is more important to have an easy (yet still elegant) way to organize and share photos. I especially love the fact that the onus of backing up/administering the photos is off of my shoulders. In the long run, I am willing to pay a bit for a service that I really need and use.
I created a trial account and uploaded ~250MB of photos to test. Everythign went very well, the univeral uploader java applets worked surprisingly well. Drag and drop upload is definitely the way to do this efficiently.
I haven’t tested their print quality yet but after reading how much effort they put into their choice of print labs, I’m not concerned about this at all.
also, the resampling quality of the online thumbnails is much, much better then the free sites.
all in all, I’m going to sign up for year and see how it goes but all indications are its a keeper. thanks again for prompting me to look at them again.
Brian,
Glad, again, to help. I’ve been playing with the interface more, and I continue to be impressed. The integration with Google Maps is cool, along with all of the batch edit tools (although they aren’t obviously quite as powerful as a desktop app would be).
I’m sure I’ll have much more to say about Smugmug as I really dive into using the service.