My photography and smugmug, a happy marriage.
Written: Jul 12 '05 (Updated Jan 27 '08)
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Smugmug has become my best friend. My hobby is digital photography and as a result, I have gigabytes of photos that needed a home. Smugmug was the perfect fit. My family and friends can view my photos whenever they want, advertisement free, and even see the originals if they like! As for me, if my computer were to crash one day, there would be no worries about my pictures since I can easily order a backup of all my originals from Smugmug. Additionally, Smugmug's customer service is so quick and helpful, it actually surprised me the first time I emailed them- I got a response in half a day! With smugmug I couldn't be happier.
The facts
There are three levels of membership at Smugmug. All prices are per year:
Standard ($39.95)
Power User ($59.95)
Professional ($149.95)
Standard user's have unlimited photo storage, can view traffic reports (aka see what photos / galleries were popular and what size your photos were viewed at, etc). Customization is only basic (black or white basic theme, or pre-set global themes such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, color themes, and other generic sets). You have the protection of keeping your photos private if you want to or easily flaunting them off if you want to be public. Your photos are even viewable on the iPhone thanks to Smugmug staying up to date on technology.
Power user's have everything of standard, but can also upload up to 512MB clip video files (unlimited #'s of videos though) with a maximum length of 5 minutes per clip (HD files encouraged!), you have full co-branding abilities (aka you can replace smugmug's header, fully customize the colors, and all sorts of other fun things-- smugmug allows complete customization of the site if you have knowledge of CSS, and the customers on the forums are more then willing to help walk you through accomplishing this as well).
Professional users likewise have everything above, and in addition they can mark all photos with watermarks if they want, upload images as large as 24MB per image, as well as can profit from prints (because at smugmug you can always order prints of your photos from a very nice quality lab) and can have their site on a domain. Other perks include proof-delayed printing, where you can delay printing of shots until your customers order proofs, so that you only have to tweak what is being ordered. Smugmug supports hostnames if you have a domain you want your site to be viewed from.
I started at the Power level myself in 2005 due to my desire to customize my site, but recently moved to a Pro account over this past summer (2007) due to taking my photography to the next level.
Uploading
There are multiple ways to upload, several of which can be done right through the browser. I have tried the browser method though and don't really care for it since I'm often uploading lots of photos at once (on average between 50-200 at a time), I personally use software developed by one of smugmug's fanatic user's called Star Explorer. Smugmug is really nice in that they allow their users to create programs such as this and then will even put links to the software sites up on their own page.
Quality
Considering that your files can be up to 8MB for a single picture with a Basic and Power account, and up to 24MB for a professional account, and smugmug won't shrink your photo- quality is amazing in my opinion. The picture I upload looks the same as the picture I have on my computer. This to me is very important. It's one of the biggest reasons I had chosen to go with smugmug in the first place. Most free sites, Ofoto, Shutterfly, etc, resize your photo to a rather small and unflattering shot. With smugmug, if I upload a large file, when viewed in the gallery viewers can choose the size they wish to see my pictures at, whether that be thumbnails, small, medium, large, or *original*. This to me is really great. Oh and if you're worried about someone stealing your originals and calling them their own, you can also easily block originals from others people access in your gallery preferences. Also, smugmug recently increased the sizes you can view photos in (if you're not looking at the originals already) to keep up with ever increasing resolutions on monitors. They've also recently added a feature called "stretchy" galleries that put the most thumbnails possible in the browser screen depending on browser size and resolution. So you always get the most out of your photo viewing experience.
Ease of Use
When I first signed up I found the site very easy to work with. It didn't take me long to customize it to my whim and to get photos where I wanted them. You can sort photos by categories->subcategories->gallery. On your main page you can have it so that people view your Categories or just your galleries. I personally have a large amount of galleries so for me Category view is more convenient.
Storage
I originally went with Smugmug because of the large # of photo's I had after coming back from a 10 day trip to Japan... between myself and a friend, we had 2GB's worth of photographs! Most sites wouldn't let me upload that much, and if they did it would either be at a small view and probably not stay up on their site for a long period of time. So after much searching around, several good reviews pointed me to smugmug and I tried it out. They offer unlimited storage! Currently I'm using (as of January 2008) "photos uploaded: 32931 | disk space used: 43.36 GB" a lot of space as you can see. I've been a member since March of 2005, but was addicted only after a few months of using the site. Usually once I've fixed my photos up on Photoshop or Lightroom they go straight onto smugmug. It's a very nice feeling knowing that if anything were to happen to my computer that my pictures won't be lost. Smugmug keeps everything backed up on two servers, to make sure your photographs stay safe. Additionally if your computer does ever die, you can easily order back ups of your photographs from smugmug.
Sharing
Have a livejournal/blog? Frequent any web forums? You can easily hotlink your photo's to places you want to show them off at with smugmug. You can choose to hotlink any size from thumbnail to original... though most people generally just hotlink the Medium size since it's most convenient for these cases. Don't want someone else to be hotlinking to your photographs? You can also choose to disable hotlinking if this is the case. Either way it's a win win situation.
Have any pictures you don't want the whole world to see, maybe just a few close friends? You can also easily password protect galleries which is a definite life saver in some cases for your friends dignity!
Don't forget that everyone gets a subdomain so it should be fairly easy for family and friends to remember the URL to your smugmug page!
*A definite major plus with smugmug sharing- your friends *do not* have to sign up to be able to view your photos as with other sites. And they can still comment on photos just the same without an account.
Also- if you like a sense of community, Smugmug has a great forum, Digital Grin (www.dgrin.com) where you can talk with a large range of photographers from amateur to professionals and get advice on your shots / equipment, or partake in contests.
Customization
If you at the Power or Pro user level, you are able to customerize the look and feel of your site. Smugmug has recently implemented the ability to use CSS to completely change just about every aspect of your site so you can truly get a unique feel to your page that won't feel like anyone elses with a little time and patience with the coding. You can also use themes and have different galleries with different looks to them, saving your own themes or using some of smugmugs generic themes such as birthday, sports, holidays, etc.
Customer Service
Having now dealt with customer service a lot since originally writing this review, I believe it is something that must be added in. Smugmug has some of the best customer service I have ever seen. I am almost convinced these people do not leave their desks. I have sent emails through all times of the day, morning up to as late as 1:00am and managed to get replies usually in 30 minutes or less. Once I even got a reply in under 10 minutes. They are always extremely helpful to answering questions, and are always open to suggestions. I have yet to stump them, and always leave those emails back and forth feeling wiser and appreciated as a customer. Without a doubt, two thumbs up.
In Conclusion
Hopefully I haven't forgotten anything, but I would just like to wrap up by saying that if you have a lot of photographs, and quality, customer service, sharing, etc. matters to you, Smugmug probably is that home away from home for you. And if you don't believe me, you can at least take the 14 day trial and see for yourself. While yes you do have to enter credit card information in for the trial, you won't be charged if you cancel your account before the 14 days are up. The trial is really a key part in making a decision here. After all, as with buying a car: Even if all your friends told you it was the best car out there, you wouldn't buy it without test driving it first would you?
If you choose to go for it: Smumgug has a great referral program. Save a friend $5 and earn $10 for the following years renewal. My coupon code is vxHzaWf8dLYu6 and that goes in the Referral page on the sign up. If you think I wrote this review for referrals though, I assure you that is not the case and you can feel free to find someone else's code or not use a code at all.
http://www.smugmug.com/?referrer=vxHzaWf8dLYu6
By the way, if you want to see what I've done with smugmug, my site is located at: http://shima.smugmug.com
Updated on April 2nd, 2006 to reflect the increase in prices from January 27th, 2006 and the increase in bandwidth from March 16th, 2006. Updated on September 15th, 2006 to reflect the increase in the trial period from 7 days to 14 days. Updated on January 27th, 2008 to reflect unlimited traffic, iPhone compatibility, increased video storage quality and ability, and other new features.
Recommended:
Yes
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About the Author
Member: Cat Rodery
Location: Millbrae
Reviews written: 4
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me: Technical project manager in network engineering, black belt x 2, wedding photographer, skier
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