This is by far the best photo sharing site I've seen on the Web
Written: Oct 05 '09 (Updated Oct 06 '09)
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With all the free photo sharing sites available why should anyone pay to store their photos?
That used to be MY thinking. But it seemed like any of the sites I went to have certain limitations. For instance, Kodak, Snapfish, DotPhoto, Shutterfly and others required the users to buy something or else pay a yearly fee to keep their photos on the site. Some sites have a limit on the number of megabytes that are allowed on albums and there are those that require your friends and family to sign up for an account before they can see your pictures. Also, people have to endure the advertisements! And my biggest complaint is that most of the free sites do NOT allow anyone to save the original size image to their hard drive. That is because they want you to order prints from THEM!!
Along Comes www.smugmug.com
I noticed that one of my brothers and my nephew kept sending me links to our family photos and the site was called “SmugMug.” I went to check it out and lo and behold, for about $40 a year (not that much, really!!), you can store UNLIMITED number of photos. Photos for standard and power memberships can be as large as 12 mg each so that’s PLENTY big for most people. Members can create as many albums (called 'galleries') that they want and share the photos the way they want without asking friends and family to sign up for accounts or to buy the photos. Yes, if you choose to allow it, people can download the full size images to their computer and then they can print themselves or take to the photo lab of their choosing.
SmugMug does offer print and enlargement services along with the standard photo gifts such as mugs, photo canvas bags, puzzles, etc. at reasonable and competitive prices. We even ordered our holiday cards from SmugMug.com last year and were pleasantly surprised at how great the cards came out. The ordering process was simple and efficient. There was great communication as to when the cards would be printed and when they would arrive (they actually came ahead of when originally promised).
Setting up your galleries is quite easy. Members first set up a “category” and then “galleries” are set up within those categories. For instance, I have set up categories for each year of photos: 2009 and on down. Within those categories I have set up galleries with pictures of each event during the year such as vacations, birthday parties, etc. I have separate galleries for very old family pictures (from when I was growing up) and a category/gallery for pictures of our pets. In addition, SmugMug has a subcategory feature to further help you organize your photographs.
Customization Galore
Each gallery can be individually customized with passwords and a number of options that include a wide variety of look and feel site designs, whether you want photo/camera information to be shown or whether you want file names displayed. Or you can do this site wide. There are a number of privacy options, and choices on the maximum size of photos you want viewers to be able to see. SmugMug will show thumbnail photos up to 3x the size of your photo if you so choose. SmugMug is a family oriented site and they do not "allow anything that wouldn't be seen in a public museum that admits minors."
It’s easy as pie to sort your photos just about any way you want as well as move or copy photos to other galleries. There are so many customization choices and SmugMug makes it simple to learn how to use the site.
Social Networking and Help When Needed
SmugMug also makes it easy to share your photos to a number of the popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. There are also user forums and groups on SmugMug to ask questions or share your galleries or pictures with others. And if you need help from SmugMug staff, send them an email and you get a very friendly helpful answer usually within 24 hours. There’s also extensive online help for every facet of the site.
Need More Out of the Site?
This site will definitely be keeping my business for a long time. But what if you need MORE power? For $59.95/year you can upload DVD-quality video clips, you can give your site its own look and feel with customized banners and you can use your own domain name. If you want to prevent people from using your photos you can put in ‘right click’ protection.
If you’re a professional and want a really slick site, you can pay $149.95 and get the Professional Account (my kids’ sleep away camp had one of these accounts). The maximum size allowed for uploads is 24mg per picture (and unlimited number of photos, of course). The pro account lets members upload High Definition video clips and allows watermarking of photos to prevent use of your copyrighted pictures. You can also earn money by setting your own prices for prints and the photo merchandise to earn a profit.
SmugMug is not as widely known as Snapfish, Google’s Picasa, and others and I think that’s a good thing! The entire look and feel of the site is absolutely professional but still somehow retains a really friendly and a “you’re not just a number” feel. You can sign up for a 2 week trial to see how you like it. If you know another member of SmugMug you can get $5.00 off your first year by asking your friend or family member for a coupon code. I'm glad I did!
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
krus54
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Member: Dave Schwartz
Location: Henrico, VA
Reviews written: 134
Trusted by: 94 members
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