Advice on photosharing websites

[DisFam95]

Hello

I'm wanting to start a share site for one of my sons organizations. I have a shutterfly account that I use to make books so did one of their share sites and I saw that people could download straight to their computer so thought that was good but now I discovered it's only a low res option. They are a print service so I'm sure that's to encourage use of their service after all

I use flickr too but not sure that's much different.

I friend has mentioned smugmug but I'm not familiar w them.

Shutterfly was nice because it's password protected. So we were looking for that and the ability for all members of our group to upload and download high res.

EDIT to add...I'd also like the ability for everyone in the group to be able to access (via password or whatever) and be able to upload thier shots.

So I need
password protected
original size downloads
multiple user access



Thanks so much!

 

[ssanders79]

I do not have a smugmug account, but I did look into it about 6 months back. They allow depending on the subscription you purchase to create your very own photo website. You can password protect each album so say you shot an event you could share that password with one group while a second shoot will be protected with a different password. They also allow full res downloads and the ability to set up a store.

I was more interested in sharing photos so I just upgraded to a Flickr Pro account to lift the restrictions. I liked smugmug, but not for the price as I had no intention to market and sell my images. While it would be nice to have that option, it did not seem worthwhile for me.

 

[DisFam95]

I have a flickr pro acct but I have never looked at sharing like this. I don;t really want all these people in the organization for my son looking at my personal stuff

Can you download original size from other peoples Flickr? I've never really looked.

 

[gruZ]

Big fan of Smugmug. You can password protect individual galleries (or your entire account), restricting access to those only with the password. Also, you can make a gallery "unlisted" which means that unless someone has the direct link, there is very little chance it will be stumbled upon randomly. Password can (but doesn't have to) be added to an "unlisted" gallery.

Their customer service is top-notch, and there are dozens of options for customization depending on which service level you choose. Shameless plug - if you would like to receive a $5 discount off your first year, you can use my coupon code: ERL3sXeBwNopQ

If you have any other questions about Smugmug, let me know. And no, I don't work for them, but have been a happy customer for 3+ years.

 

[handicap18]

Saw this story about Flickr this morning....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/01/flickr-deletes-photos_n_817218.html?ref=fb


I use smugmug and LOVE it.

I use it for my DS' baseball team photos. Those galleries are password protected and unlisted. I also have them right click protected so they can't download the images, but I have them available to buy for download or prints (at a small markup price).

I also use it for our local Down syndrome family group that I take pictures for. Those images I keep available for the families to download to their computers if they'd like or they can buy images at a small markup price.

I have photographed 2 weddings that I got paid for. Images for those weddings I gave the option for password protection. I also made the images right click protected so that the only way to get the images was to buy the download or buy the images which I marked up the price accordingly.

With the smugmug power account, you get right click protection. With the pro account you get the ability to change the price of the purchased images so you can make some money and you also get the ability to have all images watermarked.

With all their accounts you get the ability to have private unlisted/password protected galleries.

Save a friend $5 on a SmugMug subscription..... eeWMM89aMx1lc

 

[photo_chick]

I have been using smugmug for a few years now and have been very happy with the service.

The main reason I switched to them in the first place was because I was sick and tired of hosting sites that "optimized" my images, in the process changing color, contrast, etc. I wanted my images to look like my images, not some flat dull copy of my images. I know the site does run some minimal processing on the images, but it does not change them visually.

I do find I use the password protected galleries a lot now for my kids school, dance, scouts, etc... It wasn't why I switched, but the ease of use for these things, along with the stat tracking, is part of why I stay there.

 

[coloneldebugger]

another vote for smugmug.

 

[C&B Young]

Happy smugmugger here also. For what it offers (unlimited storage, no ads, ability to organize) the $40/yr basic plan is a bargain. I upgraded to the $60 power account because I wanted to customize the look of my site a little more, but for your photo sharing needs the basic should work just fine.