Zenfolio VS Smugmug

<p>I've signed up for both trails and quite honestly it isn't enough time for me to dive into both as much as I'd like.<br /><br />Im laymen's terms which do you use and why? Would really be helpful and I thank you in advance.<br /><br />What I do: Equine photographer so need people to be able to order online but since it's a part time business I can handle most orders on my own so if I can save a buck that way its fine. I also do portraits and weddings locally (on a very small selective scale) so I can also handle those orders personally. Basically looking for something to streamline my proofing and have a basic website included so I'm not going through 2 programs. Online ordering is nice but not a HUGE priority for me but may be it's because I havent gone that route yet... I may like it.</p>

<p>Hi Kim,<br>

Here is a forum link comparing the two- http://www.photo.net/casual-conversations-forum/00aF6U<br>

Smugmug and Zenfolio seem to be the favorites on these forums. I never tried Zenfolio, so I can't give you any feedback on it. When I began my search for a website, the majority of photographers told me Smugmug, so I went with them and I have been very pleased with their service. Have used them since 2007 and sold over a thousand prints/products to clients with no complaints so far! They offer 2 printing companies. One for custom printing and product gifts and another company for even higher quality printing. I have always used their basic printing company (EZ Prints) and clients have been satisfied. For superior printing they offer Bay Photo. <br />

<strong>PS...Here is another link comparing websites and Smugmug was very popular-</strong> <a href="00YgL7" rel="nofollow">http://www.photo.net/business-photography-forum/00YgL7</a></p>

<p>I also use smugmug, and have been for almost 5 years. Their service is really good and you get unlimited uploads/storage, for the price they are pretty good. <br>

<p>Thanks so much for the info. Always great to hear from those that use the services. And for sure John if I choose Smugmug I'll use your referral.</p>

<p>All Zenfolio accounts except the Basic level give unlimited storage space as well (Basic gives you 4 GB + 2GB per year of membership). And of course with Zen you could use <em>my</em> referral code TK6-VCE-FAY to get 10% off from you first year's fee.<br>

You might want to take a look at the respective feedback forums (<a href="http://feedback.smugmug.com/forums/17723-smugmug">Smugmug</a> / <a href="http://zenfolio.uservoice.com/forums/75695-feature-suggestions">Zenfolio)</a> to see what user are still missing the most with their chosen service.<br>

Above all I want my site to look good as a presentation of my pictures. When I trialed both (as well as Photoshelter) I found the customization limits at Smugmug constricting:<br>

Removing the Smugmug header broke certain themes (leaving a box bottom open at the top of the page). <a href="http://feedback.smugmug.com/forums/17723-smugmug/suggestions/1613543-allow-pros-to-remove-footer">You can't remove the footer notice "powered by Smugmug" even with a Pro account</a>, while a Zenfolio Premium site like mine <em>can</em> have all Zen branding removed. I think you can't even have your own favicon on Smugmug ...<br>

On Smugmug, if you wanted to show image titles in a gallery thumbnail view it would just take a certain limited number of letters from the beginning of the caption (And a caption "Hörschbachtal" would be displayed as "Hörschbach..." under the thumbnail. Yes, they'd abbreviate three letters with an ellipsis). On Zen I can define a title and a caption seperately.<br>

There was a "category" forced into the path to my galleries, looking particularly spiffy with German gallery titles: "Andreas Weber > Landscapes > Landschaften" ... ("Landschaften" is German for "Landscapes".<br>

I went with Zenfolio; here is my <a href="http://www.zauber-allenthalben.de/">photo gallery</a>.</p>

<p>It's been awhile since I last looked into these two options. At that time, I decided against them for these reasons:</p>

<p>- customization can be challenging and/or restrictive</p>

<p>- almost all sample sites I visited only have gallery pages, and no pages for text, etc.</p>

<p>Andrea Weber's Zenfolio site has renewed my interest. Reasons:</p>

<p>- No branding in sight, making the site look hand crafted from scratch and not based on templates.</p>

<p>- The overall layout is simple and similar to what I have in mind. Note that each page (except the home page) has the same header and footer, making the entire site look consistent and easy to navigate.</p>

<p>- There is an About page:<br /> http://www.zauber-allenthalben.de/about.html</p>

<p>- There is a blog:<br /> http://www.zauber-allenthalben.de/blog</p>

<p>Questions for Andrea:</p>

<p>- How much customization had you done with your site: page layout, inserting the About and blog pages, etc.?</p>

<p>- What did it take for you to customize your site? Need html, css, javascript, etc. skills? Need customer support from Zenfolio?</p>

<p>- I like your navigation menu bar with the drop-down selections. What will it take to add a second (or third) level fly-out menus from a drop-down selection?</p>

<p>- If you know of other Zenfolio customized sites similar to yours, please point me to them.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance.</p>

<p>Thanks a lot for the praise, Robert! (Although the name is "Andrea<strong>s</strong>"; here in Germany "Andrea" would be considered a girl's name. ;-) )<br>

Regarding your questions:</p>

<ul>

<li>Basically I took Zen's "Minimalist" theme and stripped down from there. Page layout is determined by selecting which page elements to show and in what arrangement (Click "Yes" or "No", respectively "Layout 1", "Layout 2" or "Layout 3"). "About", "Contact" and blog are built-in pages; for quite a while now you can add unlimited so-called "custom pages", where you can display text, pictures and videos "outside" the galleries. See Oscar Deans <a href="http://oscardean.com/privacy-policy">privacy policy</a> for example.</li>

<li>No coding required at all (even though I <em>do</em> know a bit about HTML and CSS). No customer support requested, either. Actually I'm <em>giving</em> quite a bit of support on the <a href="http://forums.zenfolio.com/forums/default.aspx">user forums</a> (see their "Most Active Users" listing ...) ;-)</li>

<li>Stacked drop-downs aren't possible (and would be a bad idea from a usability point of view anyway).</li>

<li>You might take a look at the <a href="http://forums.zenfolio.com/forums/t/4075.aspx">site feedback</a> forum thread. Lot's of Zennies put links to their sites up for critique there. (Start <a href="http://forums.zenfolio.com/forums/t/4075.aspx?PageIndex=120"><em>at the end</em></a> to see the new sites first!)</li>

</ul>

<p>I'm quite happy with my site as it is now. Getting there initially might have take a month or so, since in the beginning I had no clear idea of the design I wanted to create. Recreating a <em>given</em> Zen site design from scratch should be a matter of hours.</p>

 

<p>As mentioned my Smugmug site it very basic and took a couple of hours for me to set up. I had no experience at all with websites. Smugmug walked me through the basics and are always an email away if I have a question.<br>

I don't need fancy. I want customer to click on my site, find their gallery and be able to easily place an order. Smugmug does that very well for me and again, I have sold over 1,000 prints without 1 order returned. That works for me:)<br>

Take a look at these Smugmug websites samples if you want to see various customized styles. http://www.smugmug.com/photos/example-photo-sharing-sites/ Members can include Bios, Blogs, Guestbooks, Clients, Videos, Tutorials, FAQ, etc...</p>

<p>PS....I want to thank the person that used me as a referral today. I see from your website that your in the UK. I will not post your name since you did not comment on the thread. I'm sure you will be very pleased.<br>

Kim Arndt, at first I thought it was you, but when I checked the referral it was a different name.</p>

<p>Oops, Andreas. Sorry I got your name wrong, and thanks for your response. More questions:</p>

<p>- Does Zenfolio provide any guidance on how to prepare and insert "custom pages"?</p>

<p>- If I already have a domain name registered elsewhere, can I use it for Zenfolio?</p>

<p> </p>

<p>John, there's nothing wrong with a very basic site, especially if you do all the marketing offline and visitors to your site basically already <em>are</em> customers who just want to get to their pictures. Zenfolio specifically offers three layouts for the homepage that do away with the fancy slideshow and instead just present a thumbnail overview of your galleries. Or you can even use a "Client Access Page", where customers can just enter the code you gave them beforehand and are taken directly to their corresponding gallery.</p>

<p>Robert, no offense taken (obviously).</p>

<ul>

<li>Zenfolio has an extensive online <a href="http://help.zenfolio.com/">help center</a> (admittedly it might be lagging somewhat after the introduction of new features). Creation of custom pages is covered <a href="http://help.zenfolio.com/customer/portal/articles/408187-creating-custom-pages">here</a>. Once the page is created you can link to it from anywhere, including but not limited to your site menus. Btw., you can define independently what items should be on the front page menu, the page header or the footer.</li>

<li>Provided your registrar allows the <a href="http://help.zenfolio.com/customer/portal/articles/408210-using-your-own-custom-domain-name">necessary DNS settings</a> and you have at least an "Unlimited" account, yes. The basic address your site gets from Zenfolio is username.zenfolio.com (you'll find my site through <a href="http://andreasweber.zenfolio.com">andreasweber.zenfolio.com </a>as well as through the "zauber-allenthalben" domain name). If you have a domain registered you point it at Zen's servers (actually a load balancing content delivery network ...) and then tell Zen in your account settings that all traffic inbound for that address wants to see <em>your</em> site.</li>

</ul>

<p>Thanks for the references, Andreas.</p>

<p>I just come across this thread with many Zenfolio VS Smugmug comments:</p>

<p>http://www.dpchallenge.com/forum.php?action=read&&FORUM_THREAD_ID=1070735&order=DESC</p>

<p>For those who use Lightroom, note the Zenfolio plugin mentioned in the thread. That sounds like a very useful tool.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Stacked drop-downs aren't possible (and would be a bad idea from a usability point of view anyway).</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Agreed that usability can be a problem. I intend to have 12+ galleries with different topics on my site, and think that staked drop-down menus would be a good way for an hierarchical organization and easier navigation.</p>

<p>I looked into Smugmug but found that their limited acceptance of TIFF files was a bit of a constraint. Since most of my files are TIFF, I was not about to modify all of those to meet their requirements. If I am the customer, they should be flexible with file types. </p>

<p>Hmm, Zenfolio does accept TIFFs, but I don't see how the limitation to JPEG could be a problem.<br>

Oh, and an export plugin for Lightroom is available for Smugmug as well (from the same author as for Zen).</p>

<p>My film was scanned to TIFF as I prefer to sell it in that form. I'll have to check out Zenfolio.</p>

@Andreas Weber... I just checked out your site and no images are showing. I'm not sure if it something at my end or your (Zenfolio's) end, but you might want to check it out. I'm using the latest Firefox v13.0. Cheers.

<p>Checking from sombody elses computer (I'm not at home right now) my page looks like it should in Internet Explorer, Chrome and Safari. Firefox is not available on this machine; but that's the browser I use at home and I never noticed any problems.<br>

Either it was a temporary glitch on Zen's end or I'd suspect a problem on your side.</p>

Yeah, it's working now. Must have been some glitch somewhere.

Hang on, I take that back. It started working earlier, but it's not working again. It's only your front page. Your galleries display images fine. The front page is showing grey squares in place of images. Refresh does nothing. I'd contact them about it.

<p>Andreas, I'm using firefox and it is opening fine for now. I checked Safari and no problem there either. 154pm central time.</p>

<p>Many thanks, Bernie and John. Good to know either way ...</p>