Where do you host your online images?

[anner]

I'm shopping servers and website hosting for a great place to host pictures. Currently I

only use my .Mac account and have yet to develop an original website. If you are using a

service of some kind, what do they provide? Online ordering? Developing? Printing? If

you host your own- did you create it yourself or hire someone and where do you host it?

Any extra details in this area are appreciated!

[anton frid photography]

smugmug :)

[rodolfo_negrete]

I can do it for like $250 to $350 dls(to design it)

[sabrina_h.]

I have 3 photography websites (different kinds of images) with http://www.doteasy.com

 

it costs me $35 a yr (something like that), 25 MB of webspace is included. My husband

designed all three; he's a graphic artist/web designer ... he charges $100 per page (of

course i got mine done for free; well, no money paid :D ). My husband also have 2

websites from them as well.

 

so combined, we have about 5 sites (maybe one or two others that we no longer use).

Never any problems with the service and no banner ads.

[lkv]

If it is just to showcase your work, you can ubild your own website and choose any cheap

hoting, or share a server with some friends (which is what I do).<br>

It took me a couple weeks to build the site (I had no knowledge of HTML, I propably could

do it now in 2 days ;) and the server is a few $ each.<br>

You also can ask a professional to design and build the site, but you will not be as

independent for the updates.<br>

[www.philwinterphotography.]

I did my own web site several years ago as a general place to publish my photographic projects and writing. If all you want is a place to store images that can be viewed and/or purchased by others, check out www.dotphoto The best part is, it's free. It's easy to set up "albums" which you can pasword protect. You can also set your own prices and send personal invitations to view a specific album.

 

Regards,

 

Phil

[Spearhead]

I've had two websites for almost ten years, one for music promotion (a site now in hibernation) and one for photography. My number one recommendation is that you get your own domain name, learn to build or get someone to build a website the way you want it, and you can then host at any site provide website hosting (or with your ISP.)

 

The reason for this is that the web world continues to be somewhat volatile, with companies disappearing, changing names, changing policies, and generally doing things on their terms, not yours. With your own domain and your own website, if the hosting company goes out of business or generally becomes unacceptable, you can make a seamless transition in several days. To anyone with a business, this should be the number one priority - nobody should ever be able to not find you.

[anner]

Does anyone send their film into an online developer like Adorama?

 

I'm pretty capable of creating an original website but I'm wondering about services that

will take orders for you, allow you to set your own price, do the printing for you, and just

send the profit back. I'm also excited that .Mac just bumped up their storage space to 250

MB for the same price as the old 100 MB.

[william_au]

I'm with Jeff on this one. Learning to design your own website is a lot easier than figuring out all the endless tweaks in photoshop (imo). Having your own domain name and hosting also offers a ton of flexibility as to how you want to do things, is cheap like borscht, and you can have a really easy site address You can post your pictures on your galleries and take orders via e-mail, or beg/borrow/download/design scripts that will let you take orders via your site. It still requires you to do the legwork on printing, but it's cheap and you're not at the mercy of another hosting company. I use icd soft as my hosting service, and they have been great, inexpensive, and their tech support is UNBELIEVABLE.

[drobles]

I have started using smugmug to host my images. I like the look of the website and one is allowed to customize the pages. My customers have found the site easy to use and have ordered prints and we have all been really happy. Smug mug allows you to set your own prices at the pro level ($99/year, I think.)

I think I may actually like the prints from MPIX better though. I also think that the thumbnails on mpix are crisper and lend to more of a "wow" factor when viewing the folders with a customer. For the jobs I deem "most important" I print through mpix.

I think the perfect combination would be a site that is everything that smugmug offers with the viewing, print customizing and printing that mpix offers

[peter_silvia1]

I have been using DigiProofs. Very simple to use and interact with.

[anner]

Peter,

 

Thank is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of! How are the print orders handled?

How is the payment handled? Thank you very much for posting this!

[brandonhamilton]

I host my own websites and serve my photos from there

 

http://brandonhamilton.com

 

My hosting provider was found through CNET as the #1 value webhosting company. http://www.ixwebhosting.com

[peter_silvia1]

Anne... When a customer clicks on a thumbnail, a larger version pops up along with the option of ordering the image as a color, b&w or sepia print. Order notification is emailed to me. I have my lab print the order and wait for the check. You can set up payment with credit cards if you want. You can contact digiproofs direct through their website: www.digiproofs.com or call Rick @ 650-691-4040 for details.

[chris m., central florida]

Shutterfly Professional Services can do everything for you. You can upload digital for free or send in film (high resolution scans at $3.79 per roll) and you can actually add neat art effects (not cheesy borders). I've had very good responses from my clients. The annual setup fee is $99-$199 depending on what package you choose.

 

Client enters their picture album using a password you set up for them, they can place orders based on your price structure, Shutterfly takes their 15% cut, you get a check at the end of every month.

 

You don't even need your own website to do this. Or you can link to each album out of your website.

 

Print quality is very comparable to Pictage, etc.

 

Bottom line, I don't have to deal with waiting for payments, etc. Everything is done via credit card on Shutterfly and they ship the prints to your client. OR, your client view the prints and you can place the order at wholesale print prices if you want to quality control everything.