image Hosting

[revolver]

<p>which do you use to host your photo's?<br /><br />Photobucket is kind of played. looking for a new place with better features.<br /><br />I joined Imagur but I dont like it that much yet. The free account as they all have limitations. I dont mind paying for the better account and features so I am trying them both out.<br /><br />I have to get my act together. I have six years or so of unorganized digital photos. It really piles up compared to film....<br />although the other option is upgrading here and using Photo net's hosting. How is their pay account?<br />does it rival the others?<br /><br />for all the help and fun conversations I have had here and find it a wealth of info, I want to pay for what I know I get here. seems only right.<br /><br /><br />Thoughts?</p>

[wolf_weber]

<p>I'd like to be more encouraging, Christopher... Especially since your work has merit. In my experience though, no matter which venue one opts for, it's pretty much <em>"for the birds"</em> in today's world. Some weeks ago I roamed around NY's Ctrl. Park for a day, where I noticed that practically everyone was photographing everyone and everything... Many with quality equipment.<br>

From what I understand, 100's of millions of pictures get uploaded every day around the planet. Where I was one of few with a given subject, say, 10 years ago, search engines now come up with many 1000's, sometimes 100's of 1000's, even millions of images. In order to stand out, one has to spend way too much. Except for those on an <em><strong>ego trip</strong></em>, (in my humble opinion) it doesn't pay.</p>

[geoffs1]

<p>I host on a shared server using home-brew HTML and <a href="http://jalbum.net">JAlbum </a>galleries: http://moving-target-photos.com/samples/<br>

It's not for everyone, but it gives me the most control at a very modest price.</p>

[r.t. dowling]

<p>Sort of related to what Wolf Weber wrote is this opinion piece by Ken Rockwell (scroll about one-third of the way down the page until you get to the headline <strong>"Disposable Photos"</strong>):</p>

<p>http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/00-new-today.htm</p>

<p>As far as image hosting is concerned, I'm still using Photobucket myself. I'm not a big fan of the changes they've made in recent times, but I'm too lazy to switch to something else.</p>

<p>I like Geoff's suggestion. Web site hosting is ridiculously cheap these days, and having your own site would give you complete 100% control. The biggest difference, which may or may not be a downside for you, is that you don't have the "social" features found on image sites like Flickr.</p>

<p>If you decide to go that route, try DreamHost. I've had great experiences with them in the past. For about $4 a month you can get your own site with your own domain name and unlimited storage. Not a bad deal. http://www.dreamhost.com/promo/sizzling395/</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>I, personally, am a Photo.net "exclusive". Since I don't expect anything from it, it satisfies my needs more than adequately. ;)</p>

 

[revolver]

<p>Wolf, Thanks for the compliment and yeah, I agree about everyone with a cell phone is now a photographer <Roll eyes><br /><br />Geoff....Nein sprechen sie those words in any language...lol<br /><br />Thanks RT<br /><br /><br />JDM, does the pay account have tools like blemish repair?</p>

[revolver]

<p>Holy Cow! on Flickr you can search by camera model.<br /><br />There are almost 6 million! pictures by that camera alone....<br /><br />wow</p>

[andrewg_ny]

I like Flickr. Less control than self-hosting but I like the feature set, and while you don't need to use the social features

you may find yourself enjoying them. Obviously on a site like that there will be many users uploading every picture they

take like a digital dumping ground, but it's not hard to find good stuff.

 

Also you probably want to remove barriers to getting this work done -- so things like easy bulk uploading, integration in Lightroom, iPhoto, etc are very useful.

[michael_elenko]

Go with Smugmug. Period. They just reengineered the site and it rocks. I haven't updated my stuff because I still have to

learn the options. Besides nice lookin' templates, they now allow you to have up to seven levels of catalog structure. That

should do me for another ten years.

Zenfolio is a worthy alternative, but since SM's re-do, it is inferior. Most of the free sites have cheesy layouts, worse ads, or

both, or storage limits. No thanks.

 

ME