Author Topic: User friendly . . . (Read 16191 times)

dessa · « **on:** March 16, 2008, 12:24 PM »

Want help knowing what is a user friendly, well designed program that:
Is e-commerce for photographers
Has password for private viewing by each client
Completely controlled by photographer (no ongoing costs if no sales)
May or may not have security for handling payments
Flexible as to pricing, thumbnails, overall design
Has shopping cart
Email notification when order placed
Prefer program on CD
For non professional web user
These are starters for now.
Server capabilities as needed. . .
dessa

cmpm · « **Reply #1 on:** March 16, 2008, 01:06 PM »

very funny! I'll say it if no one else wants to.

what kind of photos? for "private viewing"

dessa · « **Reply #2 on:** March 16, 2008, 01:42 PM »

Clients viewing photo proofs of their shoot before deciding on which photos to order.
dessa

mediaguycouk · « **Reply #3 on:** March 16, 2008, 02:13 PM »

Are you talking about creating one or trying to use a current one? If you want to use something like this then the biggest is probably www.istockphoto.com that has most, if not all, of the above.

cmpm · « **Reply #4 on:** March 16, 2008, 03:19 PM »

Here's another-

http://www.bayphoto....aymoments_intro.html

But you will not find one that is completely controlled by the photographer.
They will have control also, via the license agreement.

You don't need a program on a cd if complying with the terms of use.

Too many red flags in your post, so I question what 'kind' of photos.
To which you did not answer. Perhaps 'type' would be a better word.

dessa · « **Reply #5 on:** March 16, 2008, 06:29 PM »

The site I am wanting to use the "store" with is:
http://www.arthursphoto.com/index.html
The sign in page has links in the collage but this is really make shift. We will have to change internet provider to do what is needing to be done.
It is a family site!

J-Mac · « **Reply #6 on:** March 17, 2008, 01:51 AM »

dessa,

Not sure if this is close to what you want, but take a look at Smugmug. Their Pro account allows ecommerce, you can setup categories and subcategories for your galleries and setup different passwords for each.

Jim

dessa · « **Reply #7 on:** March 17, 2008, 10:13 AM »

Jim,
Thanks! So far Smugmug looks very promising. dessa

J-Mac · « **Reply #8 on:** March 18, 2008, 02:11 AM »

Good. I hope it works for you. I have had an account there for two years now - Power, not Professional account. I am not a photographer; I just wanted my photos online at a place that was more secure than Flickr. On Flickr someone had made a number of pics of my granddaughters "Favorites". When I went to look at their pages it was a collection of small children in various stages of undress - babies being bathed, little girls bending over, etc. Flickr didn't care very much. Smugmug is family-run, has true privacy features, and doesn't tolerate stuff like that. A very nice community there. And it IS loaded with professional photographers selling prints as well as family point-and-shooters like me.

Jim

iphigenie · « **Reply #9 on:** April 11, 2008, 09:15 PM »

I have been looking around and testing lately and I tried both Smugmug and their main competitor (in the slick and pretty category) Zenfolio and pbase (in the pro/sell category)

I did a trial in both of them and I think Zenfolio gallerieslooks better but smugmug has a small edge in certain features (more integration) and a more vibrant community, and pbase has the best commenting culture and best search and optimisation.

Neither zenfolio nor smugmug seems to offer even a basic upload in opera

There's a few others and here's my totally subjective assessment - and I am curious about what others who have tried some think of them.

Maybe this will be useful for the next person wondering how to put their different sets of images

Best for pro/semi pro client facing galleries
Smugmug http://www.smugmug.com
Zenfolio http://www.zenfolio.com
pbase http://www.pbase.com

and to go on tangents:

best for commenting/discussing
photo.net http://www.photo.net - one of the oldest communities still active in near enough its original form. The photos there are of a very high level I wouldnt dare post mine but I have been hanging out there forever

flickr - although theres a lot of noise in there, theres also a high chance to get seen
my.opera.com - galleries actually look quite nice and clean, and the community will look and comment

webaperture http://www.webaperture.com - active commenting of the encouraging kind but the design has aged. a lot.
pbase

for sharing with friends and family
72 photos http://www.72photos.com/
23 http://www.23hq.com/
flickr

for linking to and integrating in blogs/sites
smugmug
flickr

photoblog (1 a day)
blipfoto http://www.blipfoto.com
aminus3 http://www.aminus3.com

to upload something for use on forums, etc
photobucket.com
imageshack.us
webshots.com

for mixed media
deviantart.com
showthatportfolio.com

I looked at a few more I cant even remember, and I would be interested in any really good ones I havent tried, in any of those categories

At the moment I have a few images in flickr, and most of my images in my.opera and 72folders - I just couldnt justify paying for the yearly fee a the prices the big guys, no matter how pretty and feature rich they are. Maybe in a fewmonths this might change, but for now i'll see how 72folders matures.

72folders is still beta at the moment, but the upload tool works in opera 9.25 and 9.27 and to about 90% of features in the beta. The design could use some polish and the slideshow and feed/site widgets need developing, and there is not much of a commenting or discussing culture, but the basics are sound and the workflow to add/tag/assign images is quite slick (it even has some online editing which i havent tried so i cant say if that works in opera). I am at http://iphigenie.72p...tos.com/view/profile

I actually like the community at my.opera and the design is clean, but uploading image by image is a pain and will limit my use of it. I'm at, predictably... http://my.opera.com/iphigenie/albums/ - mostly the same pics as now on 72 folders, but less of them and sometimes an earlier version. I will probably evolve this into something different from what is on 72folders

I also got lured into blipfoto.com, the image-a-day concept. Started 5 days ago so we'll see, but I must say the design is minimalistic and beautiful. Maybe someone else at DC wants to play

I'm @ http://www.blipfoto.com/iphigenie

I also have a whole bunch of family/travel pics of no artistic value but which i want to share with the people on the pics, and for that I am not sure yet, but I might use a differnt 72folders account. Or flickr. Or webshots since I have a credit of 100000 images there, habing registered in 2000 and forgotten about it.

iphigenie · « **Reply #10 on:** April 11, 2008, 09:21 PM »

I mean it when I say blipfoto is one of the cleanest crispest photo showing design - i wish some of the pro sites offered a look like that

J-Mac · « **Reply #11 on:** April 11, 2008, 11:20 PM »

I'll add a plug for real privacy pf your photos at Smugmug. Important if you are uploading photos of your children or grandchildren. Flickr and a lot of others have a "privacy" setting that does just about nothing to safeguard the kiddies' pics. Smugmug has some serious privacy, allowing you to hide your private photos even from Google searches, and to password protect galleries and even individual photos.

That was important to me - especially when I saw on Flickr that someone had marked some pics of my granddaughters as his "favorites". When I looked at those photos I noticed that they were always of the girls in their underwear or bathing suits. (They were 2 and 3 at the time). I checked that site and it was full of porn and pics of little girls. Not exactly what I had in mind when I had set them as "Private" on Flickr.

Just one of my reasons for using SmugMug now.

Jim

iphigenie · « **Reply #12 on:** April 12, 2008, 03:04 AM »

I am amazed, I never heard of the private settings in flickr not working, although I know with caching and stuff if you dont make your photo private from the start it gets tricky. That is pretty lax of them since they themselves have a special faq on protecting children (make them private, or if not then dont use real names or geocoding and dont publish to groups)
I like the flickr admin, its actually quite steamlined, but I dont like the amount of noise on the site. I only started using it recently when trying to use a bit more all my yahoo toys, uploaded 3 pics.
Flickr does make it easy to integrate images in your blog, because everyone integrates with flickr.
I like that it supports the creative commons license, I think it did a lot to promote that approach. I dont like that peole completely ignore that and take anything they want from flickr.
It is probably the best choice if you want to use photos to extend your footprint, if you want your images to by found by natural search, and if you want to build popularity and bring links to your site.

I really liked smugmug

, it has a very vibrant forum community, the support is top notch, everyone cares. But I am trying to be thrifty and trying something simpler. I am still very tempted, as much for the community as for the slightly better look and for the satisfaction of using a grown up tool. But I have learned to catch myself and try to find cheaper/simpler alternatives first. I'm also still very tempted also because it is so easy to integrate from acdsee (which is good since upload wont work from opera) and there are more tools and widgets available (i really want to show some pics on my website!) and you never know someone *might* just buy an images one day and wouldnt i feel chuffed!

Smugmug, pbase and zenfolio are the 3 serious choices if you want to password protect, and have some proper pro tools. Although there is a flickr pro aiming at the same market so it must work there too.
photo.net and pbase are the ones if you want serious discussion and critique of your photos, or smugmug's forum dgrin. Everything else is just "pat on the back" comments (even in smugmug) or knee jerk reactions (flickr)

But for now I will stick it out with the 72photos stuff, try to get them to foster commenting and a forum, try to get a non animated widget to put on my site (via pipes if needed or write something), I'm their most prolific user this week so maybe I'll be heard.

Must go check if someone reacted to my blip at blipfoto... this is addictive! If anyone here gets lured by the 1-photo-a-day challenge (although you can miss days) then let me know

iphigenie · « **Reply #13 on:** April 12, 2008, 09:18 AM »

Aww, you made me check smugmug again, it's improved!!! My wallet might curse you. I will resist... I will resist!

Anyway here's a smugmug gallery http://curiousmind.s...6VeW#278273704_F6VeW
most of the same pictures in a zenfolio gallery http://iphigenie.zen...=h208FEE4E#732680789 and my simple 72photos gallery http://72photos.com/...end/iphigenie/images (works better to browse via "all images" or tags than galleries at the moment)

This is not as clear cut as it seems

Smugmug
+ wide range of administration options
+ most common, integrates with a lot of stuff
+ communities & forums
+ most customisable
+ great support
- galleries a bit slow
- price

Zenfolio
+ fastest on the user browsing front
+ tends to add features before smugmug
+ fast uploads
+ supports collections as well as galleries
+ slightly slicker typography and design
- no comments and community side
- price

72photos
+ good editing tools
+ clean looking
+ works from opera
+ slick workflow
+ free/cheap
- is quite a bit behind feature wise
- how to see large size photos is too hidden so nobody does
- front end galleries a bit weak, missing information and customisation
- getting slow
- work in progress (could be good or stay stuck)
not sure about support

J-Mac · « **Reply #14 on:** April 12, 2008, 09:26 AM »

iphigenie,

Remember, Flickr self-promotes as a "photo sharing" site, even more so than an online photo storage/album site. Look at their latest "feature": the Friend-Finder. Users who have sent you a Gmail message, or received Gmail from you, can now find your photo pages by using your email address -- even if they are (so-call) private. Flickr does not offer any truly private space for your photos. Instead they simply make it a little more difficult to find them using Flickr's search box. It's called "Privacy by Obscurity". A Google search can find your "private" photos. IOW, there is no actual encryption used on your private photo pages. BTW, the new Friend-Finder automatically makes all Flickr members' accounts "active" and searchable and allows you to opt-out, rather than make it opt-in. Even those who opt out are still findable: the code that "protects" those who opt out was broken in under 12 hours. Here's one link about that: http://www.readwrite...rivacy_violation.php .

Smugmug, on the other hand, does offer truly private galleries and photos. They always had a privacy setting, but they have also allowed you to password-protect your photos and galleries. "private" there used to be similar to Flickr's in that they could still be found if determined. After a blogger challenged them on this in January they changed that and now use GUID's as well as passwords.

Now I know that some serious hacker could probably spend some time and money and eventually break anything, but I personally feel a lot safer with my photos an Flickr. Smugmug caters more to the folks wanting to store their albums online for family and even more so to professional photographers. Not primarily for sharing, which is Flickr's mission.

Jim

iphigenie · « **Reply #15 on:** April 12, 2008, 02:05 PM »

Makes sense - and that is why i listed flickr as the "best for sharing" not for pros (although they have a pro version) and not for pretty display or fancy galleries

Smugmug is a bit pricey for the family snaps, especially if you consider you technically need multiple accounts - and i guess that is why there are 2 new services, 72photos and 23, which aim to offer clean and pretty galleries free or at lower price points

Although if you look at the 3 inks I posted smugmug almost looks the best to me, and to say I am really tempted ... is an understatement. But when I have my own dedicated server etc. it seems silly to pay for hosting photos, no matter how slick, when the community of commenting is not that active (to me that would be the benefit of such a service over private site hosting)

J-Mac · « **Reply #16 on:** April 12, 2008, 10:59 PM »

I understand.

Flickr's Pro account really has nothing to do with features - I have had a Pro account there for three years now, along with a Power account at SmugMug. I just don't put and pics of the kids on Flickr anymore, and I can't imagine anyone wanting to grab the rest of my photos! So they're on Flickr. Pro just gets you more bandwidth and storage. At SmugMug it gets you the ability to change the CSS and other web page attributes on your site, and it gives photographers selling features.

I have plenty of storage at home but I still like all my data in other, remote places. Mozy Online for all data, SmugMug and Flickr for photos. They have redundant backups so my chances of losing my images are not as great as for some. My first online photo account was at Club Photo, which really sucked for features, but they were around for a long time and were considered to be very stable - right up until they were purchased by another outfit which promptly closed the site without warning, taking all the photo albums with them!!!

So I like to spread it around now among the services that appear to be the most stable. But you never know! I have somehow become the repository of the entire family's old family photos, so a lot of people are expecting me to safeguard their "treasures". Wish they would help pay the fees...

Jim

iphigenie · « **Reply #17 on:** April 16, 2008, 09:20 AM »

I need to check how 72photos privacy works (or not), it might come in handy when visiting the family

They put one of my pics on their homepage, bless them

I know it is a small site but it still is flattering

iphigenie · « **Reply #18 on:** April 30, 2008, 02:58 AM »

72photos are still finding their way, things change every other day.
For example sometimes clicking on a picture opens a larger version with a flash zoomer, and sometimes straight the original, and sometimes it just moves on to the next image.

I have been told I ought to put my pics somewhere else as well so people can see them bigger with all flaws - any suggestions?
Wary of flickr, so many people use it to nick your images and i dont like the idea (except for the ones i creative commone'd)
Id love smugmug but having just lost my job I must be thrifty, make sure the payout lasts so i have time to try something, and smugmug and lightzone (which i really planned to buy) might just have to wait

Might try 73 photos or dare deviantart or photo.net (but i'd be so amateurish next to theirs!)

Or maybe I host my own

Or maybe I wait for the promised fixes

Who is using what?

rjbull · « **Reply #19 on:** April 30, 2008, 05:30 AM »

you never know someone *might* just buy an images one day
-iphigenie (April 12, 2008, 03:04 AM)

My impression from reading one of the UK semi-pro magazines was that people who buy photos from Alamy virtually want them given to them, expecting almost any usage for just one minimal up-front fee. Makes you wonder whether it's worth bothering, unless you're already a pro and have to, just to put groceries on the table.

PhilB66 · « **Reply #20 on:** June 12, 2008, 07:25 PM »

lifehacker runs a Five Best Photo Sharing Web Sites poll.