Having a Tough Time Choosing my Website

[CosmoKid]

I have barely any technical knowledge in this area. I am looking to choose a way to display my pictures and generate some business. Most of my pictures are portrait and music.

I want a way to display my photos and allow people to see my prices and order prints.

I was leaning towards Zenfolio. What I don't like:
- everyone Zenfolio tends to have the same exact feel. and no matter how many people try and convince me different, they all look the same to me.
- limited choice of fonts makes it look like a MS Word document on black
- pricing is a single .pdf document and it doesn't seem I can break this up.
-i would ideally want my pricing for senior portraits to be on one place and corporate to be in another, not just one big list
- is there a blog section?

Then I considered BluDomain
- customer service horror stories
- most templates are flash based and I dont want a flash site
- can never really figure out what i get since it caries from design to design
- customers can order but then you must deal with printing on your own


What I am looking for:
- somewhere to display my portfolio
- a blog option
- more customization than 8 available fonts
- a proofing section that is password protected
- ability to price galleries and/or individual pictures on a separate basis
- a way to capture customers
- the abilty to create galleries and then have a sub-section for specific events

Don't Need:
- video
- music
- flash

Maybe I am missing a few things about Zenfolio:
- Can I add my own fonts?
- Can I link to a blog on the menu? Would I need to get a separate blog page and embed it in Zenfolio?


I need to get my site up and running soon. People have been asking me way too long and I am sick of directing them to my Flickr.

[Hikin Mike]

When you're using fonts on a website, you need to use just "web safe" fonts. Not everybody is going to have the same fonts that you do. The only way around that is to make them into jpgs and that's not a good idea.

I'm not familiar with Zen, but I am familiar with Smugmug and you can have a custom site.

[Mark-B]

All Zenfolio sites will look similar because there are a finite number of layouts and themes available. Each upgraded level of account allows a little more customization, but the actual photo gallery pages will look very similar for them all. Keep in mind that just because you spend time visiting every photo hosting site on the web deciding what you do and don't like, that doesn't mean that your customers are doing the same thing.

Zenfolio does not have a blog option, but you can link to an external blog from your custom menu and you should be able to customize your site enough that your galleries and blog look very similar. You can also use an external home page if you have a premium account.

When I look at the custom themes section in Zenfolio, I have 21 fonts to choose from. Even so, I know that every browser on the market allows the user to override suggested fonts with the ones that the user prefers. Not everyone will see the fonts you want.

Zenfolio has excellent password protection options. There's virtually no limit to the control you have over every detail.

A way to capture customers? Not sure what you mean here, but marketing will be up to you no matter which service you choose.

I have been with Zenfolio for years. Sometimes I am satisfied with them and sometimes not. If I were to leave for another prepackaged service, it would be PhotoShelter.

[varkgirl]

Have you checked out SmugMug?

http://www.smugmug.com/?referrer=t3SsI7GiGk4Vr

What I am looking for:
- somewhere to display my portfolio

http://www.smugmug.com/help/online-photo-gallery

- a blog option

You can easily add a blogger blog to your site and make it seamless

Directions here:

http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=101262

Here's my site and my blog - hard to tell when you have left one and gone to the other...

Jason Scott Photography (http://www.jasonscottphoto.com)

Jason Scott Photography's Blog (http://www.jasonscottphotoblog.com)

- more customization than 8 available fonts

You can customize a SmugMug site with css and js to make it look pretty much however you want.

http://www.smugmug.com/help/custom-colors2

Their customization forum on dgrin is a great help

- a proofing section that is password protected

http://www.smugmug.com/help/proof-retouch-replace

Not sure if this is what you mean.

Or maybe you mean for clients? You can password protect any gallery!

http://www.smugmug.com/help/private-albums

- ability to price galleries and/or individual pictures on a separate basis

http://www.smugmug.com/help/print-pricing

- the abilty to create galleries and then have a sub-section for specific events

http://www.smugmug.com/help/event-marketing

[SnapsbyPoteat]

another smugmug lover here! There are great customizeable sites out there even people you can hire to do it for you, many of them can be found at www.dgrin.com,
Other great options include being about to tag your site to a domain name so you don't have to have the smugmug in the site address.
Smugmug also lets you pick which products to sell and for how much, you can also do packages for clients and also coupons that you decide on, even free shipping coupons.
For me there is no other choice!!!

[Mark-B]

You can easily add a blogger blog to your site and make it seamless

Nice job making them look similar, but something did stand out to me: I opened them both at the same time in different tabs in my browser. One has the Smugmug favicon and the other has the Blogger favicon. Minor detail, but would be much nicer if you could customize them both with a personal icon.

[varkgirl]

Nice job making them look similar, but something did stand out to me: I opened them both at the same time in different tabs in my browser. One has the Smugmug favicon and the other has the Blogger favicon. Minor detail, but would be much nicer if you could customize them both with a personal icon.

:rolleyes: Well, if you are going to get that picky, the URL itself is different too. But at least the pages keep a similar look and feel. :D

[themadman]

I am pretty sure you can link multiple price lists in Zenfolio, you will just bet different links.

Zenfolio doesn't have a build in blog, but you can link to your external blog.

I agree Zenfolio sites tend to look similar, but I personally really like the clean feel. On top of that, it looks modern instead of from the 90's like many websites. I am also the only photographer in town that uses Zenfolio so I don't really look similar to the other ones, lol.

[Hikin Mike]

My Smugmug site (http://mike.imagesinthebackcountry.com)

My "regular" website (http://www.imagesinthebackcountry.com)

Very little difference other than the link color and some small format "issues". I use my Smugmug only for my daughter's gymnastic team. Everything else goes through my server.

All that to say is you can do a lot of things with your Smugmug site. :)

[aboss3]

I did my evaluations, and ended up going with Smugmug due to better security options for pictures. Also, there's an iphone app available for that....not sure if it's available for Zenfolio, but that helped me out as well.

[Mark-B]

I did my evaluations, and ended up going with Smugmug due to better security options for pictures.

What's better about Smugmug security?

I can control these things in Zenfolio:

- Galleries, Groups, or Collections can be set to public (everyone), private (only me), or password protected. I can also choose whether or not to include them in Zenfolio site wide search results or in search results for my specific site only.

- Individual images inside of these galleries, groups, or collections can be set to public (everyone), private (only me), or password protected. I can also choose whether or not to include them in Zenfolio site wide search results or in search results for my specific site only.

- I can limit viewing of my images to 9 different sizes ranging from 80px to 1500px. Seperately from that, I can allow or disallow viewing or downloading of the original file (as long as it is larger than 1500px). If I choose to allow it, I can password protect it.

I'm not sure how many more security options there could be, but I would love to know if I am missing out on something that Smugmug has to offer.

[CosmoKid]

thanks for all the feedback everyone and keep them coming.

one thing though, are there more customizations once you convert the free trial over to a Pro account?

[jeljohns]

Do you have to use their lab when you use SmugMug pro or can you use WHCC?

[CosmoKid]

I decided to go with Zen. One problem I am having is figuring out how to organize. The difference between gallery, collection, etc. is confusing me.

I want my site like this

Pictures
->Music
->Pearl Jam
->Blues Traveler
->Weddings
->Tom + Sue
->Chris and Jen
->Events
->Obey Opening
->Book signing

i can't figure out what is what in the structure.

[k8et]

zenfolio has an iphone app as well, and even with the basic account I can change the colors and text without using one of their templates. I would like more variety in the page layout options, but I'm still learning my way around it and may be upgrading to Pro in fall.

[Mark-B]

I decided to go with Zen. One problem I am having is figuring out how to organize. The difference between gallery, collection, etc. is confusing me.

I want my site like this

Pictures
->Music
->Pearl Jam
->Blues Traveler
->Weddings
->Tom + Sue
->Chris and Jen
->Events
->Obey Opening
->Book signing

i can't figure out what is what in the structure.

Groups hold galleries and/or collections.
Collections hold individual pictures. These pictures can come from 1 or more galleries.
Galleries hold individual pictures.

You want your main categories (music, weddings, etc) to be groups.
You want your sub-categories (Pearl Jam, Tom + Sue, etc) to be galleries or collections.