Which online hosting service for viewing & sharing? Photobucket, smugmug?...

I know there are so many online photo communities.. but which are the pros and cons?

Im looking at stuff like smugmug, flicket, photobucket...

I dont know too many of them, but can you guys recommend any that would be great?

I also have my own web hosting service, would it be better / more worth while hosting it myself? If yes, which software would be good for making templates and auto sizing.. I know of J Album... and thats about it.

I also see (not sure if its correct) but can photoshop also do this?

Have your try Flickr?

I havent tryed it yet... Im just trying to get more information on any and all services out there.

Im trying to do research since I want a service where I can have public albums, and private albums where people are asked to enter a password for their own photos... For example if I did a wedding or an event shoot, and people can look at their proofs online. Also to prevent people stealing images on my own personal photos, since (like smugmug) I would want to be able to link high rez files...

Can Flickr do that?

I was looking at the Pro smugmug too where you can sell your photos directly from your website.

Im just trying to get the names of all the major players so I can make my decesion.

Off the top of my head:

Zenfolio and Phanfare are smugmug'esque, I've never used or evaluated them.

Pbase is another popular photo hosting site. The last time I evaluated it, over 8 months ago, I found the interface a little...primitive. However, from other accounts I've read it has a strong community.

Flikr is another of a photo community, I don't think it has any pro features, like heavy customisation or selling photos. It does, IMO, have a good interface. What I didn't like (again this is based on what I know over 8 months ago :P) was that it required ppl to be Flikr members to see your photos. So I couldn't just send a link to ppl and they could just see pictures. and you can't create private galleries.

smugmug offers private galleries and you can password protect galleries too. I've done this for galleries of friends parties, etc.

The smugmug's web site www.dgrin.com is very responsive if you need to ask any questions.

As a Power Account user you can customise, quite extensively, your site, though you do need to be either savy with CSS/HTML, or not be afraid to learn it. There isn't a nicey nicey interface for you to customise your website.

I don't know about the pro features, other than you can price you images and watermark images when you upload (saves you doing it before hand).

smugmug is unlimited storage AND unlimited bandwidth.

Flickr is a photosharing site, not a hosting site. You must link back to flickr if you want to post photos elsewhere. There are no pro features and selling images from that site is against their terms of use. They also do not provide right click protection or watermarking.
I like the pro features of Smugmug. Though I've signed on with Bluehost, I'll continue to maintain the Smugmug site for sales of my sports images. The site is very user friendly, and the customer service is excellent.

With smugmug(it allows for album capabilities) but also for external hosting. Photobucket as well. Flickr is like Yahoo albums and Google's albums(can't externally link-but you can link a whole album if you can use HTML). Google is cool if you are a windows user, because it can upload through Picasa, which is awesome the way you can just select as many as you want to upload.

I use smugmug. I have a pro a/c and I have customised the site. The Dgrin Support is excellent as is the Smugmug help.

Selling prints is easy, smugmug manage the credit card details and printing. Digital downloads are available now.

I shoot motorsports part-time and the smugmug site makes it very easy to show and sell photos.

people dont need a flickr account to see your photos. that is only true if you set your photos to private. when your photos are private, only people on your flickr contacts list can view them.

I use Zenfolio. I like it for the uncluttered interface, quick load times, and drag and drop upload. I'd say Zenfolio and Smugmug are the top two to look at as far as the interface and what you get for the money. Smugmug is the way to go if you want to sell stuff.

Pbase seems to be very cool too though, even with the dated interface and rather small storage amounts. I am on there a lot browsing through pictures using the camera search function.

Flickr has great community if thats what you're looking for.

thanks for all the help guys...

I went with SmugMug =)

I don't personally use flickr, but one of my friends does, and as just a warning, they had their computer hacked into by someone on flickr. I didn't witness it, and I'm not good with computers so I don't know how TRUE this is, but they said they had turned their computer on in the morning and a black box appeared, someone was writing on it that they had taken all their computer info, stolen all their photos and said they had created this "neat program" to use through flickr. Like I said I am by no means a computer guru, so I don't even know that this is possible, but they couldn't get into their flickr account because the password was changed, and when they finally did all their photos were deleted. Figure I'd post this up for someone, maybe someone else knows more then me and can say where the truth in this is, but just wanted to pass it along.

Smugmug is simply wonderful for me. Reasonable price, easy to use, great finished product to my customer's and they understand Customer Service. Both for me and the people buying my stuff.

Just posted this elsewhere but I'll re-post it here to...

I'll say it again, EXPOSURE MANAGER!! They are by far the best out there!! I've used a few companies and they blow everyone out of the water. Once you get used to it you can costomize the site easy, but takes a bit of know how, you can get an easy url (yourname.exposuremana​ger.com), and the service is excellent.

The biggest draw to them for me is the quality of the prints and products! Places like Printroom/Smugmug/Shut​terfly use automated systems that just print the photo, no adjustments, done - if it sucks oh well! Exposure Manager has an actual person look over the photo, adjust it if need be to fit how there printer works, etc. They also ONLY deal with event photographers, so not any joe can get a picture printed through them like other places. Everything they deal with is pro, so they know how to handle it. Besides that, EXCELLENT packaging, best I've ever seen.

Every time I talk about them I sound like an advertisement, I don't work for them, just extremely satisfied. I get everything printed through them.

OH, and to top it off - they are the cheapest out there and also have the lowest commission.

EDIT: Look to see if they use EZPrints as there printer. Exposure Manager used to, I used to, then they opened up for everyone and the quality went down the drain IMO. I did a test of Exposure Manager vs. EZPrints, Shutterfly and other outlets - it was NO contest. EZPrints just wasn't satisfactory when it comes to pro prints, maybe it's because my standards are so high, but still.

I've used both Flickr and Smugmug. Couple of things really bug me about Flickr, not sure if they've changed it now.

1) Can't scroll from pic to pic in any size other than thumbnail.
2) No username/pw protection on galleries

I'm very happy with my Smug site. The customer support is great as well.

Has anyone tried 4shared? I havn't tried them, but it looks like a "no downside" deal.

The free account has: (they say)

• 1 GB free space
• Unlimited number of albums
• Automated thumbnails
• jpg, gif, bmp, and png files available
• Unlimited number of photos within multiple albums
• Free sub domain available for free accounts