I use Portfolio Websites ( http://portfoliowebsites.com ). You can have fullscreen slideshows and they provide special versions for iPad/iPhone. Not sure about the Lightroom/iPhoto though.
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Best Pro Folio site - smugmug, zenfolio ? What?
- Thread starter Dave Seeley
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Symtex
Leading Member
I decided to go with 500px myself. Price and features mixed seems good to me.
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Canon 5D Mark III, Canon EF 24-105L, EF 100-400L
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writersbloc
Member
If you want to sell prints (your business is shooting events or private sessions, uploading large galleries) you're pretty limited to sites like Zenfolio, Smugmug, Photoshelter, etc...
If you just want to host a portfolio, your options are only limited by your budget and technical abilities. Free or cheap include sites like Carbonmade, Behance, 500px (hell even Flickr), and practically a hundred others.
If you're savvy you can find a Wordpress theme (themeforest.com) for $0-$50 and code it yourself. There are also numerous vendors who sell custom wordpress themes for a premium ($75-$150) that are pretty much point and click to set up.
If you're rolling in dough, you're already a well established Commercial-Allstar, hire someone to make a custom site for you $5K-10k+ or ride along with Dan Winters at APhotoFolio.com.
If you just want to host a portfolio, your options are only limited by your budget and technical abilities. Free or cheap include sites like Carbonmade, Behance, 500px (hell even Flickr), and practically a hundred others.
If you're savvy you can find a Wordpress theme (themeforest.com) for $0-$50 and code it yourself. There are also numerous vendors who sell custom wordpress themes for a premium ($75-$150) that are pretty much point and click to set up.
If you're rolling in dough, you're already a well established Commercial-Allstar, hire someone to make a custom site for you $5K-10k+ or ride along with Dan Winters at APhotoFolio.com.
JackM
Veteran Member
Great service, great looking, great support, great people. I've been very happy with them for years.
Sal Baker
Veteran Member
Has anyone here used Imagevue for displaying their galleries? I've seen some beautiful sites built just using the this software.
http://imagevuex.com
Sal
http://imagevuex.com
Sal
bronxbombers4
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Sadly Zenfolio and Smugmug ban wide gamut images in all cases. Ridiculous.
I used to like Smugmug best but Zenfolio has really done a lot of work and man I have to say it has so many features that save time vs. Smugmug and it costs less in some cases too. I'd say Zenfolio for sure at this point.
An additional Flickr account (or only one) can be nice since you can post special wide gamut format galleries there (a true crime that you can't on the other two, Smugmug is pretty well smug and self-righteous and patronizing about it too) and you can get lots of comments and interaction going compared to the other sites. It also has some features that some time compared to Smugmug, but you can't really set up any sort of professional looking webpage using it AFAIK.
I used to like Smugmug best but Zenfolio has really done a lot of work and man I have to say it has so many features that save time vs. Smugmug and it costs less in some cases too. I'd say Zenfolio for sure at this point.
An additional Flickr account (or only one) can be nice since you can post special wide gamut format galleries there (a true crime that you can't on the other two, Smugmug is pretty well smug and self-righteous and patronizing about it too) and you can get lots of comments and interaction going compared to the other sites. It also has some features that some time compared to Smugmug, but you can't really set up any sort of professional looking webpage using it AFAIK.
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just wanted to post my .02 as this thread even though a bit stale helped bring up some good points for me.
After reading and inspecting all options I chose Photoshelter but now think I'm leaning towards Zenfolio instead.
The biggest problem for me is Photoshelter does not fully support iPads. You can view portfolios very reasonably but it's not as elegant as Zenfolio and others I've seen. You cannot swipe to advance photos and some of the examples on their site are completely handicapped by their use of Flash in galleries. When you click on some of those flash galleries you get a blank screen. not cool. When speaking to customer service they said their focus was on desktops not ipads.
I also found Photoshelter's site editing confusing. the differences between gallery/portfolio/slideshow/theme and manual customization is oddly differentiated for me. If you know CSS then it seems more desirable but then if I knew CSS why would I use a Portfolio service(??)
Photoshelter website editing seems more like a mind map graph workflow, rather than a sequential process of building a site like choosing theme, colors, fonts, etc. in a progressive order. frustrating
For reference I'm looking for clean, modern, dark theme with no SEO concerns or social rating features. Just for clients... "hey look here and check out my work."
I'll update post when I finish whatever service I settle on.
DJ
After reading and inspecting all options I chose Photoshelter but now think I'm leaning towards Zenfolio instead.
The biggest problem for me is Photoshelter does not fully support iPads. You can view portfolios very reasonably but it's not as elegant as Zenfolio and others I've seen. You cannot swipe to advance photos and some of the examples on their site are completely handicapped by their use of Flash in galleries. When you click on some of those flash galleries you get a blank screen. not cool. When speaking to customer service they said their focus was on desktops not ipads.
I also found Photoshelter's site editing confusing. the differences between gallery/portfolio/slideshow/theme and manual customization is oddly differentiated for me. If you know CSS then it seems more desirable but then if I knew CSS why would I use a Portfolio service(??)
Photoshelter website editing seems more like a mind map graph workflow, rather than a sequential process of building a site like choosing theme, colors, fonts, etc. in a progressive order. frustrating
For reference I'm looking for clean, modern, dark theme with no SEO concerns or social rating features. Just for clients... "hey look here and check out my work."
I'll update post when I finish whatever service I settle on.
DJ
djmorgan
Forum Enthusiast
Well after starting to read this thread I went out and signed up to Zenfolio for their Pro service, 4 hours later I have a reasonable web site still uploading a bunch of photos and setting a pricing structure.
Got a Go Daddy domain named linked to Zenfolio account, so far so good, will depend on my ability to market the site and of course shoot good pictures.
Constructive criticism is welcome
www.DJMorganPhoto.com
Got a Go Daddy domain named linked to Zenfolio account, so far so good, will depend on my ability to market the site and of course shoot good pictures.
Constructive criticism is welcome
www.DJMorganPhoto.com
I'll put another strong vote for Smugmug. I have not set up my account into the professional format, but you cannot beat their customer service. Responsive even on weekends, they are just great people to deal with. They have treated me so well since I joined them back in 2005.
Rich
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Rich
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I had LiveBooks for about a year until I discovered PhotoDeck.com They don't nickel and dime you for changes like LiveBooks does, you do it all yourself.
Plus it has a much better mobile device interface, integrated stock sales (you upload the full rez image then it's downsized for web and sales depending on what level they buy). These guys are really geniuses.
Use this coupon code and get 50% off first month YG@ULYCTN
Doug Dolde http://douglasdolde.com
Plus it has a much better mobile device interface, integrated stock sales (you upload the full rez image then it's downsized for web and sales depending on what level they buy). These guys are really geniuses.
Use this coupon code and get 50% off first month YG@ULYCTN
Doug Dolde http://douglasdolde.com
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I agree Photodeck is very appealing especially in terms of features. I do not think any body else comes close; and it is also very fast
This being said I like the layout of Livebooks better. If you want to showcase your images Livebooks looks Gorgeous
If you are after an all in solution with e-commerce, I think today photdeck is hard to beat.
Right now I am really hesitating between the 2.
Didier
This being said I like the layout of Livebooks better. If you want to showcase your images Livebooks looks Gorgeous
If you are after an all in solution with e-commerce, I think today photdeck is hard to beat.
Right now I am really hesitating between the 2.
Didier
studio311, I have to disagree with you in terms of Zenfolio's SEO capabilities. I moved my portfolio site from SmugMug to Zenfolio in late October and although my SEO traffic took an initial hit, I'm back up to the same search traffic levels that I was at prior to my move from SmugMug.
My day job is SEO related and I've found that certain settings need to be configured manually to ensure that Zenfolio is optimized for search, but after those settings are made, I'm finding that my SEO traffic is at least as good as it was with SmugMug, if not better.
My day job is SEO related and I've found that certain settings need to be configured manually to ensure that Zenfolio is optimized for search, but after those settings are made, I'm finding that my SEO traffic is at least as good as it was with SmugMug, if not better.
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Victor Engel
Veteran Member
What? Wide gamut images are supported with Zenfolio. Here's the same image with different color gamuts.
sRGB
AdobeRGB
ProphotoRGB
If your browser is color managed, they should all look the same. If it is not color managed, they will look different. For a while Zenfolio didn't support wide gamut photos in their slide show, but that is no longer the case.
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Victor Engel
Finally made up my mind, and picked Livebooks.
I am surprised to see you are praising the mobile device interface of Photodeck, this is among others things what drove me away.
Livebooks tablet support with their scaler sites is superb.
bronxbombers4
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hmm all three say sRGB gamutVictor Engel wrote:
What? Wide gamut images are supported with Zenfolio. Here's the same image with different color gamuts.
sRGB
AdobeRGB
ProphotoRGB
If your browser is color managed, they should all look the same. If it is not color managed, they will look different. For a while Zenfolio didn't support wide gamut photos in their slide show, but that is no longer the case.
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Victor Engel
i even asked them if they'd offer it a few months ago and they seemed rather disinterested in the idea and said they auot-converted all submissions to sRGB and had no plans to change.
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Victor Engel
Veteran Member
I checked these before I posted using Jeffrey's EXIF viewer , using the URLs I posted. Here's a sample . It shows Adobe RGB.
It's been a while since I created the pictures, but I think I intended to convert them so that they looked the same, meaning the gamut would be similar even though they used different profiles. I can try to convert the same picture using ProphotoRGB and taking advantage of the wider gamut to see if that makes a difference.
I was particularly interested in this rose because the red is so saturated (compare to the color checker).
It's been a while since I created the pictures, but I think I intended to convert them so that they looked the same, meaning the gamut would be similar even though they used different profiles. I can try to convert the same picture using ProphotoRGB and taking advantage of the wider gamut to see if that makes a difference.
I was particularly interested in this rose because the red is so saturated (compare to the color checker).
Victor Engel
Veteran Member
Hmmm. Seems like I was wrong. They must have changed the way they operate. Perhaps this explains why their flash slideshow suddenly started "working". The explanation had been that flash couldn't color manage, which was why they didn't offer a color managed slideshow. I guess they opted to convert everything to sRGB instead.
I guess I don't really have a problem with that for my purposes. The people who would be viewing my pictures on the web are not likely to have a color managed browser anyway. Probably more likely these days, but certainly not a guarantee.
Now I'm curious why Jeffrey's EXIF viewer showed the profile I indicated. Perhaps it's just the originals. To test this, I include here a link to the original Prophoto image and the large version.
But maybe it is the dpreview software that is making a profile conversion. To test that, here are the direct links to the images.
http://victorspictures.com/img/s3/v26/p363163055.jpg
http://victorspictures.com/img/s3/v26/p363163055-4.jpg
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Victor Engel
I guess I don't really have a problem with that for my purposes. The people who would be viewing my pictures on the web are not likely to have a color managed browser anyway. Probably more likely these days, but certainly not a guarantee.
Now I'm curious why Jeffrey's EXIF viewer showed the profile I indicated. Perhaps it's just the originals. To test this, I include here a link to the original Prophoto image and the large version.
But maybe it is the dpreview software that is making a profile conversion. To test that, here are the direct links to the images.
http://victorspictures.com/img/s3/v26/p363163055.jpg
http://victorspictures.com/img/s3/v26/p363163055-4.jpg
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Victor Engel
Doberman
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