DISQUS

louisgray.com: louisgray.com: The Gray Family Upgrades from Flickr to SmugMug

  • Zoli Erdos · 1 year ago
    Louis,

    I heard a lot of praise of Smugmug, so you've probably made the right choice, but let;s be real: since it's a for-pay site, you can't really compare it to a free Flickr account, only a Pro one.
  • Louis Gray · 1 year ago
    Zoli, that's definitely why I called out the fact I was using the free version a few times in the update. Paid vs. Free usually wins, but I've heard a lot of good things, and so far, SmugMug is as advertised.
  • jnbammer · 1 year ago
    Looks really cool Louis. I just bought Photoshop Elements for editing, and I use Flickr for sharing. Not sure I'll make the jump, but it does sound interesting. Good looking family shots too!
  • Ballpoint Wren · 1 year ago
    Oh, I am such a sucker for babies. I looked at every picture. Such sweetness! And those techie onesies are too cute!

    Bring on the daddy blogging.
  • J.D. · 1 year ago
    I migrated to Smugmug when Yahoo insisted everyone HAD to have a yahoo email account to use Flickr. I love Smugmug and I and my extended family are all very happy campers for all the reasons you listed above. I had paid accounts with both and Smugmug wins for me hands down.

    http://jdan57.smugmug.com/
  • Andy DeSoto · 1 year ago
    I've been using Smugmug for a loooong time (before Leo Laporte started up with it, back when it was a competitor to PBase, which I'm not sure exists any longer). I love the service but they have yet to convince me the price I pay per year is worth it.

    I actually converted from Smugmug to Flickr, myself, because Flickr has one huge thing Smugmug does not: integration into everything Web 2.0 + community.

    Let me know what you think after a few months. If you want a place to beautifully archive your personal photos, Smugmug's great.

    (Rebuilding mine right now, but: http://photos.andydesoto.com.)
  • Thom Allen · 1 year ago
    Photos are about presentation, visual beauty, and SmugMug definitely wins in this category. I do like the album perspective you get vs. Flickr, where it seems like a dumping ground for photos. There really isn't any presentation capabilities.

    I think each has its own place, and people will use what works for them. But I am very impressed with what I see at SumgMug.
  • ppmartin · 1 year ago
    Many thanks for the informative post, but ...

    The pro account on Flickr cost less than $25/y, and most of my family and friends upgraded a long time ago.

    With the pro account, you have no limit in the number of pictures, high res, many levels of albums and sub-albums, great flexibility in terms of managing private / non private / for friends and family only, you can edit the pictures, either basic (rotation, for instance) or more complex via Picnik (connects easily with Flickr).

    And you have a large community.

    And I don't see how a service can remain free - and free of advertising - over the long term.

    So my pics will stay on Flickr for now ;)

    PS: I must admit that your albums on SmugMug do look good, though...
  • Jesse Stay · 1 year ago
    ppmartin can I upload in RAW format to Flickr and retain the RAW format? That was my deciding factor for smugmug, unless Flickr does that and I'm unaware.
  • ppmartin · 1 year ago
    I don't think the space-eating RAW format is suitable for internet use... yet.

    I only use JPG format (for the pictures, obviously, and others for the short videos).

    What I do is export the pics in JPG format from my camera to my PC.

    Then I do the basic treatments (remove red eyes, crop, straighten, brighten, whatever) locally.

    Then re-shrink a little more at 90% JPG compression to have smaller files.

    And THEN, I upload to Flickr.

    As you seem to have more "professional" needs, perhaps you would need a "Flickr super pro" account... but that doesn't exist yet.
  • Jesse Stay · 1 year ago
    I use both currently - I use Flickr for the social aspect, and SmugMug to archive the photos. As SmugMug gets bigger I imagine I can probably use it for the social aspect as well. http://jessestay.smugmug.com
  • David Nicault · 1 year ago
    Hello, I think it is a very interesting move. Did you try / compare with Picasaweb?
    Thanks
  • Tamar Weinberg · 1 year ago
    Hrm, I think that SmugMug is great if you're into the professional photography side of things, but Louis, you're a huge social media guy. I'm not sure I agree with the switch. Personally, I've paid for 3 years of Flickr so far and I'm not converting to SmugMug unless I go into professional photography.
  • AramZS · 1 year ago
    Yea, it seems like a pretty nice site, but I can't see myself ever paying for a service like that. Right now, all my photos go into Adobe's Photoshop Express, great on-site editing and decent storage. It even lets you sign in and edit photos from a whole bunch of other services within the Photoshop Express interface, including Facebook, Flickr, and Photobucket. Photoshop Express is a great service, a little heavy on the RAM, but a fantastic good looking service with great built-in photo editing tools. If they get that to output a photostream the same way SmugMug or Flickr does, the service could really take off.