Portfolio vs. Galleries...

56Kruiser

Hello...

Just getting started with SmugMug, and have a thought on how I'd like to organize my site. Wondering if any of you have some tips.

I'm interested in having personal galleries, and a portfolio. The portfolio being pictures that I would expect to fall more into the 'professional/for sale' arena, whereas the Galleries may be more personal.

Of course on personal, I could hide them. I'm trying to decide how I want to handle that. For example, I could have passwords for family.

Anyway, I"m not sure how to go about categorizing. Would I have a Category of Portfolio, then sub categories for Landscape, Macro, or whatever? Then maybe make it Smart, and for any shots in Personal, have them pulled into whatever category and sub category based on keywords.

IF anyone has any recommendations without it burdening you with too much time for the response, I appreciate the thoughts.

rainforest1155

Hi,

If you go the smart gallery route, you have to keep in mind that photos in smart galleries inherit security settings and prices from their original gallery. That means you couldn't set other settings and prices for the photos than are set on your personal galleries if that's where the originals are.
If you were to set a password on the gallery the originals are in, you'd have to make sure to turn on 'external links' for the smart gallery photos to display properly.
Read more on what specific settings are inherited in the "wait, who can grab my photos" section here:
http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93310-collecting-photos

To get started on using categories check out this post for step-by-step details:
http://news.smugmug.com/2011/04/06/smug-tip-of-the-week-get-organized-with-categories/

As for structure recommendations, that depends on your own needs and how detailed you want to get in categorizing. Keep in mind that you can not add more levels than what we offer:
category > subcategory > gallery
Only galleries can contain photos.

56Kruiser

rainforest1155 wrote: »

Hi,

If you go the smart gallery route, you have to keep in mind that photos in smart galleries inherit security settings and prices from their original gallery. That means you couldn't set other settings and prices for the photos than are set on your personal galleries if that's where the originals are.
If you were to set a password on the gallery the originals are in, you'd have to make sure to turn on 'external links' for the smart gallery photos to display properly.
Read more on what specific settings are inherited in the "wait, who can grab my photos" section here:
http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93310-collecting-photos

To get started on using categories check out this post for step-by-step details:
http://news.smugmug.com/2011/04/06/smug-tip-of-the-week-get-organized-with-categories/

As for structure recommendations, that depends on your own needs and how detailed you want to get in categorizing. Keep in mind that you can not add more levels than what we offer:
category > subcategory > gallery
Only galleries can contain photos.

Thanks for your reply. I'll check out your links.

I think the main thing I want to accomplish is to have a POrtfolio, which is the images I consider 'sellable', and not have my other galleries mix with that. Just not sure if the way to handle that. Maybe those links will help.

SamirD

So if I'm reading this right, you want to basically have a portfolio gallery(ies) of quality images that pulls these from other galleries that may be personal? To completely separate them would require you to upload the images twice--no real way around this.

As far as organization, I'd have a portfolio gallery (or just a slideshow on your homepage), and then keep all the others hidden/password protected with the same password to create a password protected gallery.

56Kruiser

Hi SamirD

Yes you read it right.

I am considering doing it as you say. However if I keep them hidden, I need to send links to my friends (at least that's my impression), and I'm sure they will lose track.

SamirD

56Kruiser wrote: »

Hi SamirD

Yes you read it right.

I am considering doing it as you say. However if I keep them hidden, I need to send links to my friends (at least that's my impression), and I'm sure they will lose track.

I think hiding them wouldn't give you the protection you really want which is restricted access. Password protecting all the personal galleries with one password and putting them into a single category would give you a 'password-protected' category. This way, people can find the images if they have the password.

The caveat to this approach is that if you ever want to change the category password, you have to change all the gallery passwords individually and they have to match or else people will have to type in passwords for each gallery individually.

The workaround for the hidden issue is to put all the personal galleries into a sharegroup. This way, there's only one url your friends have to remember.

56Kruiser

All makes sense.

Too bad they don't provide category passwords. That would help some.