VERY Dissapointed with the "new" Smugmug
davidmedina
Registered Users Posts: 55 Big grins
After a long wait and a price hike I expected better. I am very disappointed.
This is just a face lift as none, NONE, of the core functionality that I pay for was changed.
Yes, the galleries look better now. That's it. look better....
And it is nice that for those who want to have their website with Smugmug can.
That is not what i expect from a photo sharing and selling platform.
Smugmug still have the most confusing, fragmented way to create events.
It has the most lame way to upload images to the site.
As a wedding photographer I categorize the wedding based on part of the days. When i do that I have to upload each category to a gallery, one at a time. Lame and very time consuming. I want to load several galleries at one time.
None of the core functionality was touch. Too bad.
It just confirmed that Smugmug wants to focus to the amateur photographer. That's fine too. But it proves that is not for me.
But it just demonstrated that it is NOT the best alternative for the pro event photographer that just want to sell images.
Bye Smugmug, Hello Pictage.
This is just a face lift as none, NONE, of the core functionality that I pay for was changed.
Yes, the galleries look better now. That's it. look better....
And it is nice that for those who want to have their website with Smugmug can.
That is not what i expect from a photo sharing and selling platform.
Smugmug still have the most confusing, fragmented way to create events.
It has the most lame way to upload images to the site.
As a wedding photographer I categorize the wedding based on part of the days. When i do that I have to upload each category to a gallery, one at a time. Lame and very time consuming. I want to load several galleries at one time.
None of the core functionality was touch. Too bad.
It just confirmed that Smugmug wants to focus to the amateur photographer. That's fine too. But it proves that is not for me.
But it just demonstrated that it is NOT the best alternative for the pro event photographer that just want to sell images.
Bye Smugmug, Hello Pictage.
0
Comments
The back-end still needs a lot of structural work, but I'm sure they're hammering away at it. Personally, considering the new ways we can organize images and galleries in this whole folder-based interface, I'm VERY excited to see how they re-design the event interface. I'm actually surprised that you're not happy with the leaps and bounds that the back-end organization has made. But that's just me, I'm a patient optimist. Maybe that's why I shoot Nikon?
I can relate to your frustrations as a wedding photographer though. I shoot for a studio that covers 200+ events per year, and we used to categorize every 1,000+ image wedding by keyword too.
I have personally compared the Pictage back-end to the SmugMug back-end, and I can honestly say that categorical organization is just about the ONLY benefit that Pictage has right now. The client interface itself is downright FUGLY, and their print ordering interface feels like you're being attacked by a used car salesman. Make an extra dollar? Maybe. But I prefer the gorgeous client experience here.
In the meantime, to solve your keyword category problem it is actually quite easy to work around now- Upload an entire wedding all at once, then in the back-end folder structure just sort by caption, and drag-and-drop to new galleries. You'll still have to create new galleries for each keyword, but take it from someone who used to come up with 20+ keywords per wedding- SIMPLIFY. Just 3-5 keywords per wedding is really all you need.
Otherwise, if it really is "Goodbye SmugMug" for you, then say hello to Fugly for me when you see her. Don't miss her at all...
=Matt=
My SmugMug Portfolio • My Astro-Landscape Photo Blog • Dgrin Weddings Forum
I don't know anything about SmugMug internally, I just happen to moderate the wedding forum. But personally as someone who has been with SmugMug for almost 10 years now, I have confidence that this release is just the beginning of the floodgates opening for rapid and frequent improvement. Because it is not just a rehash of the visage, it is a totally new foundation and infrastructure. This will, hopefully, make additional improvements very easy to implement.
I remember back in 2004-2006 when SmugMug was one of the ONLY unlimited hosting players in the industry; they came out with new features and updates on a weekly basis. The only reason that things dried up over the past 1-2 years was because they didn't want to waste too much time building on a foundation that was about to be completely demolished. Now that we have our new foundation, I be they're gonna build like crazy.
My SmugMug Portfolio • My Astro-Landscape Photo Blog • Dgrin Weddings Forum