PBASE is better than Smugmug!

declan

Or is it? Whats your view?

Art Scott

For me I have not found anything to compare to my SMUGGY MUGGY acct....I have yet to find UNLIMITED storage for what I pay here ....and since I started shooting digital I have had 2 Hard drives bite the dust unexpectedly:cry ...I mean absolutely no clue they were gonna die...so they were under warranty but the loss of photos is not covered:cry ....and I had over 500 gb stored on dvd....all of a sudden they were corrupt:cry and I take care of my disks...I have other disks that are over 6yrs old and are still working perfectly ...and of course these DVD's had pics that were selling real well...by that I mean that prior to coming to SM I had the pics on another site i still use for their challenge {USA101} and was getting emails about some Deer pics...went to retieve the pics and all I got was an error type message telling me that my disk was corrupt....so I went out and purchased another DVD reader / writer and it gave the same error.....so I kept trying different DVD r / rw units and got same message...a total of 50 in all.....

So now I am in the process of getting everyting ready to be kept on SM in folders (galleries) just like on my hard drive....It won't be long and I will have 4 -500 or 750 gb drives for my back ups and SM too....my C drive is heading for the 120gb size real soon.

If someone points me to a btter deal well then i will give SM a chance to meet it or beat it....but I do not expect that to happen....

gus

I think this answers the question...find me that level of support on the internet

Andy

Well, I am biased of course, but my first photosharing experience on the internet was with Pbase. I'm still a paid supporter there.. Recently I wrote them, wanting to change my email address - which of course, I tried myself, in the equivalent of our "control panel." The address I wanted to change to was "on file" with another pbase account (perhaps my early trial?).... anyhow, after 1 week, I got a response (only after emailing twice...) and they said "go to control panel and change it myself." Well, I had fully explained in my first correspondence.. but they just didn't get it. Then 6 days later, another response, (after my 4th plea) they deleted the old trial account, thus freeing up my email address and I could change it on my main account.

Pbase is full of wonderful photographers. We're just different - see in terms of total photo storage, look / feel, themes, printing, customization, and of course, customer service.

You'll hear from others, I'm sure. Thanks for considering SmugMug!

Awais Yaqub

No comparision ! i used pbase i dont like it, it is ordinary even Flickr is better then pbase
with smugmug i can upload files upto 1mb on my 36k dialup
with pbase/etc it was not possible

Smugmug is very fast and support is efficient

SteveM

I had a peek at Pbase after reading this post. Wow, holy remedial looking. But, I'm sure there are some nice looking photographer sites on there, but their landing page is certainly... HTML'ish and ugly for being an "artistic" based service. I also had a peek at thier pricing structure. Right now, with my current storage, I believe with the "paying for extra storage" there, I'd be paying just about the same per year as I am for a Pro account here at Smugmug. However, that's if I either remained at this storage amount indefinitely, or rotated my images, deleting some to make room for more, so I stayed within that "price structure" at Pbase. Unfortunately for them, in the next 3-6 months I plan on nearly doubling my current storage use on Smugmug and there is no way in ach ee double hockeysticks I'm going to shell out $300+ per year, more than double what I'm paying here, for what appears to be a fraction of the service and options. Just my narrow opinion.

dragon300zx

pbase = Kia Rio Base model (it works but I sure wouldn't be seen driving one)
Smugmug = Chevy Impala SS (not super flashy, but has some good power, nice ride, ok handling, all in all a great little daily driver I wouldn't get toooo sick of)
????? = Nissan Skyline GTR (All fast, all sexy, all perfect) have yet to find a photo sharing version of this though .

wxwax

As a computer ignoramus, I found pbase hard to understand and navigate.

Harryb

I have accounts at both pbase and Smugmug. For me Smugmug is by far the better site. Its much more rleable and flexible. The customer service of Smugmug is light years ahead of pbase. Pbase is the olde rof the two and it's not aging gracefully.

Alkhemist

I was unaware of pbase until I came across this thread... went and checked it out.
Even if pbase was free, I'd still hang with SM.

Justiceiro

pbase is to smugmug as Eddie Griffin is to James Earl Jones.

DavidTO

Justiceiro wrote:

pbase is to smugmug as Eddie Griffin is to James Earl Jones.

Hey, don't knock the Griff!

davev

I have accounts on both SM and pbase.

Smugmug seems to be more stable, but I like the, I guess I'll call it the interface better with pbase.
It seems with smugmug, I do 3 times the amount of clicking to see the exif, the photo at full size. With pbase, with a little bit of choosing during the upload, I get the camera and the lens used, aperture, shutter speed, and ISO without having to click anything. When I ask for original size, it fills the screen, and then some, with the shot. I go to original on SM, and I need to click again. Why? I have already made my choice.

Anyway, both accounts come due this month, I'll be keeping both through this next year. After that, I guess I'll need to figure out which one to keep.

jcp

Well, I just joined up with Smugmug this last week mainly because of the features of the pro account. But I have been with pbase for years (and still with them now)

Whether I keep my pbase account when my subscription runs out I don't know. Not yet anyway.

There are things I like better on each side. Of cause, I am very new to smugmug, so some of the features I write below that I prefer in pbase may actually be available here, I just don't know about it yet (please inform me if this is the case)

Being with Smugmug the last week, these are the points that I prefer here over pbase.

* Pro account, where I can sell my photos as prints or digital downloads. Pbase is just starting prints now, but seems very far behind Smugmug in this service.
* Smugmugs customer service. Simply brilliant here. Some really dedicated people out helping us photographers.
* The customization abilities here. Much better than pbase. Although I wish there were more themes and in particular, I wish my favourite theme "Carbonite" was fixed so my Navbar works in Firefox. It's a pity I have to use a theme I don't like as much because of this issue.
* Smugmug shows more details in the Statistics page than Pbase, though this still could be improved.
* Pbase has a nasty way of blurring photos when re-sized. On Smugmug the photos seem sharper.
* Smugmug's options to protect photos by rightclicking, blocking direct linking and watermarks is far better than pbase's
* The popular photos page in our gallery's is a great idea that pbase lacks. I only wish I could customize it like a normal gallery.
* I am just starting to get used to browsing other galleries, and although I didn't like it at first here, I've gotten used to it and now think I prefer it over pbase.
* Love the filmstrip here. Something I would miss very much if I ever went back to pbase.
* Oh, unlimited storage on the pro account! Now that's great.
* The personal search box. Though I haven't set this up yet, it certainly will be done in the future.

What I prefer about Pbase
* I got used to treating Galleries like Categories. i.e. some galleries had no photos but links to sub galleries. I could tree this quite extensively. I can't seem to figure out how to do this in Smugmug. (I know smugmug writes somewhere that this makes easy for viewers to get lost, but I still prefer having the choice)
* Easier customizing for spacing of galleries. In Smugmug, without html or css hacking, it seems all the galleries in a catagory are just listed. I would prefer them in rows like this: (tidy and simple) http://www.pbase.com/jchambers/travels This is easily changed and modified in preferences without having to resort to code.
* Pbase seems to use more realestate on the screen. i.e. in navigation, it uses the whole width of the screen. Smugmug seems limited to the center. I have a widescreen monitor at home, and this looks great in pbase. In Smugmug it's all squashed in.
* Pbase has the ability to easily "copy" a photo to another gallery. This saves on HD space, and is very easy to do (bulk copy is possible and easy). The only way I can see how to do this in Smugmug is to create a 2nd copy and move to another gallery. It takes so much more time that I may as well just upload the photo again.
* I will really miss the "subgalleries linking to each other" feature. This has a band at the top of the screen which shows the previous subgalleries (you can see what I mean at the example above)
* I think Smugmug's categories are great for browsing, but I don't like the way Smugmug handles them. It seems so restrictive. Pbase don't offer categories, so it's odd that it's a point in their favour here, except I dislike Smugmug's so much. Once classic example. On the browse page of Smugmug, you can browse by category. But all my categories are custom made, so it has no use to my gallery here.

So, 11 to 6 in favour of Smugmug. Pbase is a good site still, and I have enjoyed using them for the last few years. However, I am in need of something more professional now, and Smugmug seems to fit the bill.

Once again, the service and support here is really good.

Finally, some very odd things I found with Smugmug.
* Why are Category pages not as customizable as gallery pages? How very odd. Maybe we want the galleries to be in a filmstrip, maybe we want a theme. It seems odd to have such limited customization here
* Communities seemed like such a great idea, except when I set up a pile of galleries to be in communities, it changed the theme to something else. I then tried to set the theme to smugmug and this killed my Navbar. So, communities, although a great idea, I have to say no at the moment - coupled with the fact that as I use custom categories, my photos will not be shown in the browse section. Real Pity.