Great image database +shopping cart with paypal support.

gmonkeh

Hey guys,

I've been putting the final touches on my website and I was searching for the best and least painful way to sell prints online.

Well, I've found it. And it's open source meaning it's free.
Check out http://www.reverbphotography.com then head over to the gallery page. You can easily customize it and it has a lot of plug-ins/modules to enhance your gallery. I'm using a module called "checkout paypal" that's directly connected to my paypal premier account so it allows me to recieve credit card payments through paypal.

The open source program is called gallery2. You'll need your own webhost and a MySQL database. Any Linux based host would have this.

No offense to a great service like smugmug but this way I have my own image database, and allows me to sell from my website and my only overhead is my $4.99 a month hosting and print costs.

Just thought some of you might want to check it out.

Pupator

gmonkeh wrote:

The open source program is called gallery2. You'll need your own webhost and a MySQL database. Any Linux based host would have this.

No offense to a great service like smugmug but this way I have my own image database, and allows me to sell from my website and my only overhead is my $4.99 a month hosting and print costs.

Gallery 2 is a great project; and it's good to support FOSS. However, just to be fair, it does take a great deal more time that just using SmugMug. This is especially true for people who would have to learn to set it up and learn how to customize.

ChuckWC

Pupator wrote:

...
However, just to be fair, it does take a great deal more time that just using SmugMug. This is especially true for people who would have to learn to set it up and learn how to customize.

Not to mention they'd also be missing out on SmugMug's great customer service.

Still, I guess for people who want more control over their website, it's good info to have.

Rhuarc

ChuckWC wrote:

Not to mention they'd also be missing out on SmugMug's great customer service.

Still, I guess for people who want more control over their website, it's good info to have.

I was under the impression that the pro level accounts give you pretty much any and all control over the look that you want to do. Of course there is the cost, but it's only about an $80 difference than paying $5 per month for internet hosting... Of course if you already have internet hosting for a seperate website that's different.

Pupator

Rhuarc wrote:

I was under the impression that the pro level accounts give you pretty much any and all control over the look that you want to do.

"Pretty much" is not the same as total. Smugmug is awesome at what it does and gives a great deal more control that most sites of its type.

Hosting your own site is total control. You choose the methods of payment accepted, you choose who the printer is, you choose the navigation scheme, you choose absolutely everything about everything. Tons more work (work that I have many people rightly have no desire to do), but there is significantly more control.

(If you don't believe me - look at your footer. Does it say Smugmug? How about your shopping cart?)

jrossh21

I am looking to start a photography business and was going to purchase a smugmug pro account, but I already have a webhost that can add any technology that I need, MySQL. My profession right now is a Programmer and I have created a few websites in the past, nothing extreme though. I was going to go with smugmug because everything is already in place and it's so easy to get started. Can anyone give me some details about gallery2? If I were to go this route, which printer should I pick for my customers photos? Any other details would be appreciated, thanks!

LuckyBob

jrossh21 wrote:

[...]I was going to go with smugmug because everything is already in place and it's so easy to get started. Can anyone give me some details about gallery2? If I were to go this route, which printer should I pick for my customers photos? Any other details would be appreciated, thanks!

Hrm... this is such a touchy area. I'm not drawing conclusions about the previous posters and I don't mean to dig on either SmugMug or Gallery2; I just want to provide information from a network admin to people (especially the lurkers) who may see "free" but not entirely understand what open source can really mean.

I've been using (and customizing for myself and our webhost customers) Gallery2 for quite some time, but I've always hesitated to mention it here. I'll grant that this is an open forum, but Dgrin is still run by SmugMug, and they have a great product. From the perspective of business etiquette, I think it's important to note that we ought to tread lightly recommending (and supporting) a semi-competing product as it might dissuade potential SmugMug customers who may not know the full story.

For somebody who doesn't have experience installing and configuring software on LAMP servers, it has a fairly steep learning curve for complete functionality and customization. As with most open source packages, it requires coordinating several if not many different pieces of software (including Apache, MySQL, PHP, GD, Smarty, Postfix, ImageMagick, and potentially PayPal and Google's Webmaster Tools) and several modules or functions within (including ImageMagick's config, mod_rewrite, and all the fairly necessary plugins for Gallery itself). If you're familiar with *Nix file systems, permissions, the aforementioned programs and how to configure them (and with HTML/PHP and are comfortable reading up on Gallery's Smarty API if you want to customize), Gallery2 may work quite well for you.

If you want something that may not be entirely as customizable, but requires no sever-related knowledge, all backend functions are handled by professionals, and most importantly, just works like one expects it to, SmugMug's got a great product.

Malte

It's like the old classic: Good-Fast-Cheap. You may choose two, any two, but only two.

Malte

Rhuarc

Smugmug = Good & Fast
Gallery 2 = Good & Cheap
??????? = Fast & Cheap

So what would this third option be, the photoshop HTML gallery function? Lol

Malte

LuckyBob wrote:

...I just want to provide information from a network admin to people (especially the lurkers) who may see "free" but not entirely understand what open source can really mean....From the perspective of business etiquette, I think it's important to note that we ought to tread lightly recommending (and supporting) a semi-competing product as it might dissuade potential SmugMug customers who may not know the full story.

This isn't really competing with Smugmug but I get your point that people might think it is. The real competition right now is Zenfolio and there is a thread here on Dgrin comparing Smugmug to it, so I think this i safe etiquette wise.

Malte

Malte

Rhuarc wrote:

Smugmug = Good & Fast
Gallery 2 = Good & Cheap
??????? = Fast & Cheap

So what would this third option be, the photoshop HTML gallery function? Lol

Flickr, in my opinion.

Malte

Rhuarc

Ahhh, ok, didn't even think about something like that.

gmonkeh

I completely forgot about this thread lol. I sometimes forget that there's some people who aren't that much of a nerd as I am. I did have to do a fair amount of tweaking and configuring with gallery2.

If you don't know what a CHMOD is then slowly back away.

/me hangs head in shame for knowing what CHMOD is.

Lex

LuckyBob

gmonkeh wrote:

I completely forgot about this thread lol. I sometimes forget that there's some people who aren't that much of a nerd as I am. I did have to do a fair amount of tweaking and configuring with gallery2.

If you don't know what a CHMOD is then slowly back away.

/me hangs head in shame for knowing what CHMOD is.

Lex

Hang it even lower if you can explain the difference between SITE CHMOD and CHMOD; I'm only a little ashamed

gmonkeh

Well without googling lol I know I use SITE as a remote command line parameter for FTP. site exec, site chmod..... shoot me now.



Oh and while were on a nerd tangent, or nerdapalooza per'se. Have you had any luck optimizing gallery2? It feels like initial load is slow. I might have to do some work on speeding up php see if that helps.

LuckyBob

gmonkeh wrote:

Well without googling lol I know I use SITE as a remote command line parameter for FTP. site exec, site chmod..... shoot me now.



Oh and while were on a nerd tangent, or nerdapalooza per'se. Have you had any luck optimizing gallery2? It feels like initial load is slow. I might have to do some work on speeding up php see if that helps.

Yeah, it's slow. I'm running it on a dual Xeon HT box with 8GB of RAM, though

If you turn on partial acceleration, it'll really speed it up, along with using ImageMagick instead of GD (not to mention it's a lot faster than GD).

Malte

Hmm, nerdgasms. Lovely. :devbobo

Malte

JimM

It looks like you have done a nice job integrating Gallery2 with Paypal

For me, I'll stick with the ease of use, support, and they do all the fullfillment of Smugmug .

By the way, I am geek enough that I own a web hosting company, and I still pay Smugmug to handle my photos!