Which Solution?

Jarvo · June 12, 2008

Hi All,<o:p></o:p>
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Newbie here … so go easy on me!!!!<o:p></o:p>
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I’m after some advice.<o:p></o:p>
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For some time I have been searching for the ideal solution for my requirements, however the more I search the more requirements I have. Some are more necessary than others however!

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Scenario:<o:p></o:p>
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Firstly, I the photographs I take can be put into one of three categories:<o:p></o:p>
1) Personal – Days out, Holidays, Drinking with the boys, etc<o:p></o:p>
2) Family – Photo’s of my partner, my son and I.<o:p></o:p>
3) Photoblog (tomjarvis.com/photoblog) – These are images which I have taken, which I feel stand for themselves. They are “nice” images which I am proud of taking as a photograph rather than a snap. <o:p></o:p>
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I have my own domain, and like the idea of keeping everything in one place. Previously as an IT Techie .. I have tinkered with Gallery and Coppermine, and while they are great products, they don’t 100% fit my requirements. I’ve previously suffered from failed upgrades or broken databases. <o:p></o:p>
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My photoblog is currently powered by PixelPost, which is doing a great job and I am fairly pleased with.<o:p></o:p>
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Requirements:<o:p></o:p>
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1) The idea of managing photo’s on my PC, and adding keywords to them and then uploading to several different photo repositories is one I’d rather not do. Ideally I’d love one “online gallery” where the photos can be easily arranged and then link into my photoblog, facebook, normal blog, etc as required. Even better if I could literally arrange everything on the PC and it “syncs” new photo’s up to the online site.<o:p></o:p>
2) Own Domain - I’d prefer to keep everything under my domain name. Yes I realise I could have picasa or flickr within a frame on my website, but it just doesn’t cut it.<o:p></o:p>
3) Ability to customise Site, and make it “fit in” to my website.<o:p></o:p>
4) Split the galleries where I could have:<o:p></o:p>
* Photoblog – Images may be commented on, and prints can be ordered, but downloads are not allowed.<o:p></o:p>
* Personal – Images are freely able to be commented on and prints can be ordered or the file downloaded (or linked to)<o:p></o:p>
* Private – Passworded where family may login to view images, and order prints if required.<o:p></o:p>
5) Possibility to link using "widgets" or API's into Facebook, and Wordpress/MovableType
6) Geotagging to show pics on a map.
7) With the photo printing services, it would be useful to have one which offers a UK print service.
8) Allow legitimate comments, and not spam
9) Backups taken of the photos
*Use of keywords within Photoshop which are them used when the file is imported into the site.
10) Simple upload and organisation tools.<o:p></o:p>
11) Watermarking to deter image theft.

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Current Filing Structure:<o:p></o:p>
This can go several levels deep:<o:p></o:p>
Site – Personal – Holidays – X and Y’s Wedding 2008 for example.<o:p></o:p>
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Site
- Photoblog
- Professional (sic) Images
- - Event A
- - Event B
- Event C
- Personal
- - Travel and Places
- - Weddings
- - Holidays
- - Birthdays
- - Animals
- - Aquariums and Museums
- - Other
- Private (Son's) Photos (Passworded)
- - Travel and Places
- - Weddings
- - Holidays
- - Birthdays
- - Animals
- - Aquariums and Museums
- - Other
- Client Photos
- - Client A (Passworded)
- - - Shoot A
- - - Shoot B
- - Client B (Passworded)

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Questions:<o:p></o:p>
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1) If I catalogue my photo’s using Adobe Bridge, and add “keywords”, then do these filter through into the online system? Or do I have to add them again?<o:p></o:p>
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2) Id love to incorporate the photo’s into a blog, such as movabletype or wordpress. So I can say for instance “Today we went to the zoo, click here to see the day out”, which will link to that specific “gallery/album”.<o:p></o:p>
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3) Currently my photoblog has an RSS feed and links into the likes of photoblog.org and vfxy ? Would you recommend I stop using PixelPost and use an online gallery to achive my PhotoBlog for centralised management, and if so, will it have RSS feeds which I can use for VFXY etc.

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Comments:<o:p></o:p>

I've looked at flickr and picasa and they seem great, but just do not offer a solution if you have your own domain name.

The thing I like about both flickr and picasa is that they are fairly universal and have hooks built in to post into facebook, various blogs such as wordpress, movabletype etc.

Are there any other services which I should consider?

I know I've raised a few questions, but would be good to hear peoples ideas and solutions too.<o:p></o:p>
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So far Ive looked at:
shutterfly<o:p></o:p>
shutterchance
photobox
flickr
picasa
zenfolio
smugmug<o:p></o:p>
and lots more!

Each one has it's plus points and negative points. The more I investigate the services, the more features I want!!!

I think it's like looking for the holy grail, as none of them offer all of these. SmugMug and Zenfolio both look great and cover most of the requirements. Although both seem to miss a couple of different requirements. I had considered going back to Coppermine or Gallery, but it's so annoying when the DB corrupts and you have to re-do everything. One would hope with a hosted service that should it fail they restore backups etc.<o:p></o:p>
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Thanks in advance for the help and advice to my solution nightmare! I will gratefully receive any advice.<o:p></o:p>
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OffTopic · June 12, 2008

What shortcomings have you found in Smugmug? Maybe we can address them directly. Other than requirement #1, which I don't believe any on-line sharing site will do, and the UK printing, it seems that SmugMug does or has just about every thing you're looking for.

I can answer your questions #1 and #2 - yes, if you do your keywording, captioning, etc. in Bridge it all seamlessly carries over into SmugMug (and it's much easier than trying to use SM's keywording tool). And I do a lot of linking in my blog (Blogger) using html all the time - I create photo links to a larger version of the photo, to an entire gallery, and have even embedded a really neat slideslow of one gallery right into my blog. Can't answer your RSS question, though.

With a pro account you can have it under your own domain and customize your site to your heart's content. And there are a lot of great, helpful people here if you get stuck or run into any problems.

Jarvo · June 13, 2008

Hi Lori,

Thank you for your reply. I seem pretty convinced that Smugmug does cover all of my requirements.

True, it seems that they cannot cover the UK printing aspect, which is a bit of a pain.

That's great news that the keywording does follow through into the online aspect.

It's encouraging that there is a very active support network for Smugmug, but as someone thinking of getting a trial, I must say I was a little put off by Putty's thread "Dealbreaker". I can't say that my photo's are organised optimally, but I also fear that there may not be sufficient levels of organisation allowed. It was disconcerting to see that many people have asked for more organisation, and it is being denied or glossed over.

I guess I shall have to trial both products, and see which one fits best. At present I think it is SmugMug ... but I am concerned about the "sub-album" issue.

Oooh also what about monitoring visitors, is that possible? What does it look like? For instance can I insert google analytics code?

Thanks again for your time.

aktse · June 13, 2008

Jarvo wrote:

Hi Lori,

Thank you for your reply. I seem pretty convinced that Smugmug does cover all of my requirements.

True, it seems that they cannot cover the UK printing aspect, which is a bit of a pain.

That's great news that the keywording does follow through into the online aspect.

It's encouraging that there is a very active support network for Smugmug, but as someone thinking of getting a trial, I must say I was a little put off by Putty's thread "Dealbreaker". I can't say that my photo's are organised optimally, but I also fear that there may not be sufficient levels of organisation allowed. It was disconcerting to see that many people have asked for more organisation, and it is being denied or glossed over.

I guess I shall have to trial both products, and see which one fits best. At present I think it is SmugMug ... but I am concerned about the "sub-album" issue.

Oooh also what about monitoring visitors, is that possible? What does it look like? For instance can I insert google analytics code?

Thanks again for your time.

Yes, you can insert both google analytic and stat counter code -- tutorials on both! And a bunch more in the smugmugs wonderful FAQ.

And don't forgot about the referreral discount code (you can use mine if you don't have one -- hOftRGzEzf1SB) since it will save you a few bucks if you decide to sign up.

OffTopic · June 13, 2008

Jarvo wrote:

I must say I was a little put off by Putty's thread "Dealbreaker". I can't say that my photo's are organised optimally, but I also fear that there may not be sufficient levels of organisation allowed. It was disconcerting to see that many people have asked for more organisation, and it is being denied or glossed over.

Jarvo, if your structure only goes as deep as what you have outlined in your first post, Smugmug's levels will work fine for you. SmugMug has three levels, Category, Subcategory and Galleries. So using your Client Photos as an example, "Client Photos" would be the category, "Client A" would be your subcategory, and "Shoot A" "Shoot B" would be your gallery levels. For the examples you have listed under "Personal", "Personal" would be your category, "Travel and Places" would be your subcategory, and then you would have the individual galleries listed in that subcategory.

It's only if you want to go another level deeper that it starts getting tricky.

Jarvo · June 13, 2008

OffTopic wrote:

Jarvo, if your structure only goes as deep as what you have outlined in your first post, Smugmug's levels will work fine for you. SmugMug has three levels, Category, Subcategory and Galleries. So using your Client Photos as an example, "Client Photos" would be the category, "Client A" would be your subcategory, and "Shoot A" "Shoot B" would be your gallery levels. For the examples you have listed under "Personal", "Personal" would be your category, "Travel and Places" would be your subcategory, and then you would have the individual galleries listed in that subcategory.

It's only if you want to go another level deeper that it starts getting tricky.

Sounds good to me then. The only one I would have problems with I think would be my sisters wedding pics, as they would be

Personal - Wedding - Sisters Wedding - Church
Personal - Wedding - Sisters Wedding - Car
Personal - Wedding - Sisters Wedding - Evening

Although I guess I shall have to fudge that bit, with keywords or something.

Next question ... Can you assign passwords at each of the three levels?

Thanks in advance.

Looks like I shall be signing up for a test this evening.

Shame about the photo printing not shipping to the UK ... but I'm sure I can overcome that ... somehow.

jfriend · June 13, 2008

Jarvo wrote:

Next question ... Can you assign passwords at each of the three levels?

Passwords are assigned to galleries not categories. So, it's the actual gallery that has the password. When multiple galleries all have the same password, the viewer is only prompted once for that password and can open any other galleries with the same password without being prompted for the password again. This allows you to set all galleries within a category to the same password and your viewer only has to enter that password once. But, any viewer is allowed to see the existence of the galleries and their name, just not what's in them.