For Weddings, Smugmug Falls Short of Pictage

winnjewett · November 15, 2005

I would like to hear from the powers-that-be whether they plan on competing directly with pictage in the weddings category. It seems as though pictage has a much slicker interface for both the photographer and the client and the client's family. They charge 12 times the price for their basic membership, but they can do this because there is little competition.

I don't want to start a laundry list of features that pictage has that smugmug doesn't; I don't think that would be useful. But I would like to see smugmug dedicate some effort to the wedding-specific photographer.

-Winn

tony larcombe · November 15, 2005

I'd like to hear you opinion of the areas where Smugmug falls short of Pictage ? I do weddings and portraits, I chose SM coz I could customize the site to how I liked it, and it was 12 times less than Pictage.

Tony.

Baldy · November 15, 2005

The honest answer is I think Pictage will offer wedding-specific services Smugmug doesn't for a long time.

They offer film services, for example, which I doubt we ever will.

On the other hand, we continually add new features and we've been working on some for pro shooters that should be very helpful to wedding photographers. We don't do it to compete with Pictage, per se, as much as we do to respond to feature requests from our users.

I hope this helps.

Thanks,
Chris

winnjewett · November 15, 2005

tony larcombe wrote:

I'd like to hear you opinion of the areas where Smugmug falls short of Pictage ? I do weddings and portraits, I chose SM coz I could customize the site to how I liked it, and it was 12 times less than Pictage.

Tony.

There are many areas where smugmug has the advantage. Certainly cost is the biggest one, and customization is the next biggest. However, there are many features that pictage has that smugmug doesn't. Here are a few:

1) Users can save as many favorites as they would like. This allows a bride or bride's mother to sort through the photos at her leisure. This can also be used for gift-giving since anyone can view and order from public favorite folders. This provides for a much more interactive, and community-based method of choosing prints.

2) Ordering prints is much more intuitive for the user. There is one dropdown with all the print sizes that are available with the cost of the print right on the same page as the photo. This makes complete intuitive sense. Smugmug's print ordering works, but it is very easy to miss the two dropdowns. Since the browsing and ordering are separated, it feels more like shopping at amazon, and not like selecting wedding photos from a professional photographer.

3) They offer full digital services, including color correction from jpg, meaning that the photographer doesn't have to shoot in RAW, and doesn't have to worry about color correcting all the photos.

4) They offer a bunch of marketing tools, such as email to clients, discounts for ordering early, bulk discounts on large orders (groups of 25 4x6, for example).

5) They offer coffee table books, greeting cards, fine art cards, fine art proofs, albums, dvd presentations.

6) They allow for any sort of watermark, not just a big ugly gray block of text that covers the entire middle of the photo.

I'm sure there are more, but I am not very familiar with pictage. My wish is not to switch to pictage, but for smugmug to add more features to its already great website.

-Winn

Mike Lane · November 15, 2005

winnjewett wrote:

3) They offer full digital services, including color correction from jpg, meaning that the photographer doesn't have to shoot in RAW, and doesn't have to worry about color correcting all the photos.

Doesn't Smugmug's Auto color correction do the same thing?

winnjewett · November 15, 2005

Mike Lane wrote:

Doesn't Smugmug's Auto color correction do the same thing?

You might have a good point, but this is an option that is available to the user when they checkout, not before the images are posted. There is a big difference in professional appearance. The professional photographer wants his/her choices to be locked in, and not to be changed by the client. It is this sort of thing, this lack of professionalism that smugmug needs to work on.

When an entire category of prints was changed to "prints for small cameras", there was a unanimous outcry about the implications that professional photographers could be using small cameras, or that the camera used had anything to do with the size of the final print whatsoever. A few months later, "prints for small cameras" is still alive and kicking.

-winn

3rdPlanetPhotography · November 15, 2005

Go Smugmug!

I checked out pictage.com and wasn't impressed. For the people that are still shooting film I'd be by now they already have their favorite place. As for everyone who has left film, well there are many options. It all comes down to what you like. Smugmug fits like a glove. I'm sure there are many things that Smugmug "could" do but they don't. Frankly, what they do they do well. They "could" sell car wax but that wouldn't be of any value to me.

kc7dji

Andy · November 15, 2005

winnjewett wrote:

You might have a good point, but this is an option that is available to the user when they checkout, not before the images are posted. There is a big difference in professional appearance. The professional photographer wants his/her choices to be locked in, and not to be changed by the client. It is this sort of thing, this lack of professionalism that smugmug needs to work on.

Hi Winn - thanks for taking the time to post this. One of the things I've got on my plate is to look at this very thing - how Smugmug and our pros are getting on: features, service, and wish-list stuff. I'm taking your suggestion: if a pro turns "auto color off" in gallery customization, then maybe it shouldn't be an option to override that at checkout. It's a great suggestion - thanks. While I thank you for the suggestion, I can't go so far as agreeing with your statement of "lack of professionalism" though, because there are so very many pros using the service and making money.

winnjewett wrote:

When an entire category of prints was changed to "prints for small cameras", there was a unanimous outcry about the implications that professional photographers could be using small cameras, or that the camera used had anything to do with the size of the final print whatsoever. A few months later, "prints for small cameras" is still alive and kicking.

-winn

Well, it was far from unanimous in terms of our entire subscriber base... yeah lots of posters here on dgrin agreed with you... and this too, is something that I'd love to see worked on but I hope you appreciate that it's not trivial, and therefore these things take time. No promises if/when but it's something that we look at all the time. And your feedback is incredibly valuable - thanks for that!

All the best,

For Weddings, Smugmug Falls Short of Pictage

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