A Review of Online Photo Services
Some time ago, I switched to Google’s Picasa Web Albums online photo management software. Although it’s simple to use, Picasa Web has been missing too many features for too long, and after Google locked me out of their software for a few days due to a bug of some sort, and their iPhoto plug-in stopped working, I decided it was time to start checking out the alternatives. I have played with a few services, and judged them based on a number of criteria, including these 15 questions:
1. How easy is it to do batch uploads?
2. Are there decent Mac and Windows upload tools?
3. Does it work in all major browsers (Opera and Safari are both important)
4. Will the default display scale to upwards of 2500 photos?
5. How fast does each page load?
6. Is the image scaled down? If so, is the original available?
7. Is it a fly-by-night startup that I can count on to be around?
8. How much does it cost for a pro membership, if anything? What are the benefits?
9. What are my storage requirements?
10. What is my traffic/bandwidth limit, if any?
11. Are there integrated ads?
12. How easy is it for others to access my photos?
13. Is there any sort of privacy?
14. What type of tools exist for me to manage my photos once they are online?
15. Is there some sort of embed/slideshow for my webpages?
I’ve tested the following services: Picasa Web Albums, Flickr, Zoto, Zooomr, SmugMug, Photobucket, Facebook, and MySpace. Read on for my initial results.
Tags: Facebook, Flickr, Found Online, Google, MySpace, Photobucket, Picasa, PicasaWeb, Review, SmugMug, Web, Web 2.0, Websites, Zooomr, Zoto
Very nice article!
“ess two three eight dot photobucket dot com backslash albums backslash eff eff two four seven backslash sethadam1.”
But isn’t / a slash and a backslash?
…and of course the form stripped the backslash character (the mirrored slash)
Great review! Most comparisons I read about these photo sharing sites miss the important details. This one was dead-on.
The author should check out http://www.fotki.com” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.fotki.com
it’s a great site albeit not very cheap if you decide to get a pro account.
I use DivShare for my needs. http://www.divshare.com” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.divshare.com
Actually, you can share albums to the public with Facebook. This might be a feature addition since you checked it out for your entry. I can upload photos, and they will give me a url to give to the public. But it’s like the Photobucket sort of url–nonsensical.
And not to be nitpicky, but in the Photobucket url, it’s a forward slash, not backslash.
Have a look at http://ipernity.com/” rel=”nofollow”>ipernity.com it’s like flickr but uncensored and as free - non pro- user you have more features available as in flickr.
Surely all the techies out there want total control and so would look to Open Source solutions such as Gallery (see http://sourceforge.net/projects/gallery/).” rel=”nofollow”>sourceforge.net
This of course requires hosting, but gives more flexibility for the guru, geek and just plain DIYers.
However, I appreciated the insight form the article very much. Good stuff.
I’ve done my own research and narrowed it down to PicasaWeb and DropShots. Eventually, with DropShots 2.0, I consider DropShots the winner. It can NOT get easier than DropShots! Drag-drop all of your photos AND videos onto the client app - which automatically batch converts all videos to Flash Video before uploading (i.e. takes up a LOT less space than Picasaweb) and throws them ALL into a calendar-format album (based on filedate/time) - which, with DropShots 2.0, you can drag/drop to create your own “categorized” albums out of as well. AMAZING stuff! And no, I dont work for them or make commission - just something I found that makes it simple and easy for ANY person - even non-computer people!
dropshots.com
I’ve been a SmugMug user for more than 3 years. They are absolutely the best and more. Well worth the annual fee. They also have an awesome online user forum with tons of traffic (great photo advice). Check out dgrin dot com
Good reviews. Just remember that - like the webmail debate, one doesn’t have to assume polar results.
I’m using BOTH Picasa and also Flickr. Picasa to archive the photos for myself and friends, and Flickr for it’s (what I feel is) superior community, sharing, and presentation.
An extra benefit of Smmugmug that isn’t listed in the review. The hosting service allows you to link to your pictures when posting to blogs, bulletin boards… whatever. Most other services will allow you to link to their page, but Smugmug allows you to link the picture only.
This is probably the best, most straight forward review I’ve read like this…ever. Good cross-section of competitors and a great set of ‘benchmarks’.
I’ll probably end up using PicasaWeb for a few reasons. The intergration with Picasa (the photo browsing app) is incredibly simple. For personal photos, Picasa is the most fun and simple way to organize things.
Thanks for sharing!
I actually wondered if you would read this, because it really is geared towards hosting rather than photo quality. There’s a whole tier of people who cater towards professional photography hosting too, but I don’t know enough about it to bother investigating.
But isn’t / a slash and a backslash?
Yeah, sorry… I fixed it.
Quite a thorough analysis- I like the criteria you set up at the top- you really hit all the bases. Obviously with all the start ups- there are way too many photo sharing sites to analyze them all- but I found one that is a near home run- pretty much nailing all the features you listed. It is called Pixamo… http://www.pixamo.com In order:
1. Batch uploads go ridiculously fast and the tool opens outside the browser- no download required. It also takes video.
2. Never tried it on a Mac- But I assume it works in any browser.
3. I’ve used it in Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Opera.
4. Yes.
5. Very fast website.
6. Unless you resize your content when you upload it, they won’t alter it, so you can always download your original high resolution images.
7. Solid site and always rolling out new features, so I assume, they’re growing fast.
8. A free membership provides 2GB, while other accounts can get you 4 or 12 GB.
9. Fill up your space, supports video as well!
10. No limit
11. Small Google ads on some pages- non obtrusive.
12. That is up to the user- it is very easy if you make your photos public, but if you exercise the strong privacy settings, only specific users will have access.
13. You can create your own privacy or sharing groups, as well as apply full viewing controls for every single photo and video. You can display them to the public, only select users (e.g. members of a sharing group), or to absolutely nobody other than yourself.
14. The tagging tool is used to organize. It took me a while to figure it out, but now I find it super efficient. They system actually predicts your tags as you type them by analyzing the collection of tags you and your friends have used before. This makes for tagging on the fly and quick linking of different users’ similar content. Clicking on any tag will reorganize photos instantly by the selected tag, eliminating the need for albums.
15. You can embed in different sizes, and even embed the tags with the photo or video if you want. Then a reader will be directed to Pixamo if they click the tags to see similar photos and videos. The slideshow feature seems to be new- I haven’t tested it yet.
Check it out- I have been pretty satisfied thus far- I am just waiting for the community to grow a little…
My internet is being loopy! Sorry for the double post!
i have had a great run with http://www.zenfolio.com
I would strongly recommned Zenfolio too. It really is in a class of it’s own. It’s not free but it’s very good value considering how sophiticated their current service is. And there are plans for a Premium service, expected before the holidays 2007 for additional pro features.
Grab a free trial account and check it out. If you are serious about your photos you won’t go back to Flickr or it’s peers.
Money saving coupons for Zenfolio and other paid photo hosts are avaialble here:
http://www.retailmenot.com
Thank you so much! It is incredibly useful and appreciated when someone spends time to thoroughly document their experiences like this. Just the other day, I decided to spend an hour or two (I probably should’ve kept track) doing a pretty simple benchmark of different Web browsers on Windows with a focus on memory usage, startup time and responsiveness. Even such a small experiment took a lot of concentration and effort in order to be thorough, so I can only imagine how much work went into this article. I just want you to know that it’s very appreciated!
Just a little update on Zenfolio’s features. They’ve increased the upload limit to 12mb per file to cope with new 10 & 12 megapixel DSLRs. And they are also about to introduce a PRO plan with ecommerce capabilities although there is no timeline on that.
http://www.zenfolio.com
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This article was helpful for my search for a new gallery site. I also wanted to mention that for those looking for a simple well designed, ad-free photoblog hosting site (post a photo a day), Aminus3.com is a great site.