Rahul Khosla
Member
Are there cheaper alternatives to a SmugMug subscription or a better way to share albums with friends ?
SmugMug alternatives and album sharing options
- Thread starter Rahul Khosla
- Start date
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I use the free cloud provided by 2 of my email providers. I just send people a link and they can view and/or download by clicking on the link. OneDrive (Microsoft) and Google Drive (GMail).
If you have a Photoshop or Lightroom subscription, you can use Adobe Portfolio for free. I use it, and like it very much. It has a number of prefabricated templates that you can modify to your own liking. It doesn't provide any mechanism for commerce, as Smugmug and other sites do, but that doesn't matter to me, and perhaps not you as well. I've tried a number of other website builders over the years, and finally settled on Portfolio because it's easy to use and suits my needs for sharing with friends and family. Not that my site is anything particularly exemplary, but if you like you can visit the site I built with Portfolio here to get an idea of the possibilities: https://bynaturephoto.org/home
Rahul Khosla
Member
That’s really helpful thank you. I don’t need any mechanism for commerce. Just for sharing with close friends and family. Thanks again
Google will use your images for AI training. That’s how you pay for the service. As long as you have under 1000 pics, flickr is free and owned by smugmug. Very nice service and easy to use.
Can you tell how you know this? I didn't find anything on line about it.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3731674/google-photos-app-7407.0.jpg)
Google wants you to help train its AI by labeling images in Google Photos
Machine learning requires human training
www.theverge.com
https://support.google.com/photos/answer/9547620?hl=en-GB alludes to it as opt in but that is the Android app.
eHealth BrandVoice: In-Person, Online With Today’s Medicare Beneficiaries
eHealth launched “LiveAdvise”, allowing beneficiaries to consult with a live agent face-to-face by video while reviewing your coverage options together.
www.forbes.com
Does sort of imply they won’t but they leave room as it’s only the specific feature they refer to.
Google wants you to help train its AI by labeling images in Google Photos
Machine learning requires human training
https://support.google.com/photos/answer/9547620?hl=en-GB alludes to it as opt in but that is the Android app.
eHealth BrandVoice: In-Person, Online With Today’s Medicare Beneficiaries
eHealth launched “LiveAdvise”, allowing beneficiaries to consult with a live agent face-to-face by video while reviewing your coverage options together.
Does sort of imply they won’t but they leave room as it’s only the specific feature they refer to.
that makes it sound like it is training it's ai to make it easier for us to find or categorize our photos on the google photos application, not use it to create ai generated images.
mathjak107
Active member
what about zenfolio ?
of course I think of Eric Schmidt their former ceo (https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2024/08/15/eric-schmidt-ai-companies-commentary/)
“
Schmidt continues, “In the example that I gave of the TikTok competitor—and by the way, I was not arguing that you should illegally steal everybody’s music—what you would do if you’re a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, which hopefully all of you will be, is if it took off, then you’d hire a whole bunch of lawyers to go clean the mess up, right? But if nobody uses your product, it doesn’t matter that you stole all the content. And do not quote me.”
In the end it is whether you trust Google or not. They have a reputation.
mathjak107
Active member
just saw this:
- The Power plan is no longer offered to new customers.
- As an existing Power Plan subscriber, one will be able to continue renewing at that plan level.
As I said, in the end it is based on your trust level with Google. They do not provide services out of altruism. The bills are paid somewhere and somehow.
mathjak107
Active member
i spoke to smugmug , they just told me that the power plan will remain for those who have it .
i paid 253 in july for two years renewal
i paid 253 in july for two years renewal
MikeInMI
Active member
I think you need to look at the various scenarios that are important to you, and then see which of them are satisfied by the various providers. I know when I was looking a few years back, there were a lot of options, but at that time one of my use cases was to be able to allow a person to click once and then be able to download a whole gallery. Some options would only allow you to download one image at a time. The other important consideration was good customer support, and SmugMug does both of those well. So be sure and think through everything you might want to do before evaluating your options.
Congratulations! The site looks great. Which starting template did you use and how did you customise the home page. The photos are really great and I like the structure
I second what Abinoone said about Adobe's portfolio. It provided me an easy way to share my images with anyone that's interested. You can link it to a personal URL as he did. Your portfolio will be visible with your name as mine is, abwolfson.myportfolio.com. You can link it to a personal URL as Abinoone did.[/COLOR][/USER] I also chose a very simple template that can be easily updated with more images.
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nokk
Active member
former zenfolio user, but i've been really happy with 22slides.
https://22slides.com/
they have one plan with all of their features at $10/mo and offer a few more features over adobe's free option. my public facing site is linked below, but i also have hidden pages that i use as private albums to share with friends & family. no coding needed, but you can add code snippets to your pages for addons like google analytics. there's an ecommerce option using paypal if anyone ever wanted to order a photo or two from you.
https://22slides.com/
they have one plan with all of their features at $10/mo and offer a few more features over adobe's free option. my public facing site is linked below, but i also have hidden pages that i use as private albums to share with friends & family. no coding needed, but you can add code snippets to your pages for addons like google analytics. there's an ecommerce option using paypal if anyone ever wanted to order a photo or two from you.
MarkB
Member
I looked at the Adobe Portfolio option and it appears to me that the $9.99 subscription level limits one to 20 GB of included storage. I presently have over 100 GB on my Zenfolio account. To get 1 TB of storage moves one up to $19.99 per month. So another $120 per year.
Thank you! Really appreciate the compliment. I used the Thomas theme, and to be honest, I really can't remember how I got it to its current state. I do know it was a lot of trial and error. Each of Adobe's Portfolio themes has its strengths and limitations. Thomas didn't have everything I had hoped but came the closest to what I wanted. My best advice is simply to create a couple of pages in one theme, then switch to other themes to see what you like best. I'd also encourage you to take a close look at the websites of a few prominent professional photographers to get ideas, then "borrow" them for your own site. I did. As Einstein once said "the secret to creativity is knowing g how to hide your sources." Best of luck!
Many thanks! I will follow your advice.
Since I did not want to spend any more money with Adobe, I just have the photos on Myportfolio'that are important in the moment. I regularly changes my albums on it. Since the photos used on Myportfolio are not original format, I have over 1,000 photos in the cloud and it only uses 1.7 GB out of the 20.
MarkB
Member
I've thought about taking that approach, I'm presently with Zenfolio and have been for 15 years. I have 7300 photos there, mostly full resolution jpegs.
Roy
Well-known member
It's a good time for a Calendar ..
Figaro
New member
Nikon Image Space, free to Nikon users:
www.nikonimagespace.com
NIKON IMAGE SPACE
This is a photo storage service offered by Nikon.With it, you can securely store your precious photos.The service lets you browse, upload, and download photos without having to select a location or a device.It lets you easily share and post your photos.It also lets you review your shooting style...
www.nikonimagespace.com