semrich Posted October 9, 2007 Share #21 Posted October 9, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) I've just had a look at many of the different services mentioned here and while photography is still a hobby for me I am happy with zenfolio, it does all I want for groups, galleries, and collections, unlimited storage, ease of use and all for $75 a year with my own domain name. For my current needs I find all the others to expensive compared to what I now have. The cost is so low I'm even considering putting up another site for just film shots. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted October 9, 2007 Posted October 9, 2007 Hi semrich, Take a look here Easy but "professional" website. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
gesper Posted October 9, 2007 Author Share #22 Posted October 9, 2007 Is Zenfolio that much different than Flickr? I have a Flickr pro site which seems to offer much the same as Zenfolio (for $25/yr), but wanted something with more of a polished, professional look. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guy_mancuso Posted October 9, 2007 Share #23 Posted October 9, 2007 It's basically the same . Look at my Zenfolio to give you a idea on how it looks . I think i picked a modern template Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlesphoto99 Posted October 9, 2007 Share #24 Posted October 9, 2007 Is Zenfolio that much different than Flickr? I have a Flickr pro site which seems to offer much the same as Zenfolio (for $25/yr), but wanted something with more of a polished, professional look. Honestly, fluid galleries is really cheap at $429 for a one time purchase (of course you need to have a server host and domain name but that is cheap from say Godaddy, etc). I had a designer before that, and it was always like pulling teeth to update the site, etc etc not to mention it's going to cost in the 3-5k (or more) range for a custom designed site. Yes, there's hundreds of other photographers out there with the same template but you can customise it just enough to make it your own. And people just want to look at photos anyway so simple is good in my book. Zenfolio looks like a nice holding place for clients, friends etc but not a good way to present your work as a website to potential clients. It is very Flickr like (which is only $25/year) and therefore not a good way to set yourself apart. I have a flickr site as well, but just use it to hold batches of images for certain projects. I will also sometimes create mini-websites in Lightroom or iView for various purposes (friend's wedding, location scouting for shoot, etc) that I just upload to my server. Digital Railroad is another option I'm looking at, but it's geared mainly towards photojournalists and stock shooters (which I am sort of) and runs about $500/year. Hope this helps, Charles. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest roey Posted October 9, 2007 Share #25 Posted October 9, 2007 Some of those web site packages seem to include music. You might want to double-check with the developer whose responsibility it is to license the music used on your site. See also this blog entry: Photo Business News & Forum: The 'Music is Included'? How can that be? (Updated) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riccis Posted October 9, 2007 Share #26 Posted October 9, 2007 Roey: As far as I know, music is never included in those sites... While you have the option to add music, it is best not to use any copyrighted material, specially if you are a professional photographer... Best, Riccis Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gesper Posted October 9, 2007 Author Share #27 Posted October 9, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) I don't really want music. I usually find it annoying when sites play music, especially since I am usually listening to something of my own anyway. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdgerston Posted October 10, 2007 Share #28 Posted October 10, 2007 I used Clear Focus Designs, run by a nice guy named Shaun Santa Cruz in Montana: http://www.clearfocusdesigns.com/ He helped me design a look for the website as well as a logo and business card. I just shoot part time, so his help, ideas and price were all very helpful. By the way, this is my first post to this forum, but thanks to you all, I've learned a lot while reading here and learning to use my M8 these last few months. ~Curt Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gtownby Posted October 10, 2007 Share #29 Posted October 10, 2007 Gesper - I'm very happy with VisualServer.com, which is based out of the famous PhotoEye bookstore in Santa Fe, N.M. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gesper Posted October 12, 2007 Author Share #30 Posted October 12, 2007 Gesper -I'm very happy with VisualServer.com, which is based out of the famous PhotoEye bookstore in Santa Fe, N.M. Very nice site. I am impressed with the speed and the ability to look at enlarged images. What are the size limits (pixels) for images? Is there a limit to the number of portfolios? Any downsides that you have seen so far? Doesn't seem to be capable of slideshows, but that isnt a big deal. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mustafasoleiman Posted October 13, 2007 Share #31 Posted October 13, 2007 I have used iWeb and .Mac hosts the site, at the cost of £60/year. Never done a web site before, took me one hour. I was amazed how easy it is. Very easy to maintain and upload images and stuff. This is the result after three weeks of occasional tweaking. http://www.adim.tv I am sure there are better options out there, but this was truly painless. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gtownby Posted October 13, 2007 Share #32 Posted October 13, 2007 Gesper - Thanks for looking at the site. The service has two levels, the first limiting photos to 40. The second level is vastly larger - so large that I've forgotten if there is a limit. As far as photo sizes, as long as they are 500 kb or less, no problem. For more information, just click on the Visual Server line at the very bottom of my opening page. Years ago, I taught myself Dreamweaver enough to get a site up. But it was so difficult to modify that the site became stagnant. I then went to Apple iWeb, but found it limiting. (Though I'm sure it is better now - I still use it for my blog, which is linked to my site.) VisualServer is so easy that I even change the site while on vacation. Having a professional-looking website was a big factor in being getting accepted for my first gallery show earlier this year. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
egibaud Posted October 13, 2007 Share #33 Posted October 13, 2007 Hi, As a web designer, I notice that all these sites presented here, to the exception of Zenfolio (that looks to much of an image gallery to me), are well designed. Nevertheless, I think image sizes and Flash pages are not optimized. Some take far too long to load, a 500Kb size for an image is unacceptable, even with a high speed Internet connection it takes far too long to load. Price wise, not much to say, from US$200 to US$800 is surely a bargain for what you get. Unless you are starting your business and are on a tight budget, maybe it would make sence to contract a webdesigner and have a "unique" site instead of a template based one even if it may cost you 2 or 3 times more. Imagine if your closest competitor picks the same template, people do contract you for your pictures but.... it does not look as professional if you have the same site except for the pics of course. BIG MISTAKE!!! BEWARE, many sites have music! this is a massive error, many of your potential clients will be browsing your site at work, if music pops up and the boss appears, they will not stop it, they will just close the window, and bye bye to your visitor, are you sure they will find you again once they are at their home computer? Take also into account that 100% flash sites are not search engine friendly, getting properly indexed in google and yahoo will be far more difficult and force you to spend money on adwords. A good html site is likely to be far more efficient search engine wise. Although it is html, the image gallery can be a flash embeded one without problem and have this nice look you see on these sites mentioned in this post. Last but not least, it is very important that you update your site on a regular basis, otherwise visitors who search for a photographer will always see the same thing everytime the revisit before making up their mind. If they see new pictures, they will feel your are a busy photographer, they will understand they must contract you NOW or you may not have time for them... and this will also explain your prices. So when contracting give priority to solutions that let you update yourself without the need of programming knowledge or calling the designer, as this will mean extra cost, update can be done via a web based content manager. That's all folks :-) Eric Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mustafasoleiman Posted October 13, 2007 Share #34 Posted October 13, 2007 Eric I think you have made some excellent and important points. I like the fact that you take into account the everyday conditions of use and how they influence and are influenced by the interface of a web site. If and when I decide to do a professional job for my site, I will come knocking at your door. Thank you. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sean_reid Posted October 13, 2007 Share #35 Posted October 13, 2007 Hi, As a web designer, I notice that all these sites presented here, to the exception of Zenfolio (that looks to much of an image gallery to me), are well designed. Nevertheless, I think image sizes and Flash pages are not optimized. Some take far too long to load, a 500Kb size for an image is unacceptable, even with a high speed Internet connection it takes far too long to load. Price wise, not much to say, from US$200 to US$800 is surely a bargain for what you get. Unless you are starting your business and are on a tight budget, maybe it would make sence to contract a webdesigner and have a "unique" site instead of a template based one even if it may cost you 2 or 3 times more. Imagine if your closest competitor picks the same template, people do contract you for your pictures but.... it does not look as professional if you have the same site except for the pics of course. BIG MISTAKE!!! BEWARE, many sites have music! this is a massive error, many of your potential clients will be browsing your site at work, if music pops up and the boss appears, they will not stop it, they will just close the window, and bye bye to your visitor, are you sure they will find you again once they are at their home computer? Take also into account that 100% flash sites are not search engine friendly, getting properly indexed in google and yahoo will be far more difficult and force you to spend money on adwords. A good html site is likely to be far more efficient search engine wise. Although it is html, the image gallery can be a flash embeded one without problem and have this nice look you see on these sites mentioned in this post. Last but not least, it is very important that you update your site on a regular basis, otherwise visitors who search for a photographer will always see the same thing everytime the revisit before making up their mind. If they see new pictures, they will feel your are a busy photographer, they will understand they must contract you NOW or you may not have time for them... and this will also explain your prices. So when contracting give priority to solutions that let you update yourself without the need of programming knowledge or calling the designer, as this will mean extra cost, update can be done via a web based content manager. That's all folks :-) Eric Hi Eric, I agree that professional photographers should consider this. Earlier in the thread I also recommended finding a professional web designer and having a custom site done. Cheers, Sean Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gesper Posted October 13, 2007 Author Share #36 Posted October 13, 2007 Gesper - Thanks for looking at the site. The service has two levels, the first limiting photos to 40. The second level is vastly larger - so large that I've forgotten if there is a limit. As far as photo sizes, as long as they are 500 kb or less, no problem. For more information, just click on the Visual Server line at the very bottom of my opening page. Years ago, I taught myself Dreamweaver enough to get a site up. But it was so difficult to modify that the site became stagnant. I then went to Apple iWeb, but found it limiting. (Though I'm sure it is better now - I still use it for my blog, which is linked to my site.) VisualServer is so easy that I even change the site while on vacation. Having a professional-looking website was a big factor in being getting accepted for my first gallery show earlier this year. Gordon, is there a limit on the number of portfolios? Also, I notice on the VisualServer example websites (and yours) that files are downloadable jpegs. Even though they are low resolution, I assume they could still be used without authorization on websites, etc. Does this concern you, and do you know if VisualServer has any way to protect against this? The flash-based sites dont seem to have this issue. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gesper Posted October 13, 2007 Author Share #37 Posted October 13, 2007 Hi,Nevertheless, I think image sizes and Flash pages are not optimized. Some take far too long to load, a 500Kb size for an image is unacceptable, even with a high speed Internet connection it takes far too long to load. Imagine if your closest competitor picks the same template, people do contract you for your pictures but.... it does not look as professional if you have the same site except for the pics of course. BIG MISTAKE!!! BEWARE, many sites have music! Take also into account that 100% flash sites are not search engine friendly, getting properly indexed in google and yahoo will be far more difficult and force you to spend money on adwords. A good html site is likely to be far more efficient search engine wise. Although it is html, the image gallery can be a flash embeded one without problem and have this nice look you see on these sites mentioned in this post. That's all folks :-) Eric Eric, I definitely agree. In looking at these sites, many are way to slow to load which really frustrates the viewer. Same for music. Yesterday I was looking at some of these sites while on a speaker-phone conference call when all of a sudden music started blaring. It was very embarrasing, but there were so many on the call that no one knew the source. At this point, I am definitley not a professional, but want something with a professional look. I don't really care if others have the same look, but the site needs to be totally painless in terms of set up, implementation, and ongoing updates. Custom-made may be down the road for me, but for now simple is fine. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest WPalank Posted October 13, 2007 Share #38 Posted October 13, 2007 Take also into account that 100% flash sites are not search engine friendly, getting properly indexed in google and yahoo will be far more difficult and force you to spend money on adwords. A good html site..... Eric, At LiveBooks (a Flash site), they keep a dynamic "ghost.html" site on my server, so keywords are searchable. I couldn't agree more with your comments about Zenfolio and music on the site. Cheers, Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
egibaud Posted October 13, 2007 Share #39 Posted October 13, 2007 At this point, I am definitley not a professional, but want something with a professional look. I don't really care if others have the same look, but the site needs to be totally painless in terms of set up, implementation, and ongoing updates. Custom-made may be down the road for me, but for now simple is fine. Then, you can pick one of these template site, but first I'd contact them to make sure about image size optimization. Sometimes it is easy to blame the developer, but maybe they were updated by the photographer himself before uploading, and he just left the pics as big as he could. Regarding music, just ask them if it can be removed at no cost. And last but not least clarify the updating part, this is the most important point to me. This is also why some people here, prefer to have a worse design and a good updating facility such as zenfolio or flirk. Just a few lines regarding pictures web optimization. For web presentation: 1- do not zoom when preparing pictures for your site, you are not going to print, so what you see without zooming is what the visitor will see. repairing small details on a pictures you will not print is a waste of time if it is not visible at final web size.. So if it is ok on your screen it will be ok on your visitor's too. 2- when saving final picture from photoshop do not do a save as, but a save for web. This will open image ready, save in JPG or PNG and reduce quality until you can appreciate a difference on screen. Sometimes some pic with a 60% quality look as good as a 100% one. Exception usually happens when they are continuous colors such as a blue sky, white walls etc as the jpeg algorithm makes small squares, this forces you to stay with high quality. 3- resolution? 72 dpi, period ! this is a screen resolution, anything above this will NOT be seen, but yes, it will make a heavier file that will take longer to load. Using Image Ready when doing a save for web from photoshop, will avoid this mistake of using a higher resolution than needed. 4- Why PNG? JPEG? or GIF? the basic rule is png or jpeg are for photograph (millions of colors), Gif for plain colors such as logos, graphics etc. (mas 256 colors) They are some exception when a photograph uses plain colors, a few color product for example, then you should try and see what looks better on your screen. 5- Calibrating your screen? after all who knows if that jacket was blue or purple??? your client does !!! so even it is for screen browsing only, make sure what you get is more or less what it was. Not all your wedding dresses can be greenish or pinkish on other's screens :-) 6- What resolution for your web site? 800 X 600 pixels? 1024 X 768 pixels? more? First, sorry for Mac users (this includes me) think that 99% of your visitors will use Windows (in Europe at least, in US maybe 20/80) so optimize your site for them, it would be too stupid to have some extra Mac pixels and force most of your users to scroll down to see your page. If I look at visitors stats of most of my sites, 800 X 600 screen resolution represent about 5% of your visitors, the rest are with 1024 X 768 and above, don't forget that Windows users normally use full screen windows not like Mac users that often open a window to the size they need. Using 1024 X 768 will offer you the possibility to be visible without scrolling for almost all your visitors, and will also give you more space for displaying your pictures. This is what it is about, impressing your visitors with your work so they contract you. 7- Site design. make it as nice as possible but stay with this rule "DON'T MAKE ME THINK" forget about fancy menus where the visitor is lost guessing what the arrows, logos, dots etc. are for. Menus must be clear. Portfolio, Contact me, Prices etc. Try not to have the menu disapear while seeing the pictures. If I like your work I want to know your prices and eventually contact you, so please I am not to kin on spending money but it is my daughters wedding so I have no choice .... so don't push your luck making me search for your telephone number and email address :-) Don't forget what Jakob Nielsen, navigability guru, said, Flash is 99% useless!!! I would not go that far, but do not forget, YOUR pictures are the center of attention of the site, visitor must think What a great photographer!!!! NOT what a great webmaster who did this site!!! So tell the webmaster to keep his bells and fancy effects to a minimum, YOU are the actor, not him. I hope this few lines will help some people getting the right site for their needs. Eric Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gesper Posted October 13, 2007 Author Share #40 Posted October 13, 2007 Very helpful, Eric, thanks. What about the risk of jpegs being downloadable? Is there a way to protect them, or just dont worry about it? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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