Zenfolio or SmugMug

[Jay Gould]

I am considering both Zenfolio or SmugMug for my entry website now that I am finally starting to produce acceptable landscape images.

Those that have used both, is there a difference that stands out favoring one over the other?

Ease of use and creation of site?

The one difference that I noted on a quick review was that Zenfolio supports uploading in ProPhoto (the color space I use in CS5), whereas SmugMug asks that the photo be converted to sRGB.

Since there are lots of SM users, do you find it a limitation in the printing of your photos for sale?

All other comments greatly appreciated.

[Dan Brown]

I haven't used Zen, but with my smugmug account, the only print size limiter seems to be image pixel size, lengthXwidth and the ratio. Some really big prints aren't available if the ratio doesn't fit.

[Craig Clute]

Jay,

I've been on Smug for a couple of months now and have been happy. I have no experience with Zen for comparison purposes.

[Susan Candelario]

Hi Jay,
Never tried or used Zen. I have been using Smug for a few years now aside from my own website, which is hosted by a different company. I mainly use Smug for clients galleries. It's pretty good and user friendly, although I would like to see less down time on the site then they usually have.

[Dave Woeller]

Hi Jay,

I have had accounts at both Zen and Smug, and can offer a few thoughts for your considerartion. Smug has always been the most customizable (is that a word) of the two. However you will need to have some skills with CSS to achieve that, unless you use some of their tutorials with cut and paste CSS code. Zen has recently made a huge upgrade in their ability for the client to upgrade. my son uses zen and it's a matter of clicking on and off different features and placing them where you want on your page.. Zen has one more level of gallery depth than Smug. In smug you can have a "Category" which can contain "sub Categories" The categories, or sub categories contain "galleries" which contain the actual picture files Zen gives you one more level to work with. Zen uses MPix for its printing, while Smug uses Bayphoto, or Easy Prints. Both use flash for slideshows, so some users will not be able to view them. I think the big thing for you might be the fact that Zen supports foreign currency in it's shopping cart whereas Smug only allows you to set prices in U.S. dollars. I believe, of the two, Smug is the only one to allow video uploads, but you should check. Zen is a bit cheaper for a year subscription . Hope some of this info helps you out.

[Sid Garige]

Jay,

Also, check out 500px.com

IMO this site is going to be the next face book for photographers and great place for photo editors for selecting stock images. If my assumptions are correct, these guys are going to setup a great platform for stock photography with their ranking system in the future. Currently none of the stock agencies (as far as I know based on my limited knowledge) provide image ranking and editors have to go through a good collection of images to pick best out of the lot. With 500 PX image ranking from general viewers they already have this feature available and editors can get top pictures and select the best out of them with little effort.

Along with 500px pace (similar to face book page) 500PX is also providing a personal portfolio with a small collections of web themes. You will find many BPN members over there.

500px is strictly for showcasing images and not for critique.

Here is my 500px page if you want to take a look.
http://500px.com/luminepixels
and my portfolio
http://luminepixels.500px.com