Need help deciding which account to keep: Smugmug or Flickr. Love both.

July 29, 2011 1:34 PM

Need help deciding which account to keep: Smugmug or Flickr. Love both.

I've been a Flickr Pro member since 2005 and had a Smugmug account for about a year now. I don't think I can justify the cost of keeping both of them active and am having a hard time deciding which to keep.

Background: I am an amateur photographer and use a DSLR. I'd love to sell photos someday but never have. I have about 10k photos online and upload from Lightroom.

Here's how I see the pros and cons of each service:

Flickr:
+ Useable everywhere (easy to blog, post, link, etc.)
+ People see my photos and occasionally favorite or comment on them, which makes me feel good.
+ The Photostream feature makes it easy for someone to look at my page and see my most recent photos. It is updated when I post new photos.
+ Viewable on Apple TV
- Aesthetic of pages - cluttered, messy. Few options to clean up.
- My friends/family view my photos in detail view, which means tiny images. Not getting full effect.

Smugmug
+ Beautiful page layout options. Highly customizable.
+ More professional looking.
+ No ads.
- No "photostream" - my page always looks the same.
- No one sees my photos unless I send them a link. No comments, no views, no favorites.

Overall, I'd say that I love Smugmug but feel it's mostly for me, while Flickr, as messed up as it is, still provides more of a feeling of sharing my photos.

What would you do? Have you dealt with the same issues?

One note: if you look at my Flickr page, don't judge me on my lack of organization. I pulled apart all the groups when I thought I was moving to Smugmug for good a year ago. Only photos uploaded since then were blog or Twitter pics.


Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

posted by kdern to computers & internet (10 answers total)

Two additional thoughts:

- Aside from the cost of keeping both accounts, it also seems like too much work to maintain them both (uploading, creating albums, categories, etc.).

- I've also created a photo index for my Smugmug account, which I like, but I doubt anyone has ever looked at it.
posted by kdern at 1:40 PM on July 29, 2011

I'm a big flickr fan, but I've tried just about every service out there. Wasn't impressed at all with Smugmug though - but they ARE very different things. Photoshelter is far more useful than Smugmug if that's the sort of thing you're after. BUT - if you'd like to delay making this decision for a while I can help. Every month I give away a few flickr pro accounts. If you're interested in an account, just email me and its yours.
posted by blaneyphoto at 1:42 PM on July 29, 2011

I've never liked Smugmug--I think it looks kinda cheap and tacky. I have a lot of photos on Flickr, and I suppose I like it well enough--it's easy, pretty cheap, and has a huge footprint.

Have you considered getting a blogging solution with a CMS? I hear joomla is pretty handy. That way you can post your own photos, let people comment and set the design the way you like it.

Alternatively, there are other turnkey places (Viewbook, some others here; this has come up a couple of times on the Green).
posted by Admiral Haddock at 1:51 PM on July 29, 2011

I love flickr, just because it's what I've used forever. There are options to clean up the interface via userstyles.org. Technically I like flickr because it's been well integrated into many devices and platforms, so I can get into my stuff from various apps, etc., something that isn't totally common with lesser known services.
posted by msbutah at 1:54 PM on July 29, 2011 [1 favorite]

[You can put the links to the accounts in your profile if you like; please don't put them in the question.]
posted by restless_nomad at 1:56 PM on July 29, 2011

I would recommend Smug Mug. It is definately more polished and professional. From my point of view Flicker has that "Social Network" look about it. Everyone I have shared links to Smug Mug loves the Galleries. Hope that helps...
posted by kmurray24 at 1:57 PM on July 29, 2011

I love Flickr. But I hate giving Yahoo money. Even though I do it.
posted by caution live frogs at 5:10 PM on July 29, 2011

I have pro accounts on both. I originally signed up with Smugmug back in 2008 based on recommendations. I'm generally happy with them. It's a reasonably good hosting service and it used to be purely just about the pictures with some commerce thrown in. Smugmug is an excellent service platform if you do events / weddings / portrait work out of the US but not so much for fine art or other specialties. On the social side, they are tightening their integration with FB (bad idea, in my opinion) and they host an independent forum which is pretty good, DGrin, if you want to interact with other photogs. They also run bi-weekly competitions that pay in SM vouchers. I haven't had to pay for my account for the last two years.

I became more active on flickr last year through the Street Photography Now project and just recently signed up for a Pro account. I like that there are many, many more photographers there working in and sharing the types of shooting I enjoy. I still find it to be a muddle to get around but I'm giving it two years. I figure it's a much better place to gain exposure if that's what you are looking to do. It's also probably a reasonably good place to dabble in selling through their affiliation with Getty Images.

I've toyed with the idea of creating my own site to showcase some of my work. If I end up doing that, I'd probably use SM over flickr as my image hosting service instead of rolling my own CMS.
posted by michswiss at 6:12 PM on July 29, 2011 [1 favorite]

If you're interested in an account, just email me and its yours.

In response to all the emails I've recieved, should clarify my statement above - this was directed only at kdern. However, anyone is welcome to join my flickr group for consideration for next and future months' giveaways. Sorry for any confusion.
posted by blaneyphoto at 7:30 AM on July 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

I have used Smugmug now since ~2007 - Was slightly torn about the whole Flickr community thing too but can't stand the structure of page at Flickr and basically decided that 98% of what is on smug are family photos that no one else is interested in and those few shots I think are worthy of sharing also go on 500px.com which seems to really have a community building. Shameless plug to my best images http://500px.com/tobiasg1
posted by tgelston at 7:03 PM on August 18, 2011