# Flickr vs. Smugmug



## NJHeart2Heart

I did a search and didn't find anything, so I'm posting now.
Can those of you with experience (preferably with BOTH), opine about Flickr vs. Smugmug? Please indicate if you use them for professional or hobby use.

I'm a current flickr user and content right now.  I don't do professional- just need a place to show off my hobby pictures.  I'm a pro member and am at a pricing of 44.95 for TWO years.  That's almost half as much as smugmug, but I like to have an open mind and learn about alternatives.

Thanks,
Dawn in NJ, USA


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## Linwood Ferguson

I have used Smugmug for many years, and I did build a bit of Flickr for curiosity.  To me they are very different, like asking to compare (say) a Target store and a Ace Hardware store.  It's no so much that one is better than the other, they are are just different.

If all you want is a place to show off photos, both are a bit similar, or more precisely with Smugmug you can make a site similar to Flickr.  But there's lots of designs on Smugmug that you can't reproduce on Flicker, at least that I couldn't.   

There's also a lot more depth to Smugmug for commercial use (labs, merchandise, etc.), at least as far as I know.

But on Flickr I think there's a lot more social media interaction and activity and probably integration.

Frankly to just show off -- if you are happy with Flickr's style and navigation, you are probably better off (i.e. cheaper at least).  

Why not give it a try though -- Smugmug offers free trials.  See how you like it.


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## NJHeart2Heart

Linwood,
Thanks much for the reply.  I did sign up for Smugmug today, but I hesitate to bother creating a site since I am not really committed to spending the money to use the service. I have a current membership with flickr so I'll likely stick with that, but I am a member of a group that uses Smugmug, which piqued my interest in the site.
Thanks for the feedback 
Dawn


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## FanielloT

I use Flickr. Flickr is a free & paid service for uploading photos to the web and sharing them with others. The reason it is so loved is because it has free accounts and has more sharing & social features then you could possibly imagine. With Flickr you have the option to tag photos for searchers, add comments on people in photos and publish all of them to Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Blogger or WordPress as soon as their finished uploading.


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## clee01l

FanielloT said:


> ...The reason it is so loved is because ...


Welcome to the forum.  Flickr is not as loved as it one was by the Flickr community. The Yahoos at Flickr have managed to scare away many long time users.  Posting and comment levels are way down to what they once were.


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## Ryan

clee01l said:


> Welcome to the forum.  Flickr is not as loved as it one was by the Flickr community. The Yahoos at Flickr have managed to scare away many long time users.  Posting and comment levels are way down to what they once were.


I agree. I like the old Flick'r better. Not so much the for the social features but when you did a search for something you had the option of going through everything as a slideshow. And another option to show the info as well.


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## jstevensphoto

I agree about the lost love.   Flickr was better before Yahoo took over.   You might want to look at Zenfolio.   I still use Flickr as a hobby, but I find Zenfolio a good, cheap choice for professional work.   If you need a selling platform, Zenfolio will take care of all the E-Commerce for you.   (At a price, of course.)


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## clee01l

If you have an Adobe Photographers bundle, Behance is included and there is a Bechance Plugin (which could be improved greatly!!)  Behance is geared toward professional portfolios.  Another place to set up your portfolio is 500px.  There is a LR Publish Service Plugin for it too.


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## amsiatech3

*Content Right*

Hosting in "Free" Flickr meaning you give up your content right, they can do whatever they like with your uploaded media, check out Flickr's Term and Agreement.


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## artmaltman

*Copyright protection for photos!  yikes.  How about Smugmug*



amsiatech3 said:


> Hosting in "Free" Flickr meaning you give up your content right, they can do whatever they like with your uploaded media, check out Flickr's Term and Agreement.



Wow.  I had totally forgotten to ask about copyright protection of photographs in my own consideration of Flickr vs Smugmug.  Sigh.

Any more general comments from users of others such as Photoshelter or Zenfolio?
Not just on copyright but more generally.

Thanks,
Art


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## Conrad Chavez

artmaltman said:


> Wow.  I had totally forgotten to ask about copyright protection of photographs in my own consideration of Flickr vs Smugmug.  Sigh.


Flickr does not make you give up your copyright. Flickr and Smugmug have terms of service that are similar to most others in the industry: You keep ownership and copyright of your photos, but you agree to license your images to them non-exclusively because they need your permission to store your images on their servers and display them in any country. From the Flickr terms of service:


> Yahoo does not claim ownership of Content you submit or make available for inclusion on the Yahoo Services. However, with respect to Content you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Yahoo Services, you grant Yahoo the following worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive license(s)...


There may be some confusion based on the different licenses you can mark your photo with on Flickr. You can assign any of several different Copyrighted or Creative Commons licenses. If you want maximum restriction, you assign Copyrighted. If you want to let others to use your images without having to ask you, you pick one of the Creative Commons licenses. But realize that some Creative Commons licenses may let others create products from your images without giving you anything more than a credit.

Copyright, licensing, and the terms of service of various websites are widely misunderstood by photographers; it's worth reading up on it.

As for Flickr vs Smugmug, Flickr is mainly a place to show pictures in an online community and get feedback, while Smugmug is set up so that, depending on the level you sign up for, you get a deep feature set for image management, metadata management, image protection (watermarks, right-click message), onine sales, privately handling event galleries and business clients (e.g. for wedding/portrait/real estate photographers), custom site organization, custom branding (your logo on the page, not Flickr's), custom domain name. If you need those things, Flickr doesn't come close.


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## artmaltman

Excellent, this is terrific information.  Thank you.


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## jstevensphoto

I use Zenfolio for my on-line sales platform.   One thing you have to accept is people will still steal your images.   It seems "copyrighted" means nothing these days.   I use a big, ugly watermark on portraits, dance shots, etc.  The watermark is removed if they purchase the file or a product.   Students and parents still screen shot the images and use them, even with the watermark.   You can make each gallery password protected, but you would have to have a unique password for each client or they will just tweet the password to everyone.   This is why I always get an up-front "sitting fee" for all school, dance shoots.   Otherwise, I would make next to nothing.  I have found that people simply do not want to pay for quality photography.   We live in an "iPhone is good enough age. "


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## Packhorse-4

Lots of great commentary here - I bounced around a few different photo sharing websites and decided to stick with Smugmug.  At the core, they all offer very similar capabilities, but I have really enjoyed the ease of use I found with Smugmug when designing my website.  They have simple templates to start with and a great set of tools to customize the website beyond the basic templates if you would like.  I also like the Lightroom Publish service for Smugmug which allows me to create, publish, edit, etc. all of the photos on my website without ever leaving Lightroom.  (I'm pretty sure Flickr & zen have the same publish services available).  

Ultimately, go with what you know.  If you are happy with your current services then you should stick with your current workflow.  I know a lot of photographers who signed up for premium web services but did not use any of the premium features they were paying for.  When you find your provider is not offering all of the services you want/need (social, privacy, storage, design, web-store, etc) then you can focus in on the services you really want to pay for.


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## ChuckTin

If you do a Google search there is an (older, possibly to old?) Spreadsheet summary of rights/usages on most of the major photo sharing sites. The weasel words are ... enlightening.


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## Ian.B

I use flickr to show off. Google Plus is my other showing off platform and to get the most (lots of followers) out of both you need to put in the time yourself. Google plus seems to be more interactive even though I have pull away a bit from G+ of late.  Been spending  too much time on line and had to pull away some what

I have a long time online mate from canada who has a built up a following of over a million on G+ just by being very interactive  . His photos are good but there are better; he just put in the time  over a number of years on a number of platforms


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## theotherlinh

It depends on what you're trying to show off. Flickr is like a stream of your photos. And easier to get other people to see probably.  Smugmug is more for a professional portfolio where you have a lot more control over how it looks (depending on what you pay).  It also has the one of the better privacy controls for individual albums IMO (I deal with family, clients sometimes, and just one off things for various people).


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## HawaiianEye

I built my own photography business website using Jimdo Pro.

But thousands of photographers from all over the world have no idea I exist! 
I mean how many photographers have web-sites? Can you visit all of them? Just here on Maui, there are endless photographer's web-sites!
But, to show off my stuff, see what others are doing, and interact with whoever I choose, to whatever degree I feel: *flickr* free works great. No hitches.

There's always someone disseminating falsehoods on the internet. And many lap it up, like a kitten to milk. 
You don't give up your inalienable rights when you join. So;
Damn the Torpedoes, and who ordered the veal cutlet?


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