# which photo-sharing site?



## PhilBurton (Mar 24, 2018)

I'm thinking of sharing photos online, but I have no sense of which websites offer the best experience.  Free is preferred, of course.  I'm interested in comments positive and negative about various photo-sharing sites.  I'd prefer to not use Adobe for this purpose.

Phil Burton


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## Roelof Moorlag (Mar 24, 2018)

Did you try Nikon Image Space?


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## davidedric (Mar 25, 2018)

You get Adobe Portfolio free with the subscription / Classic licence.  I've just started to have a look. It seems quite limited, but it depends what you are looking for.

  Oops, sorry, missed the "not Adobe" comment.  Leaving the post though for general interest.

Dave


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## Jimmsp (Mar 25, 2018)

I use Flickr for two primary reasons -
1. The base use is free, though I have opted for the paid so I can share photos without ads.
2. The interface with Lightroom lets me manage the sharing very easily. I just drag the processed photos I want to share into the Flickr collection under Publish Services and off they go.  I use it for two Flickr sites, my personal one, and the one I manage for my local photo club. I only upload smaller photos - 900 px on the long side.

I can  easily create a new album on Flickr, and send the link to those I want to share it with.


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## Linwood Ferguson (Mar 25, 2018)

It's worth sitting down and methodically thinking through how you plan to use this over the coming year or so, and make an actual (not mental) list.  Then compare that list to sites you may look at and do trials for.  Many of these sites have great "first impression" paths for new users, where you get quickly lost in the glitz and easy features.  Only later will you realize some core feature you really wanted may be absent.

As a few examples: Do you want the ability to have private galleries, e.g. for different friends or different family, that ones may not want to see?  Do you want a site where people can buy your photo as a print, or merchandise like tee shirts (I'm not saying where you make money, necessarily, but simply where they can hit a few buttons and get a coffee cup with that photo).  How will does it look on cell phones and tablets (and do you care)?   Are you hoping it will also be a backup for your photos (ability to store raw, to store full resolution, and whether the site munges your data may be relevant here)?  Do you care if the site strips your metadata (your name or copyright)?   How will you want to organize your site (this is often hard to envision when first starting, but think a few years down the road and ask how people will find things), and does the service offer such organizing tools?  When (not if) something goes wrong, do they have good support (look for a user-to-user site, and read their forum posts)?

Personally I love free but found that cheap was better, and use Smugmug, but there are a LOT of choices.  Do not rush into a choice, try out a bunch, almost everyone has free trials.

Postscript: Look for sites that have publishing plugins for Lightroom, it will greatly simplify your life.


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## PhilBurton (Mar 25, 2018)

Ferguson said:


> It's worth sitting down and methodically thinking through how you plan to use this over the coming year or so, and make an actual (not mental) list.  Then compare that list to sites you may look at and do trials for.  Many of these sites have great "first impression" paths for new users, where you get quickly lost in the glitz and easy features.  Only later will you realize some core feature you really wanted may be absent.
> 
> As a few examples: Do you want the ability to have private galleries, e.g. for different friends or different family, that ones may not want to see?  Do you want a site where people can buy your photo as a print, or merchandise like tee shirts (I'm not saying where you make money, necessarily, but simply where they can hit a few buttons and get a coffee cup with that photo).  How will does it look on cell phones and tablets (and do you care)?   Are you hoping it will also be a backup for your photos (ability to store raw, to store full resolution, and whether the site munges your data may be relevant here)?  Do you care if the site strips your metadata (your name or copyright)?   How will you want to organize your site (this is often hard to envision when first starting, but think a few years down the road and ask how people will find things), and does the service offer such organizing tools?  When (not if) something goes wrong, do they have good support (look for a user-to-user site, and read their forum posts)?
> 
> ...


Linwood,

I'm glad I asked, because I didn't realize that there were so many considerations.  Like you, I would like to address these issues upfront, but I didn't know until now what those issues were.

Backup is not an issue, and I hadn't even considered selling photos, but the other issues all resonate with me.  Thanks again.

Phil Burton


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## prbimages (Mar 26, 2018)

You can, of course, use different sites for different purposes. I like and use Flickr for general purpose "hey-look-at-this-photo" public sharing. I use 500px to see if I can monetize some images (with modest success so far and very little effort). For "brand" promotion you probably need to be on Instagram. For client work, I don't know, I haven't investigated.

I must say, though, for general friends-and-family sharing, I've found Adobe to be the best option (I know you said you don't want to use them).


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## MarkNicholas (Mar 26, 2018)

Before using Lightroom CC I used Outlook's OneDrive. Its not a fancy site just a place to publish photos with sharing options. There is also a plug in for LR so you can publish directly from LR.


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## Ian.B (Mar 26, 2018)

Just sent some raw and jpeg  files to On1 via the free dropbox; although it was bit like a blind bloke without a touch at night,   next time should be easier.


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## PhilBurton (Mar 26, 2018)

prbimages said:


> You can, of course, use different sites for different purposes. I like and use Flickr for general purpose "hey-look-at-this-photo" public sharing. I use 500px to see if I can monetize some images (with modest success so far and very little effort). For "brand" promotion you probably need to be on Instagram. For client work, I don't know, I haven't investigated.
> 
> I must say, though, for general friends-and-family sharing, I've found Adobe to be the best option (I know you said you don't want to use them).


As the old saying goes, "Never say _never_."  I might just end up with them.  But at their monthly pricing as part of the Photography Plan, I think I can do better elsewhere.


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## OogieM (Mar 26, 2018)

Ferguson said:


> It's worth sitting down and methodically thinking through how you plan to use this over the coming year or so, and make an actual (not mental) list.  Then compare that list to sites you may look at and do trials for.  .....Do not rush into a choice, try out a bunch, almost everyone has free trials.


Thanks for that post. I'm also looking at some way to share some fo the historical family photos I am scanning with other memebrs of the family. Not public but accessible,. I hadn't even thought of some of your issues and am glad you posted that there are more things to consider.


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## Replytoken (Mar 28, 2018)

Linwood laid a great foundation for your consideration, as I had a similar experience years ago when I initially went with SmugMug and then migrated to Zenfolio a few years later when I needed more control over how my images were organized and displayed.  Both companies have greatly revised their products these past few years, and are much better than when I initially chose and then migrated.

To add a bit to the mix, I would also say that you can mix and match services.  While I do have a Zenfolio account, I use box.com and dropbox when I just need to make images available to people who want to download them.  Both services have free accounts and are not hard to use.  I also use wordpress to blog and that is another way for folks to see your photos, but not necessarily download them.  They also have free accounts.

In short, you might want to mix and match depending on what you are trying to accomplish and how many images and people are involved in viewing and sharing.

Good luck,

--Ken


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## johnbeardy (Mar 28, 2018)

If you have the Photography Plan, you have some pretty good web sharing options which are reasonably integrated with LR. One aspect that is important is the range of ways you can present pictures:

Portfolio allows you to create a single public-facing web site.
You can use your own domain name
Password protected pages
Mine - it's only a demo

Spark allows you to compose story or project style pages mixing text, graphics and video.
You can create an unlimited number of Spark stories - here is one of mine
Adobe are going to improve this tool (it was mentioned in their announcement that they are killing off Muse)
They can be listed by Adobe or just on an obscure URL

Your Lightroom Web account lets you share collections of images very easily. You sync them from LR, click Share, and you get a URL to send people - that's it.
One big plus is that if you subsequently add, remove or adjust the images in LR, the collection is automatically updated (unlike Portfolio or Spark or 3rd party solutions)
Download is an option, as is hiding metadata
Privacy is via an obscure URL, for what that's worth

Using these might buy you time to consider other alternatives or might be enough in their own right.

John


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