Best photo hosting?

cygni said:

Hi, I am getting into digital photography a bit and need a place to store fotos online. Anyone have recommendations for membership photo hosting? I am preferably looking for something that is free, but will pay a $25ish or less for a site that doesn't have restrictions on types of pics and allows the album to be set to private or viewable by select people. so far I have only found photobucket and flickr, but would like to find a few more.

Thanks for any help!

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Check out Smugmug at http://www.smugmug.com. They offer a free account and a couple of tiers of paid accounts which have progressively more features and flexibility. The account holder can designate private galleries as opposed to publicly viewable ones. If you mean by "restrictions on types of pics" something which is of a suggestive or frankly sexual nature, I really don't know if they have any policies about that, since that's not the type of shooting I do. I'm sure that if you read their TOS (Terms of Service) that will tell you what you need to know.

PBase (http://wwww.pbase.com) is another site, one which is used by many professional and enthusiastic amateur photographers. I believe they offer a free trial but then you do need to pay on an annual basis to have an account there. I don't think that there is any sort of tiered structure, but simply if you want more space, you pay more money. Again, you'd have to read their TOS to see what their policies are with regard to specific types of images.

I think that you'll have a hard time with posting censored images on the web. My recommendation would be to build your own web site and host it on a box of your own...

I think photobucket.com might be worth looking at. Completely free. I use it to store any images I post on these forums and a few other uses. I know they don't allow porn but I'm not sure how they are about nude artwork.

If you don't title each image, its basically impossible for anyone to find unless they know your user name.

cygni said:

thank you everyone for the replies. i opened 2 accounts yesteday, one with flickr and the other photobucket. flickr seems really cool and it is possible to set fotos to private, that's a nice feature. photobucket is a basic site, however, it is possible to block access to all fotos and share what you want.

now I can go crazy w/ taking my amateur pics, storage is no longer an issue.

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I know photobucket does have an option to make your photos private... i haven't used it so I'm not sure how it works. I just know they have a huge amount of storage and bandwidth for free.

I really enjoy Printroom however the Pro account is $99/yr which may be more than you'd like to spend. I love their setup and how they deal with customers, great print quality, shipping, etc.

They have a free account but I'm not sure how much space they give you and you can't set your own prices. With Pro you get more space (especially if you know the trick ) and you can list your own prices, crop/editing options, and setup your entire storefront. Very good establishment, look into it.

Seeing as nobody has mentioned it, Flickr is great, there is a monthly upload limit and set limit on the free service and for about 25 bucks you get a massive upload limit and unlimited sets.

It has nice features like tags too and a real community feel to it if you want people to comment, but equally you can turn that off it you want.

I thinks its ace.

I also think you can put anything up, Ive seen a few naughty bits on there - i wasnt looking for them though!

efoto said:

I really enjoy Printroom however the Pro account is $99/yr which may be more than you'd like to spend. I love their setup and how they deal with customers, great print quality, shipping, etc.

They have a free account but I'm not sure how much space they give you and you can't set your own prices. With Pro you get more space (especially if you know the trick ) and you can list your own prices, crop/editing options, and setup your entire storefront. Very good establishment, look into it.

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Hey, efoto! Long time no see! Welcome back!

Look at a .Mac account and the most recent iPhoto, or RapidWeaver. My site in my sig is my work in progress with RapidWeaver. You might also look at PhotoSig (http://www.photosig.com/) you can gain some feedback on your individual images (as well as gaining points in reviewing others images.

Clix Pix said:

Hey, efoto! Long time no see! Welcome back!

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Thank you.
Not sure how long I'm here for, stopping in for a bit to say hello though

Chip NoVaMac said:

Look at a .Mac account and the most recent iPhoto, or RapidWeaver. My site in my sig is my work in progress with RapidWeaver. You might also look at PhotoSig (http://www.photosig.com/) you can gain some feedback on your individual images (as well as gaining points in reviewing others images.

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By the way...http://www.flickr.com is also compatible with iPhoto, and they even have a mac upload program for free that tells you how much monthly bandwidth you've used.

it's so easy just to get a cheap domain of your own choosing, a small hosting package and just link to the pictures -- or a bit of minor html and you have your own gallery...

i never understand why people use photosharing sites except free ones for party/vacation pics and so on.

i had never done a thing on the internet and made my own photo website in one evening.

i think i pay around US $30 a year for more bandwidth than i could ever use

PBGPowerbook said:

it's so easy just to get a cheap domain of your own choosing, a small hosting package and just link to the pictures -- or a bit of minor html and you have your own gallery...

i never understand why people use photosharing sites except free ones for party/vacation pics and so on.

i had never done a thing on the internet and made my own photo website in one evening.

i think i pay around US $30 a year for more bandwidth than i could ever use

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Probably depends a bit on your area (hosting prices) and how many people are checking out your images. When I did my cousin's wedding recently and posted those pictures (on my Printroom account) I had a ton of viewings and orders, more than my personal site could have handled for the hosting set I have. Getting more bandwidth on my site would cost nearly the same as the Printroom account plus I'd have to deal with orders/printing....that's why I, and I assume others, use photo sites instead of personal sites.

I'm going to have to put my vote in for flickr. I've had a Pro Account for 2 years, and have no complaints yet.

Yes, you can mark photos as private when you upload them, so no one can see them, or just friends can see them.

Can you really get a SmugMug account for free or are we talking about a free trial?

cygni said:

Hi, I am getting into digital photography a bit and need a place to store fotos online. Anyone have recommendations for membership photo hosting? I am preferably looking for something that is free, but will pay a $25ish or less for a site that doesn't have restrictions on types of pics and allows the album to be set to private or viewable by select people. so far I have only found photobucket and flickr, but would like to find a few more.

Thanks for any help!

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for me http://photo-hosting.winsoftmagic.com/ is the best
Simple as Google, really effective, and absolutly free)

Aperture said:

Can you really get a SmugMug account for free or are we talking about a free trial?

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It's a free 14-day trial. I have a "Power" account ($60/year) and it's worth every penny.

Deviant Art
They let you post any kind of pictures. I believe there is no limit as to how many pictures either.

Zenfolio is another excellent photo galleries site....easy to upload, easy to arrange your images, etc. http://www.zenfolio.com

I use photobucket lol

Not that I am concerned about what content you are posting but be wary with Flickr and making sure things are tagged correctly etc. Also, do not rely on Flickr as a way to back up your images. Flickr's handling of questionable content can equal you trying to login one day and finding your account no longer exists with no way to get any recourse. You can and will be deleted if too many people block you amongst other things.

Not telling you to avoid the site, just be cautious and careful.


I have smugmug for my hosting, though i use it more as a way to share with friends/family than to make $$$, even though I have a Pro account.
(A friend of mine has done some work for Smugmug and I have benefited from that with an extra year extension of my Pro account for no cost)

hmmm... somehow I think the OP has already made his decision at some point in the past 2+ years.

My vote goes to smugmug, which offers a free trial, but no free accounts. I think their base account comes in at $35/year ($25?), with unlimited bandwith and JPEG storage. I don't think they'll censor it if it's in a private album and it's art.