Portfolio website

ado100

I'm looking for some advice on setting up a portfolio website (I did a search on boards but this technology is changing every day and there's nothing very recent that I can see).

Is anyone using Smugmug, Zenfolio, Squarespace,etc. - are they all they're cracked up to be? Any downsides? Any other recommendations? I also do a bit of event photography so I'd like the ability to upload images quickly and sell directly from the site.

I would really appreciate your advice, thanks.

Borderfox

I use Zenfolio, when I worked I did events and it was perfect for fully/semi automated selling of my pictures. Downside is you have to pay a service charge but this can be reflected in your prices. Easy to set up and live online help when I got stuck

PopeBuckfastXVI

Yeah with Zenfolio too... don't sell much through it but happy enough to pay the annual charge, saves me renting webspace and trying to maintain a website on my own and serves as a good backup for my photos.

It's very easy to use, and I haven't really come across many downsides. They are about to release an update that will make your site a lot more customizable now too, so I'm looking forward to seeing what can be done after that.

If you want to browse my site to get a feel for what a 'customer' would see then it's www.afleetinginstant.com

ado100

Thank you your holiness - lovely work.

Have you used Zenfolio's print service at all? Any quality issues there at all?

PopeBuckfastXVI

Thanks!

Yeah I used both photobox and OVI, currently only use OVI the print quality is nice and they provide ICC profiles so you can preview.

I'm still finding my feet with printing though, haven't done too much - I find that sometimes, depending on the picture, the print can be quite crunched at the dark end, but if I flattened the curve then it doesn't look so nice on the screen.

Like I say I'm no print expert but most prints I've gotten have been good quality to my eye.

intolerant

I use smugmug for both online secure galleries for clients and printing. I choose to use their partner (Loxley Print) and the quality is very good! I was using smugmug as a type of cloud also but stopped recently!