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SmugMug (www.smugmug.com )
is a popular online photo-sharing service that provides many benefits and
features that similar services do not.
This article takes a detailed look at SmugMug, what if offers and what
sets it apart from its competitors,
The service certainly has a wide variety of features that make it easy
for you to share your digital photos over the Internet with your friends and
family.
Costing a mere $29.95 per year makes a SmugMug account an attractive
purchase from the outset, but lets take a closer look at what this service
has to offer.
Setup and Usage
Setting up a SmugMug account is as simple as can be, and when it comes to
uploading your photos SmugMug offers the most easy to use and informative
system available from any online photo service.
Uploading your photos can be as simple as dragging and dropping them just
like you would in Windows, and while your photos upload you are shown the
upload progress of each file, not to mention the total upload time
remaining. Such an informative and user-friendly upload tool sets SmugMug
well above its competitors.
Customization
There are a large variety of presentation styles built-in to SmugMug that
allow you to display your photos in a number of different layouts – a
journal-style that allows you to display text with your photos, as well as
thumbnail and slide-show views are also available, amongst many others.
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Another nice feature is a viewer-selected mode, which allows people to
choose how your photos will be presented to them as they browse your albums.
The ability to edit your photos in various ways is also included, but you
are limited to customizing your photo albums any more than changing the
background color unless you are fluent in HTML, JavaScript, or CSS
(Cascading Style Sheets), which will prove to be annoying for some users.
Sharing and Security
SmugMug comes complete with some very useful and well-needed sharing and
security features. Setting up passwords for different photo albums is a
simple process, and sharing your photos on a sub-domain of SmugMug.com can
be set up quickly, providing you with an easy to remember URL to pass along
to your friends and family so that they can have quick access to your
photos.
Another nice feature is that you are able to order prints of your
photographs, which will come in very useful if printing them yourself is not
practical.
Shortcomings
Although there are many good points to SmugMug, there are still a few
shortcomings. The lack of more easy-to-use options for customizing your
photo albums may not be an annoyance for everybody, but I’m sure there are
many people out there who either don’t want to learn HTML and other
scripting languages to customize their albums, or simply do not have the
time to do so.
Another slight annoyance is the price of a Pro account that lets you
watermark and sell images from the SmugMug website – this costs $99.95 per
year and does not offer that much more over a standard account for the
additional cost.
Conclusion
Overall SmugMug is one of, if not the best online digital photo sharing
service available. It has many useful and easy to use features that set it
apart from similar services such as PhotoSite and Sacko, and even though
customization can be somewhat bothersome, the rest of the service’s features
make this product highly recommended for anyone looking to share their
digital photos online. I hope that this review has helped you to decide if
SmugMug is the right photo sharing service for you!
Microsoft Digital Image Suite 2006 software review
This Microsoft Digital Image Suite 2006 review provides in-depth
information on the new photo editing, organizing and sharing tool from
Microsoft.
Picasa 2 software review
This Picasa 2 software review provides an analysis of the powerful photo
organizer from Google.
Top 5 free photo editors for Windows
A scoop of 5 free photo editors that offer powerful image editing
features.
Apply the vignette effect to your portraits for a timeless feel
Spice up your digital portraits by applying the vignette effect. The
vignette effect creates a timeless and classy feel.
A list of color management tips for better quality printouts
Learn how to manage your printer colors for better quality photo
printouts.
For more articles, be sure to visit Basic-Digital-Photography.com.
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Recommended Digital Photography Tools & Services |
Learn
to Take Beautiful Photos
If you want to
improve your digital photography skills, you may want to take a look at
Digital Photography Success. This e-book includes
excellent step-by-step instructions on how to take professional photos - just like those in glossy magazines.
Share
Your Pictures at SmugMug
If you've tons of digital photos to share and but are not sure which photo
sharing site to choose, then do take a look at Smugmug.
You can to upload, arrange and share your photos, as well as buy prints or burn
picture CDs.
Convert
Your Photos to VCD or DVD
By converting them to VCD or DVD format, you can view the photos as a slideshow on the TV. A great tool for doing this is Ulead
CD & DVD PictureShow
- it comes complete with themed photo slideshow templates and stunning
video effects.
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