So how will you use the two together? Will you put all of your photos in both places, or will some photos only go on one or the other? And what about all the photos you've already uploaded to Flickr?

I'll upload everything to both for now.The photos already on Flickr aren't going anywhere. SmugMug is better suited for professional galleries, so that's where I'll showcase my best stuff.

I actually got to you through a "smugmug vs flickr" google search. I'm right in the middle of trying to decide between the two and its killing me. I think the differences are pretty clear (quality and refined, well organized galleries vs community and overall feeling of coolness), but since they are both pretty great at what they do its a tough call. I was actually thinking about trying both out for a year, but dreading the double post hassles.

Anyway, I'm wondering if your Picassa work around has been, well, working. If so, can you elaborate a little on anything you might have discovered that has made your life easier and your galleries better? That would really help this newbie.

Thanks.

It's actually working very well. Picasa is a great mediator, especially in the latest beta versions, which have Google Earth integration for geotagging (which both Flickr and SmugMug now support). I just do all my tagging and captioning in Picasa, export the photos, and upload them first to SmugMug and then to Flickr. It's pretty painless.

I don't really have any tips for you other than to make sure you do all your tagging in Picasa before uploading any photos; the last thing you want to do is have to go through all your photos on both SmugMug and Flickr, adding the same tags twice. Also, use SmugMug's Java upload applet and Flickr's "Send to Flickr" app; they make uploading easier.

Thanks for the information.

Being that I haven't signed up for either of these yet can I ask, generally, what you think of that idea? I can see the benefits of each one, which makes me want to keep a bunch of bloggy sort of photos on Flickr and maybe some tidier galleries on smugmug that I could send my family to, for instance, when the want to buy prints of holiday photos. I'm not sure if it isn't kind of overkill for me to do that, though.

Also, I was wondering if you have to type in every individual tag for each photo. Browsing through Flickr I see photos with 20-30 tags and I can't believe that you have to type all those in for each photo, but maybe you do. I can't really think of how else you would do it.

Thanks a lot and I'm having fun reading through your blog.

I was wondering if you have looked at the new Picassa web albums since you are a Picassa fan. It seems like it might cut out some steps for you, although I don't know much about it and I'm sure its not up to Flickr or smugmug yet.

I also wish Picassa had a Mac version since I have CS2 on my Mac at work and would like to do some post production there. I didn't see one on Google, though. Oh well.

I looked at Picasa Web Album when it was first announced, and I was wholly unimpressed. It's definitely not on the same level as Flickr or SmugMug.

(Disclaimer: I'm SmugMug's CEO and Chief Geek)

I think you've hit the nail on the head - the two sites are both great and both quite different. We have a lot of customers that maintain both accounts so they can participate in online social networking at Flickr and share their photos with their close friends and family at SmugMug.

Stewart Butterfield, Flickr founder, recommends SmugMug to Flickr customers all the time if they're looking for a feature we have and they don't. We do the same constantly. The sites are different - and that's ok.

FYI, we do have a bulk keywording tool that makes it a cinch to quickly keyword tag tons of photos, so you don't have to type it in on each one. Even if you do tweak things on each photo once in awhile, it's AJAXy so it's fairly painless.

'Send to SmugMug', a 3rd party app built on our API, is a great way to upload, btw. I'd recommend it over our built-in uploaders if you're comfortable installing software in Windows, which I imagine you are :)

Take care,

Don

Hey another useful site that is not very known is PIKEO.
advantages are 1GB free space and a photoprinting service!
link: http://liip.to/pikeo

I use Breeze Browser Pro to insert my keywords. It is a powerful and versatile browser based tool for viewing and manipulating digital images.

I have to go with Smugmug as well. Flickr wins in the price department, but everything else is horrible. The way the images are displayed and the organisation in general is poor.

Also with smumug you can get some discounts to bring the cost down. If you don’t want the video storage option you can get the price down to the same as flickr.

Use this code for a $5 discount: MjmiE0xAHBhwQ

As I said above I went with smugmug, but I did a through review looking at Zenfolio as well, which I think is a good option if you don’t like Smugmug.

Take a look here:
Excellent review,

In the end I chose Smugmug because of the easier ability to display photos.

You didn’t mention Zenfolio which was another provider I had a look at and a good competitior to smugmug.

I did a review myself of the various options here if you’d like to have a look:

http://smugmugphotosharing.blogspot.com/2009/12/smugmug-photo-sharing-review.html