How We Can Help You Build a Top-Notch Family Photo Website with SmugMug

As our families grow and relocate, many of us find ourselves separated from loved ones by cities, states and sometimes oceans.

We stay connected and up-to-date with the details in each other’s lives thanks to technology like text messaging, video calls, or social media.

But what happens when we want to share photos with one another across the miles? Photo file size can limit what we can attach in an email, and some photo sharing sites limit the number of photos, or don’t keep your images secure.

Our team is excited to introduce a new service, building family photo sites using a web-based photo sharing solution called SmugMug. Here’s three reasons you might consider working with us to create your own family photo site using this site:

1. SmugMug Is a Spacious, Secure, and Affordable Photo Storage Tool

SmugMug is a paid photo storage hosting service that keeps subscribers’ images safely stored in the cloud. You can organize, view, and share your photos right on your own photo website.

Even people who aren’t tech-savvy will find SmugMug easy to navigate after we get your site set up. Their website says their product is for “Memory Makers, Enthusiasts, and Professionals.” Anyone who cares about preserving their pictures will appreciate SmugMug’s features.

Capacity and Security
SmugMug has the capacity to securely house and back up an unlimited number of photos, as well as videos (up to 20 minutes long, or 3GB in size). That means it can house and organize your entire photo collection!

While commercial photographers may want to market their SmugMug sites to the world, some of us just want to organize and share photos with family. The good news is, you can hide your photo site, keeping it completely private by changing a few settings.

Once your site is private, you can invite certain people to view it by sending them a link, or by giving them a password. However, your site won’t show up on a Google search, so you don’t need to worry about strangers viewing your photos. Find out more about SmugMug’s privacy options here.

SmugMug Plan Options
SmugMug does not offer a free plan, but all their plans allow you to privately share your photos, order photo prints, give guests the ability to comment on your photos, and give permission to guests to add their own photos to your Galleries.

You also receive the free SmugMug mobile app (available for iOS and Android phones) to access your site anytime to add, edit and share photos while you’re on the go.

SmugMug offers four paid plans. We recommend the lowest priced, “Basic” plan, which is reasonable at just $48 per year. It’s great for anyone who wants a safe place to store and display their photos.

2. We Personalize Your SmugMug Site for You

There are a lot of photo storage sites out there that give you a place to store your photos. So why should you choose SmugMug? We’ve discovered that some sites are not very secure, and others constantly annoy you with pop-up ads when you’re browsing photos.

Besides being safe, secure, and ad-free, SmugMug shines because it gives you the tools to easily create your own personalized photo website, and provides plenty of video tutorials to help you along the way.

After uploading your photos, your site takes shape by applying a theme, or even adding a family logo to your homepage. We think the photos display beautifully on SmugMug’s full-screen views.

Before we add photos to your site, we will organize it for you using SmugMug’s naming system of Folders, Galleries, and Custom Pages. Photos can be sorted by caption, date, or filename.

You can also search photos by keywords. We add keywords to your image metadata prior to uploading them to SmugMug, then show you features that allow you to quickly search through all of your photos. Our advance work keeps your collection searchable anywhere else you keep it – not just on SmugMug.

 

 

Get an idea of what a SmugMug Family Site can look like here.

3. SmugMug Offers a Private Place for Families to Interact with Your Photos

SmugMug family sites provide a kind of “virtual family reunion” with photos! You can add Galleries for different family events, then privately share them with up to 200 family members.

Family members can click on a photo to add their own comments, captions, and story details. Keep in mind that only people with a specific link and password to a private Gallery will be able to see the comments.

We also love the fact that when you give a family member a special link, they can upload their own photos to your Galleries. People can add pictures from family events like graduations, weddings, or memorial services.

A bonus of having us create your SmugMug account is we will update any new photos or new photo information with the same services we provide to the rest of your collection.

Consider SmugMug as a Hub for Your Family Photos

At Picture This Organized, we are all about helping our clients find quality solutions for the organization and storage of their photos. SmugMug is not the only solution, but we believe their flexible features provide a lot of value for the money.

If you want to safely store and display your photos, as well as collaborate with other family members, we would love to help you set up a family website using SmugMug. We start by helping to prepare your entire photo collection so it’s ready to upload to your SmugMug site. We also assist with site customization and sharing.

Get in touch with us if you would like help organizing your photo collection and setting up a photo sharing site on SmugMug.