Photo Hosting Review

After experimenting with multiple photo-hosting sites, I figured I ought to do a review of my own, since I relied on so many others plus my own testing to make a final decision. I started out by trying to find a site to host my pictures to post to Blogger. As I'm going to be on the road, sans PC, I'll be unable to use Hello! or Picasa2 to post my photos. Along the way I discovered different options, and found myself "wanting it all"!
This is my very first review of anything online, so please excuse the non-traditional format (if there is such a thing). It should be noted that one major option for these sites have been omitted, and that is final print quality, as this was a secondary (if that) option for me.
The key options I came to look for were: The ability to link to photos, free, unlimited storage, easy upload medium - ftp would be great, and access to full resolution photos.
The websites reviewed are as follows:
Flickr, Ofoto (now known as Kodakgallery), Shutterfly, Snapfish, Photoworks, and Smugmug.

Flickr seemed like the one at first. It's primary design is to host photos to be used on other sites i.e. Blogger, eBay, etc...
Flickr has a nice "Blog this" feature allowing you to create blogs directly from their site and thus including whatever photos you happen to want shown. It also has a "copy and paste" option so you can avoid writing the HTML needed to link to a photo.
The free version has a very limited bandwidth of 10MB/mth. The average size of my photos are 2MB and since I will have no way of easily resizing before uploading, I'll get 5 pictures posted a month. Not too great. I should mention that the 10MB is not storage - storage is limited only by how many photos you can fit into your 10MB of bandwidth, (meaning if you resize prior to uploading, you can fit hundreds of pics per month. Flickr will also automatically resize all your photos to specific sizes with a maximum size (that I saw) of 1024 x 768). You will not have access to full resolution pics unless you spring for the Pro Account. Also "Photostreaming" (a broad term that includes linking to photos from other sites) is only available for the last 100 photos uploaded.
If you have regular access to a PC, which I assume most of us do, and don't mind taking time to resize your photos prior to uploading, then Flickr may work for you. It is a nice robust site, but doesn't have what I need. There is a Pro Account which removes the 100 photo limit and ups the monthly bandwidth to 1GB. This is offered at a beta rate of $41.77US/yr

Ofoto was the next one I got excited about. Although it's name changed to Kodakgallery while I tested it. It's services are free and from what I read online, the print quality is outstanding (again, I didn't test this myself).
The change of name happened while I was testing it, so I don't know if Kodak changed the rules, but I was able to link to photos briefly, but that seemed to end within 24 hours. It does have unlimited storage, but access to full resolution downloads doesn't seem possible. There doesn't seem to be a paid version to allow this. Maximum resolution is around 500px. Ofoto is good if you're going to print a lot of pictures as Kodak, of course, has a great reputation for printing. If you want more control over your originals, I wouldn't recommend it.

Shutterfly I tested briefly. It doesn't allow direct linking either so it got tossed quite quickly. It also doesn't have access to original photos. I didn't spend much time on this one, so I won't spend much on the review either. There is no paid version to give more access, but they do offer 15 free prints to sign up - can't go wrong there! I didn't see any fine print saying you had to pay 'x' number of dollars to qualify, but I didn't go through with it either.

My god this is getting long. Three more to go; (I'm saving the best for last).

Snapfish I didn't use long either. No direct linking but you can get access to originals, at $0.29 - $0.49 per photo depending on how many you request at a time. Can't say I liked the idea of buying my photos back! At least the option is there... Snapfish does offer the first 20 prints free as well, but I didn't look into the details - I was on my way to check out Photoworks.

Photoworks I really liked. I wanted this to be the one. It almost was. It worked great for a while, but the direct linking only worked for a short time, after a day or so, my blog pics would say "Picture temporarily unavailable". The problem is the "temporary" never ended...
However. They do offer unlimited storage. They do offer full access to originals. They do have an easy uploader (no ftp though). They also offer some basic edit tools. And it's all free. Beauty. I definately recommend this one. The access to originals is great, especially if (like myself) you've decided to backup your photo collection on-line. (For the record I backup mine to CD/DVD as well, but it can't hurt to be safe).
If my original need for direct linking was included, I'd park my butt right here. C'est la vie.

Smugmug isn't free. It's what I settled on for $29US/yr. With the exception of 'free', I got everything I want here. I have complete control over my original pictures. Direct linking is allowed, in fact; they facilitate the process by providing the html (which granted is easy, but it saves time and I like it). I have 4GB of throughput and unlimited storage. All this for a mere $29US/yr compared to Flickr's $41.77US/yr for 1GB of throughput. I figure for 30 bucks, or about 37 Canadian at the current exchange, what the hell. That breaks down to around $3/mth for as much storage as I can handle. That's less than a coffee at Starbucks. It has a nice site layout. There is also a referal program, where you get credit towards your subscription if you refer someone and they provide you email address or coupon code upon sign-up. (My coupon is a1NATxbCEvXH2). Shameless plug.
There is no free version of Smugmug, but there is a free 7 day trial. The catch is, you need a credit card, and if you don't cancel - you've signed up! Seriously though, cost wise, it's better value than any of the other "premium" versions of sites I came across.
That being said, you can customize the layout of the site. You can password protect specific galleries and/or photos. They provide a vanity name similar to Blogger i.e. yourname.smugmug.com and there are no ads. I love that part. I hate ads. I use Firefox so I usually block them, but there's just so many!! 'shudder'. Shutterfly had Shutterfly specific flash adds that kept scrolling into view. I hate that. Smugmug has an unobtrusive layout with out all sorts of colourful blinking distractions, so you don't get a headache staring at it too long.
So what it comes down to is Smugmug met all my needs. There are varying prices depending on what you want, including hosting video, which intrigues me but it's limited to 8MB in MPEG1 format (I know).
I'm happy with my decision. If you don't need to link to photos or you don't have a credit card (or if you are still paranoid about using it online), Photoworks is great and free.