Favorite low-cost website for photo galleries (not for sale)

[NancyP]

I am an amateur, and now that I am 1. getting a little better 2. shooting with the Sigma DP2M , I would like to put full sized photos on a separate website and link them in forum posts. Free is best, but I am willing to spend a little money, but DON'T need or want a slick, sales-ready website with own name (www.myname.com). So, what are your favorites? flickr? pbase? some other?

[LoisWakeman]

Try Wordpress.com with a template that allows for photo galleries.

[brianrybolt]

Check out:  www.weebly.com

It has a lot of functionality and relatively simple to use.

Brian

[Justinr]

If you are a little techy then you could always try some DIY by buying a hosting package that supports MySQL databases plus a domain name of your choice. I use a service provided here by a company called Hosting Ireland (http://www.hostingireland.ie/)who I find the most helpful of all those I have had dealings with in the past. This might sound a little daunting but to be honest it's got a lot easier over the last couple of years, indeed I can get a site up and running within half an hour nowdays, it's adding the content that takes the time.

Briefly the method when using Hosting Ireland is -

Choose domain name

Purchase hosting package to go with it

Select CMS application you would like to install on it, Wordpress is one example but I have also used Zen Photo and Coppermine which may be more suitable.

Ask the system to install it

Bingo!

All you have to do now is choose a theme and start uploading the images. OK, that's a very simple explanation and the getting to know the CMS can take some time but to be honest however you go about it you will need to learn how best to use whatever programme you choose. If you are not much into computers it can be a bit scary at first (although you can't actually break anything) but you will have a website of your own without advertising and customisable to your needs.

[RSL]

Nancy, Maybe I misunderstood, but aren't you saying you don't want a separate domain name on a server contract you pay for? In other words you want to find an existing site where you can post your pictures? I didn't get the feeling you were talking about software.

[NancyP]

Yes, I want a site to post photos, hosted within a service such as flickr, smugmug, pbase, etc. I am not trying to sell. I have no html skills. I just want to be able to link to it so that friends and forum participants can view large images without having to download enormous emails.

Maybe at some point I will get fancy and have a respectable web site, but for now I want an EASY solution.

[LoisWakeman]

Wordpress.com gives you all that, plus support if anything goes wrong. You can have a look at lots of people who host their photo blogs there - and don't be put off by the "blog" bit - you can make it as much like a conventional web site as you want.

[Justinr]

Yes, I want a site to post photos, hosted within a service such as flickr, smugmug, pbase, etc. I am not trying to sell. I have no html skills. I just want to be able to link to it so that friends and forum participants can view large images without having to download enormous emails.

Maybe at some point I will get fancy and have a respectable web site, but for now I want an EASY solution.

There's the rub, creating your own website can be far easier than many people imagine and HTML just doesn't come into it.

What has happened over the past two or three years is that HTML has become so involved, convoluted and complex with all the additions to it that it is an ever decreasing number of people who firmly have a hold of it. Cue CMS's (content management systems) which in fact are applications where all the hard work has been done, they tend to be written in PHP rather than HTML but you'd never know. You will find that most new run of the mill websites rely on CMS's, that is they are adaptions of existing templates rather than original files and anyone who can get the head around FB should happily cope with Wordpress, Zenphoto, Project Pier, Coppermine, etc which are all programmes that I have used in the past and I am no IT whizz kid by any means.  

[NancyP]

Thanks. I will put that on my to-do list. Today I am reorganizing my LR keyword lists. I really am a newbie so far as the non-camera portion of digital photography.