SmugMug for Photo Hosting

I have been using SmugMug for hosting my photos for a while now. There are a few benefits that make it worth the small annual subscription and don’t seem to be available from any of the free offerings:

1. Your friends and family can download photos in full resolution
2. Absolutely zero ads. Not having ads posted alongside your photos makes them look a LOT better.
3. Unlimited storage and quick/easy bulk uploads
4. A personalized URL
5. Backups in 3 states.
6. No need to login to view the photos (strangers really aren’t interested in your photos!)
7. More professional look and feel. This is a website that is used by many pros.

I’ve used SmugMug for three years now and have been extremely happy with all aspects of the service. If you’d like to save $5 on a subscription, enter the following coupon in the ‘Referred by’ field:  LQvt6m1M08vGw

Photo Tagging

I have been using Riya’s new face recognition software. The face recognition works remarkably well and will only improve with a larger dataset and more powerful processors. Unfortunately, there is still no way to export the tag information generated by the software. Without this feature it is hard to contemplate investing too much time into the software or recommending it to anyone other than the earliest adopters with an insatiable fascination with technology. Companies come and go, which is why I think it’s important to maintain ownership of any structure I add to my data.