tonyhart Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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Hi All,
I'm at the stage where I need to start considering a fresh website. My old website has done me proud for some years, but it is growing long in the tooth and it's time for me to consider something a little more up to date. I designed my old website from scratch and used a variety of technologies to arrive at the solution I desired.
In considering a new site I am struggling on whether to go for a fully integrated solution such as Photo Shelter, RawFolio, or similar, or to try and roll my own solution. I am a complete control freak, but 6yrs into my business I'm also keen to minimise workload. My current site runs on SSP while my blog is powered by Koken. I really like Koken, but it's in its infancy and I'm not sure it's robust enough to run the full site. I've heard about so many different services such as Pixieset, Photoshelter, BigFolio etc etc but would love your input.
I'm not sure a 'perfect' solution exists, but here are some of the things I am keen to include:
1. Modern, reliable underpinnings. No Flash, HTML5 etc etc
2. Responsive design. Something that will adapt well from phone screens all the way up to my 5K Retina iMac and beyond.
3. Ideally something I can locate at my own host
4. Relatively customisable - I want a website that doesn't look like an identical to other stuff other there
5. A good balance between showing large hi-def images and showing them quickly, perhaps something that allows users a degree of choice if they want a higher-def image
6. Password protected galleries
7. Database underpinnings. I want to be able to manage images properly on the server
8. Good proofing/selling setup - something that makes it easy for me and the customer
9. Good blogging tools
So folks, what are your thoughts? I'm after the very best out there tbh and I'm willing to pay, but it's tough cutting through all the sales-pitches so I thought I'd ask the knowledgeable folks of FM! No simple recommendations please, I'm looking for detailed responses from those with experience.
I await your wisdom.
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