Friday Favorites: Smugmug

I like to take a lot of pictures. Once I got a camera phone (oh, the camera phone!) I was on a digital photo roll.  In 2007 I got a Mac and I used iPhoto for everything and just got really lost in the whole Time Machine backup thing (and inadvertently lost all my college pictures 2006-2008– ugh!) and never really came out. Last year, Apple did away with iPhoto and I was at a total loss with what to do with all my pictures both iPhone and real camera. I also was doing more photography sessions and just really needed a system for storing all the digital photos.

Fast-forward some months, I had taken some real camera pictures of Lincoln but still didn't have a plan for them. My phone kept running out of space because of photos and videos, so I upgraded my iCloud storage and started paying $3 a month for that. Then we started serving at Elevation and I learned how to use Lightroom, organize photos on my computer and upload to Smugmug, where Elevation keeps all their pictures (the Superversary site is a Smugmug site: http://www.superversary.com/) so I just big fat copied what they do and decided to apply it to our personal photos. Aaaaaaand, it's awesome. 

I can't get over how much I love it. I set up folders for each year, and within each folder are monthly galleries and galleries for any special events. All tucked away safely not taking up space on my computer or iPhone. The possibilities for folders and galleries are endless!

There's also a companion iPhone app which allows you to upload photos and videos directly from your phone (and it runs in the background if you don't want to just keep your Smugmug app open while you upload a ton). I've made it part of my monthly biz day to upload my favorite Lincoln/life iPhone pictures. 

Smugmug saves your full resolution files and downloading is a breeze. It makes it so easy to share pictures with friends and family, all you have to do is send them the think and they can download the full res files, so no more coordinating with flash drives or emailing photos to family members. Also, did I mention that storage is UNLIMITED?!?!?! Yeah. You read that right. Unlimited storage of photos and videos. This is how we are going to watch "home movies" in the future, guys. Airplay that iPhone app to the AppleTV and reminisce.

We have the basic plan which offers everything we need at this point in time and it's a tad cheaper billed annually vs. monthly. You can start a free trial for 14 days (they extended mine to 28 days for no good reason!) and you don't have to put any card information in until you actually want to purchase. 

So, to recap:

• We love Smugmug.
• We love unlimited storage of full resolution photos and videos.
• We love endless organizational possibilities.
• We love embeddable and shareable galleries. (I've used an embed here)
• We love the awesome companion iPhone app for easy uploading/sharing. 
• We love the free 14 (turned 28) day trial. 

If you want to try Smugmug and end up purchasing a plan, if you use my referal link (below) I can get a 20% renewal credit towards my plan for next year, and that would be awesome! 

Photo Sharing. Your Photos Look Better Here.

https://secure.smugmug.com/signup?Coupon=H4zxFF 

And just for funsies here's a gallery from July of like 100 pictures of The Day Lincoln Learned To Sit. When you have unlimited storage, you don't have to pick one! Even though you probably should...