Tag: smugvault

Uploading to SmugMug: What, How Big and How Many?

If you’re new to SmugMug, you may wonder exactly what, how much and how often you can upload to your galleries. And we agree — it’s a good idea to get an idea of what your limits are… particularly when there isn’t one.

The quick version: Upload JPG, PNG, or GIF files up to 50 MB and 100 megapixels apiece, videos up to 3 GB and 20 minutes apiece. Add up to 5,000 photos into each gallery and create as many galleries as you want.

Uploading at SmugMug

You’ve got tons of options for getting your photos from your computer and into your galleries. Our two favorite methods right now are:

1) Our default, browser-based HTML5 uploader. It’s lightweight, accessible from any computer/browser, and lets you drag and drop files from your desktop into the upload box. Voila!

2) Lightroom’s free SmugMug plugin. So many photographers from all walks of life love Lightroom for its ease of use and powerful editing capabilities. Download the free SmugMug plugin if you haven’t already got it, and start making your life that much simpler. Best of all, you’re publishing direct from your digital negatives, which means no extra JPG files to suck up space on your hard drive.

We’ve got lots of other options if those don’t bake your potatoes. From SmuggLr to Star Explorer, our community has created as many methods as possible to upload photos from wherever they are, just the way you like it. Check out your options here on our Apps page, or click the green “Choose a different uploader” from the bottom of the web uploader box.

How Big Can Galleries Go?

You can create as many galleries as you wish on your SmugMug site, and each one can be tweaked to have different SEO, privacy and print settings as you’re aware. You can give them a total makeover by choosing one of four different Viewing Styles, too.

Your galleries stretch with your screen and adjust to fit the largest images the gallery settings allow. They’ll also auto-adjust so that you see fewer gallery pages on big screens and more pages on smaller ones. We’ve capped photo count to 5,000 per gallery because basic tools like sorting and keywording become impossibly difficult when you have that many photos in one place.

The Many File Flavors at Smug

When it comes to photos, we accept JPG, PNG and GIF files up to 50 MB apiece. Which file you use depends on what you’re going to be doing:

JPGs are the format you’ll use the most. The only file type our print labs will print from, and they’re ubiquitous, so it’s easy-peasy for your fans and clients to view them if you’re offering digital downloads.

PNG files are recommended for images that contain transparent areas, like the site branding files that Power, Portfolio and Business users will use. We’re talking header logo images and watermark image files, to start.

GIF files are commonly used for animations. We don’t hear much about them these days, but who doesn’t love watching a good cinemagraph? We’re always thrilled to see what great ones you’re making.

If your tipple is video, you’ve got a lot more options. There’s tons of codecs out there and we support a good number of them. Check out the list here, which may not include everything but does come with bonus conversion info.

Just be sure that your videos are under 20 minutes long and 3 GB apiece.

Vault It! For Everything Else

SmugVault, our archival service provided by Amazon, is for the kitchen sink. PDFs, TIFFs, RAW, CR2, DOC whatever you’ve got and want to keep safe, keep it there. You can upload any file up to a max of 3 GB, and you can view and retrieve them from the familiar SmugMug gallery interface. When possible, we’ll even create a JPG preview so you know exactly which file you’re looking at.

Take a closer look at SmugVault, Amazon and how it works.

Tip: Because all video files are processed slightly on upload to SmugMug, you can choose to Vault your originals. This way, you always have a copy in case your hard drive goes boom.

We hope that everyone has a better idea of what’s possible with their accounts. So go ahead, grab your bag and get out there shooting. We’ll see you on the upload!

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Link roundup:

SmugVault Pricing Falls Further

We’ve once again slashed SmugVault pricing to the floor.

This news comes soon after we upped the limit on your video files. Since big files and archiving go hand in hand, we thought it’d be nice to make it cheaper than ever to backup your original videos in your SmugVault.

Here’s the spiel:

  • We dropped the storage fees from $.14/GB/month to $.125/GB/month – that’s cheaper than what you’d get through Amazon S3!
  • We nuked uploading fees to your Vault. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
  • Downloading from the Vault back to your computer is now just $.12/GB, not $.16/GB.
  • SmugVaults can hold files up to 3 GB apiece, in virtually any format.

We’ve said it a lot, but Amazon S3 is the gold standard in internet storage and they’re the brawn behind SmugVault. Anything you archive in your Vault has 99.999999999% durability.  In other words, if you store 10,000 files in your SmugVault, on average, we’ll lose just one every 10 million years.

Think you’ll live that long?

You can view Amazon’s Simple Storage Service pricing here.

Set Your SmugVault Settings

Your SmugMug SmugVault holds everything

Also remember that we do process all display copies of your SmugMug videos and we don’t store your unprocessed original video files in your SmugVault until you enable it. So make sure you open your SmugVault settings and choose “Archive Videos” to take advantage of the safest backup imaginable.

Finally, keep in mind that any files you archive in your SmugVault are visible (and retrievable) just to you, the logged-in account owner.

Fire, flood, ninja attacks… there’s a million reasons why we love SmugVault and think it’s way safer than keeping files on your computer.

More about the incredible, indelible SmugVault:

We Raised the Roof: Upload 20-Minute Videos

You Ask. We Deliver.

We made a sizzling change that we think you’ll like: Your videos can be up to 20 minutes long and 3 GB in size. Double the action, triple the fun.

http://cmac.smugmug.com/SmugMug/Long-video-test/19441516_KZ6wxJ#1521484148_2xtKHfN

20 Minutes and 3 GB of Video.

Since we made video sales available to Pros, we heard you ask: “Why can’t you make videos longer?”

While we still recommend you keep your clips short for the best bang for your buck, you can now sell your videos with tons of extra bonus content – 20 minutes and 3GB of it, right from your site.

How to Do It:

We highly recommend our HTML5 uploader in Chrome to upload your mightiest videos.

Need Chrome? Download it free from Google, then click the Upload button when you’re logged in at SmugMug. Choose HTML5 and just drag and drop your video files into the box.

Finally, get your gear wishlist ready. With new 20-minute videos, we bet your Pro sales will go nuts.

Comments? Raves? As always, give it a try and drop us line if you need a hand.

Read up on these features:

SmugVault Pricing Drops Ridiculously Low

It’s Christmas in May! You can upload, store and retrieve virtually any file in your SmugVault for a fraction of the old cost.

Oh, yes. The measly $1 monthly service charge remains the same, but now:

  • Storage is only $.14 per month, per GB. (Old cost: $.22)
  • It costs only $.11 to upload each GB into your Vault. (Old cost: $.30)
  • It costs only $.16 to download each GB back to your computer. (Old cost: $.51)

What’s this mean for you? If you uploaded an 8G CF card full of RAWs into your Vault and then retrieved them one month later:

Your old bill would be $9.24 .
Your new bill will be just $4.28 .

Best of all, this isn’t a limited-time promotional offer. Thanks to price drops from Amazon and a shiny new uploading infrastructure at SmugMug, we expect this lowered price to be permanent – until we drop it again.

That’s right.  Over time, we’re going to do our best to keep the pricing as close to Amazon’s S3 pricing as we can.  More technical info about SmugVault is right here.

Why SmugVault is Awesome

The SmugVault gives you safe, reliable, flexible and unlimited storage tacked right on to your existing SmugMug account. You’re already familiar with our interface and galleries so it’s a breeze to use. And remember that your archives are not visible (or downloadable) to anyone except you, the logged-in gallery owner.

The SmugVault can hold virtually any file up to 1GB apiece, and if you upload a TIFF and JPG version of the same image into your account, we’ll archive one and display the other to your visitors. But they’ll be bundled together for easy access in your Vault.

And when we call it a Vault, we mean it.  Thanks to Amazon’s S3 service, which powers the storage part of your SmugVault, anything you archive in your SmugVault has 99.999999999% durability.  In other words, if you store 10,000 files in your SmugVault, on average, we’ll lose just one every 10 million years. More details.

In fact, you can even skip the JPG part and just upload your RAW file. We’ll automatically generate a full-sized JPG that you can share – and sell – on your site.

Listen Up, Pros!

Hot tip: After a shoot, just drag your RAW files into the uploader and call it a day. Your client can browse the gallery and buy the prints she wants. When the order hits Proof Delay, you swap them with edited versions. This way you only have to edit a few required images, not the whole set.

Whatta timesaver! And you’re backed up, to boot.

Grab Your Vault Now

This is a perfect time to give the SmugVault a try. Get one right from your Control Panel, under the Settings tab where it says “SmugVault”.

Your regular galleries are great for our standard JPG, PNG and GIF files but if you’d like a little extra oompf, it’s easier (and cheaper) than ever to get your whole life backed up.

Yanno, just in case.