I have not seen any discussion of this but I suspect there are some 500px users in these parts :-)
I have been looking for an integrated solution to throwing up a portfolio and have been meaning to code one but never get around to it (I still might for a family website because I want to play but that's a tangent).
My requirements were :-
* Had to run from lightroom publishing (I use them a LOT for various reasons and that is my central hub).
* Had to be decently flexibe in layout changes and nbr of collections/albums.
* Had to be non flash based and run for iOS devices and other mobile things.
The goods :-
* Integrates well for LR and allows for dumb smart collections rather then static (I run the world from keywords to the point a keyword tells this sucker it included in my portfolio and also what category to use in there).
* Not annoying like some interfaces are i.e. Flickr & Facebook - which wipe out comments and stuff easily.
* Been able to show on the portfolio and not in 500px community is a nice thought (although not granular enough).
* They have a few different layouts that can be used but it is a limited set with limited flexibility, so keep that in mind.
* Auto pick up of MOST metadata - not all which is annoying.
* Allow for masking so I can point my url to it and hide most branding.
The bads :-
* Little flakey with multi updates to an image - seems to have lost the plot on me a couple of times so that I had to manually delete the image from 500px to get it to refresh (it's beta software so a little expected to be a bit funky).
* The iOS website has a big branded 500px on the top when I have turned branding OFF (I am an awesome user - how cheeseie is that? - mean paid up one).
* Even with branding off (not the default by the way) there is a lot of 500px ref in the footer. I can live with that but it's annoying.
* Some more flex on the themes would be good - at least some access points (sorry the programmer in me pops up now and then).
Summary :-
Overall pretty good. Obviously not a custom website and I would not use it if I was pretending to be a pro because in that case I would spend the time and code it :-) but for those of us that want to be able to throw out a website with the minimum of fuss and integrate to a LR workflow, I am liking it. Anyway - maybe some of this raving is useful for someone [and I have nothing to do with 500px - not trying to push them over the other 4 billion options] :-)
Edit: Yeah a link would help those interested and throw a bit of selfish promotion :-) Linkie
Message edited by author 2012-01-04 19:20:26. |
