Awesome Product 10 October 2012 Reviewer: Marty K. from Ingleside, IL, USA
173 of 347 people found this review helpful
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I've been using DPHOTO since 6/20/12. I was using Apple's MobileMe, which was discontinued on 6/30/12. I looked at the reviews on this site for the various products available. I decided to try 3 different products at the same time. I signed up for the free trial period with DPHOTO, SmugMug and Phanfare. The trial periods for SmugMug and Phanfare only last for 2 weeks. DPHOTO's is 30 days.
After setting my account on all 3 sites, I was ready to upload some photos. I found all 3 sites had plug-ins for Apple Aperture, although some of them did not mention this anywhere. After installing the plugins I had some issues with all 3, so I contacted their support staff. I found the support from SmugMug and Phanfare to be mediocre at best. I had to contact them numerous times to resolve my problems. Some of my issues were never resolved. The support provided by DPHOTO turned out to be by far the best. They responded immediately, with answers that resolved the issues with just 1 email exchange. Based on how each company provided support, I selected DPHOTO.
The site is very 'clean' and easy to use for me and those I invite to see my photos. So far it has worked flawlessly. Each of the sites offers different features, some I wish DPHOTO had, such as displaying captions and playing music in slide-show mode. One complaint I do have about DPHOTO is the site needs to provide instructions/help for the guests viewing photos. I ended up writing my own PDF instructions and attached them to the invitation I send to 1st time users.
DPHOTO provides plug-ins for Lightroom and Aperture (there may be others), so the uploading process can be accomplished from inside those programs. Photos can also be sent directly to Facebook and Flickr from inside DPHOTO.
The site provides an easy method for adding a watermark to all photos. At the time of uploading images from inside Aperture or Lightroom, you can decide whether or not to use it. The site allows password protection to an individual album or to the entire gallery. Users can apply a custom logo to their gallery. In the Pro plan users can use their own domain name, eliminating any reference to DPHOTO. The Pro plan now has a 100MB file size limit, up from 24MB the site still shows.
My final comments pertain to the excellent support. All my questions are normally answered the next day, even though the company is located in Melbourne Australia. I can't say enough good things about how wonderful their support is. The company is very open to suggestions on future enhancements. I hope some of my suggestions will be implemented soon.
