Any Personal Experience With Photohosting Software?

I am going to start an image hosting site from which I can sell the copyrighted photographic and artistic works of myself and others, so I'm wondering if there is anyone here with personal experience with such software?

I've done my due diligence with the search engines and have found that pricing and features are all over the map and I trust "reviews" about as much as I trust the guy next door who steals everything in the neighborhood that isn't nailed down! I need the usual features, easy upload, tagging, titling, thumbnails, watermarking, although I can watermark the images invisibly before uploading to the software. A built in shopping cart would be nice also. I will be using a host with CPanel as I am most familiar with that system. Automatic resizing to a preset would be cool as well.

Anyone working anything like this now? Your replies will be greatly appreciated.

Tully.

I don't have experience with the software but with using several services. Photobucket, imageshack, Fiickr and others. I know what a lot of people are looking for is instead of a site with limited services unless you pay and upgrade would be a limitless service that earns all their money from advertisers instead of users. :yumyum: That would take the cake. Even more if you didn't need to sign up.

silentthunder said:

I don't have experience with the software but with using several services. Photobucket, imageshack, Fiickr and others. I know what a lot of people are looking for is instead of a site with limited services unless you pay and upgrade would be a limitless service that earns all their money from advertisers instead of users. :yumyum: That would take the cake. Even more if you didn't need to sign up.

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Hey, thanks for your reply but I cannot use an outside service for my plan. I must do my own hosting and therefore must have my own version of whatever software I find that will work the best for my purposes. I've done PB, Flickr and others for some time for small stuff like eGay, CL, etc.

I am going to do a site more along the lines of Getty Images and will of course include my own affiliate links. I should have been more specific but again, thank you for your reply.

Tully.

CyberknightTully said:

Hey, thanks for your reply but I cannot use an outside service for my plan. I must do my own hosting and therefore must have my own version of whatever software I find that will work the best for my purposes. I've done PB, Flickr and others for some time for small stuff like eGay, CL, etc.

I am going to do a site more along the lines of Getty Images and will of course include my own affiliate links. I should have been more specific but again, thank you for your reply.

Tully.

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I understood what you were asking for. I mentioned, "I don't have experience with the software but with using several services." If its possible for you to set up your image hosting service like I mentioned above you could easily dominate with a novel selling point because folks hate not being told image size is limited unless you sign up and pay for unlimited size hosting. As far as I know you'd be the only one offering that.

silentthunder said:

I understood what you were asking for. I mentioned, "I don't have experience with the software but with using several services." If its possible for you to set up your image hosting service like I mentioned above you could easily dominate with a novel selling point because folks hate not being told image size is limited unless you sign up and pay for unlimited size hosting. As far as I know you'd be the only one offering that.

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Great idea but that is not possible with my overall plan and my own image hosting service is required.

Again, thank you for your reply.

Anyone else?

Tully.

This is a slightly old thread, and the OP may have created their solution, but in case...

Drupal (CMS) can pretty much do all you want, if you're still stuck for something, it might be worth a look. It's a powerful and versatile system, but that versatility also means the learning curve is a little high.

The system is built on numerous modules, when those modules (the best) become mainstream, they usually get added to the next core update, so don't require manual inclusion.

Different carts, image processing, templates, sliders etc etc.