Art Archive Sites?

[pasithea]

So... Still thinking about revamping my website. One thing I'm really having trouble with is this: How do I want to manage my art?

I have a lot of artwork that isn't furry, I have a little that's supposedly 'obscene', and I periodically want to go through and delete old stuff.

On the one hand, I have my current art management program that I wrote and it works decently except for the following:

• No search.
• Thumbnail mode displays entire category listing on single page.
• References tied to location in data file, not files themselves.
• Thumbnails not generated automatically.
• Collection set limited and difficult to use
• UI unattractive.
• Long URLs

Search, I think, is pretty easy to add.
So is allowing reference by file instead of record #.
I already handled the attractiveness of the UI and the URL length in another version which I wrote/tested, then never installed.
If I make the assumption I'll always upload from a Mac, I could automate generating thumbnails and simplify the collection set entry, but the collection set would still be limited. I guess I could change the collection to text instead of a binary operator which makes it unlimited but not much easier to manage without a front end to the uploader. Hmm...
Finally, the important one... # thumbnails per page. While I understand how to code this one, it's basically a big pain in the butt...

This gets me to the second option: Do I want to use my own archive at all? I could disperse my art across Velar and DeviantArt for example. This has a couple of pros and cons though.

Pros	Cons
Segregation of furry/non-furry art Someone else maintains code More friendly upload tools Less waste of Jessica's disk space with my junk More widely viewed, more crossover viewers. GUI upload tools==less hassle for me Makes my site more easily portable should I decide to change servers Allows me to show art without having to show site.	Seperation by an abstract classification Pieces taken out of context with one another Different GUI layout for each archive might annoy viewers Copyright issues with sites may change over time. Not as nerdy/customizable as having written my own. Requires finding a server for publishing my non-furry art

Its a tough one. Overall I think its more practical to use other people's archives but it would break the overall look of my site slightly and it isn't quite as much fun. Also, I wouldn't know what service to use for publishing my non-furry stuff. Much of my art is hardly what you'd call 'Deviant' but it also isn't furry. Where should I put it and how hard is it to get an account there?

Comments

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

Also, Greymatter links to a webhost that has them preinstalled, and the other sites to just have a gallery that arent communities are

http://www.smugmug.com which is what I run annmariehughes.com on, and is $30 a year unlimited space, a decent amount of customization, some search (I think). $25 if you get a coupon. More if you want to sell prints from there. Has a sweet sweet OSX uploader. Fast. Howard Dean kept his photo blog there so it can handle heavy traffic.

http://www.pbase.com isnt free, it looks nice BUT I always had problems with it.

http://www.fotki.com is not free, and honestly I don't think that is pretty. All of these last 3 you can put photos in LJ or other sites with them, they allow external linking.