Photo hosts and quality

[TexasShadow]

One thing I love about Texas is the skies. Montana may be Big Sky Country but Texas is Magnificent Sky Country. The last two evenings I captured some outrageous sunsets in the thick humidity. I use iPhoto (mostly) to examine and do any processing, then upload to a photo host either directly from iPhoto (SmugMug) or the 'long way' (WebShots, Photobucket). This morning I noticed differences in photo quality between the three, and none of them are direct clones of the the original in iPhoto. Which worries me.

The example below lacks the vibrant hues of the original in iPhoto. In fact, they look bland compared to the original in iPhoto. I don't like this because it questions the authenticity of the photos in iPhoto and the web hosts. Since I plan to have a selection of photos printed for exhibition and sale soon, I now lack confidence in iPhoto and SmugMug (from which I sometimes have prints made).

Any feedback?



Smugmug:
http://texasshadow.smugmug.com/photos/531713010_DqxGU-M.jpg

Webshots:
http://inlinethumb62.webshots.com/42429/2258105510100746484S600x600Q85.jpg

Photobucket:
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i20/lzvolk/IMG_0264.jpg

[sharkey]

I know it sounds dumb but I've been real happy w/ Costco (Arl. location).

They have the same people always working there which is a plus, prices are great, and you can upload from a computer.

I used a pro lab in Missouri (Candid I think) and they did great work and offered some cool extras as photo books etc. but I really couldn't tell difference in prints w/ naked eye.


Also, how are you looking at image in Iphoto? Original print or on monitor? You can get software to calibrate monitor and that is a disucussion that usually opens a can of worms on people's opinions.

[Photojojo]

SmugMug has been reporting some problems lately. Not sure what they are, but they might be the cause.

[StarWatcher]

If I scale the last one to the same size as the other two then bring all three into "The Gimp" as three different layers I can compare the three for subtle differences by turning pairs of layers on/off. The first and the third appear to be identical to one another. The second seems to have a tad more contrast than the other two.

--Mike