Originally posted by sholtzma square formats that squash either horizontal or vertical rectangular shots. Am I missing something?
With Smugmug you have the option to configure your thumbnails as either square or their original aspect ratio. I chose the latter, but some folks really like the clean squared off look. Perhaps those are the only ones you have seen.
I've been with Smugmug for the past seven years, and had my site customized two years ago by a graphics professional. It was relatively easy to do and is easy to maintain and tweak.
Unless you are technically astute in photo website design to begin with, I would recommend a canned or customizable site like Smugmug or Zenfolio. My job and passion is photography and I let others use their talents for web design. Lightroom integrates with Smugmug (perhaps Zen too, I don't know) rather seamlessly now too.
I've evaluated other solutions over the years, it really depends on what you aim to accomplish. Some sites offer stronger marketing services like Photoshelter. Others are free but pummel your visitors with cheesy advertising. I don't mind paying to avoid ads that compete with my viewers' attention spans.
Pbase has been around a longer time, but lots of folks have been leaving. Their interface I find kludgy and the performance is too slow.
Smugmug customer service is outstanding. It's a family run business. And they upgrade the site with new services and functions all the time. It's imperfect (for example, you cannot order kids sports cards via Bayphoto) but it's so easy.
M