Set Up

Does any one find this really difficult to set up?   I have been trying for days and am wondering if this is really worth all the time I am putting into this,  I cannot seem to get anything to work the way I need it to,, I am reading the manual and using the vids,,   but they do not seem to help.

Suggestions??

If you ask specific questions, you will get specific help.

There are a few folks on here that are awesome at working with this suite. Both front and back.

My husband set it up by more or less trial and error. It is now set up the way we want and we do not need to change much.

If you are coming from somewhere like Zenfolio or Photoreflect or some other image hosting company, the time and effort are definitely worth it. This has literally saved me 10's of thousands of dollars in fees in just  over 3 years.

The learning curve is steep, but worth it.

If Tim ever needed or wanted me to rep for him at a convention, I would gladly do it.

"...to work the way I need it to"

Which is?

Sample gallery to show? 

Lori is right though, some come here from their previous 'turnkey' SaaS operations and want, even expect, Sytist to be just like their previous gallery system. 

Self hosting brings advantages and disadvantages.

Not really, install was a breeze, choosing a template and then stylizing it was easy. It will not be like your blog page. Start with a template you like, go from there. Like Lori and trailboy said, be specific on problem (1 at a time) and show screen shots of what you want. Some things are just not possible, so compromise is necessary.