'nother question . . .I signed up for zenfolio.com but I still could switch to smugmug, easily, (haven't registered my domain name with my registrar and have only invested $35 to date in zenfolio -- had only intended to do the trial, but pushed the wrong button).
A couple of issues I thought you all might have input about. I noticed that Marc Adamus at his smugmug site didn't appear to include EXIF data with his pictures and I noticed that nature photographers seem to not include EXIF data and appear to only display small and medium sized pictures (I suppose so as to avoid people being able to lift the pictures and get good print sizes out of them). As to EXIF data, is that considered amateurish to post?
I'm also a little perplexed about what form to post pictures to these sites in; i.e., full sized jpgs, say up to 5 mb's with 300 ppi resolution or is the convention to load pictures, in "saved for web" format, as we do here in NPN Photoportfolio (200kb file size, 72 dpi resolution, ~700 pizels on long side).
And lastly I wonder about uploading photos to the web in an RGB color space format vs. a sRGB. (For private folders that I want family to be able to download and print on their own, maybe these should be sRGB?)
I thought this question covered marketing, digital and general topics so I will post to General, simply to perhaps get move exposure. If it should be moved let me know and I will try to move it
Posted by Robert Helms on January 11, 2007 at 11:34 PM
Laurel, I can say that I personally find the shooting info a nice addition; however, I decided to exclude it on my own, work in progress site, since the way I wanted for it to display was going to be a coding nightmare for someone like me with very limited knowledge. People always like content when viewing a site, and I wouldn't consider the inclusion of such data amateurish, but more a personal choice.
File size should never be full resolution. For one reason it would take a long time to for the image to display. Another reason is that most monitors only show a resolution of 72dpi, but a full resolution image I assume could be lifted and printed with good quality. All images should be in sRGB profile for web viewing.
My site doesn't have any images over 225kb and all are sized for 800px on the width, or no more than 600 on the height depending upon the format the image was taken with. The down side to this is that I can't just post images from my site to NPN instead I have to resize all of the horizontals to meet NPN guidelines.
If I were creating a private folder for select people to print from then I would profile the images in RGB mode at full resolution. I'm not sure if this is the best way just the way that I would do it. Someone with more experience will correct me if I'm wrong.
Basically, your going to need to make two separate images for each one you want to upload. A low resolution image for visitors to view, and one at full resolution for the people you wish to be able to print.
Posted by Laurel Pauline on January 11, 2007 at 11:44 PM
thanks Robert . . . so a source this site is.
L.
Posted by Frank Winters on January 12, 2007 at 9:59 AM
Hi Laurel,
I use SmugMug and like it alot. They have a security feature that prevents right clicking to down load photos. I may be living in a fools paradise but I just up load my photos at full resolution and let people chooose which size they want to see. Seems to work. However I don't like their printing service, I tried getting a print of one of Marc's photos through their service (before he shut off the feature because he didn't like the quality) and was disapointed in the result. I worked with their customer service on the quality issue and they never really got it right. My question did alert them to Marc's work and he got some recognition from it tho so it was a good experience.
As to sRGB or aRGB -- I work in aRGB. At one point SmugMug announced that they would automatically convert files from a to s but that feature never happened. They strongly recommend using sRGB but I experimented with it and couldn't see the need to work in two spaces so I just use aRGB. I have a Mac and photos look good on SmuMug. I tried viewing them on my daughter's H/P laptop and didn't see the difference (neither did she and she is a young artist).
I use SmugMug to share photos of conservation land and open space with people in my town. I posted a link to the galleries from the town's discussion forum when there was controversy around a 200 acre plot that the town was about to buy (funding didn't gpt through this time) I got 20,000 or more hits over a two month period from that -- those photos are my most viewed ones.
Take a look at my gallery if you want -- http://bystander.smugmug.com/
Discussion
3 replies'nother question . . .I signed up for zenfolio.com but I still could switch to smugmug, easily, (haven't registered my domain name with my registrar and have only invested $35 to date in zenfolio -- had only intended to do the trial, but pushed the wrong button).
A couple of issues I thought you all might have input about. I noticed that Marc Adamus at his smugmug site didn't appear to include EXIF data with his pictures and I noticed that nature photographers seem to not include EXIF data and appear to only display small and medium sized pictures (I suppose so as to avoid people being able to lift the pictures and get good print sizes out of them). As to EXIF data, is that considered amateurish to post?
I'm also a little perplexed about what form to post pictures to these sites in; i.e., full sized jpgs, say up to 5 mb's with 300 ppi resolution or is the convention to load pictures, in "saved for web" format, as we do here in NPN Photoportfolio (200kb file size, 72 dpi resolution, ~700 pizels on long side).
And lastly I wonder about uploading photos to the web in an RGB color space format vs. a sRGB. (For private folders that I want family to be able to download and print on their own, maybe these should be sRGB?)
I thought this question covered marketing, digital and general topics so I will post to General, simply to perhaps get move exposure. If it should be moved let me know and I will try to move it
File size should never be full resolution. For one reason it would take a long time to for the image to display. Another reason is that most monitors only show a resolution of 72dpi, but a full resolution image I assume could be lifted and printed with good quality. All images should be in sRGB profile for web viewing.
My site doesn't have any images over 225kb and all are sized for 800px on the width, or no more than 600 on the height depending upon the format the image was taken with. The down side to this is that I can't just post images from my site to NPN instead I have to resize all of the horizontals to meet NPN guidelines.
If I were creating a private folder for select people to print from then I would profile the images in RGB mode at full resolution. I'm not sure if this is the best way just the way that I would do it. Someone with more experience will correct me if I'm wrong.
Basically, your going to need to make two separate images for each one you want to upload. A low resolution image for visitors to view, and one at full resolution for the people you wish to be able to print.
L.
I use SmugMug and like it alot. They have a security feature that prevents right clicking to down load photos. I may be living in a fools paradise but I just up load my photos at full resolution and let people chooose which size they want to see. Seems to work. However I don't like their printing service, I tried getting a print of one of Marc's photos through their service (before he shut off the feature because he didn't like the quality) and was disapointed in the result. I worked with their customer service on the quality issue and they never really got it right. My question did alert them to Marc's work and he got some recognition from it tho so it was a good experience.
As to sRGB or aRGB -- I work in aRGB. At one point SmugMug announced that they would automatically convert files from a to s but that feature never happened. They strongly recommend using sRGB but I experimented with it and couldn't see the need to work in two spaces so I just use aRGB. I have a Mac and photos look good on SmuMug. I tried viewing them on my daughter's H/P laptop and didn't see the difference (neither did she and she is a young artist).
I use SmugMug to share photos of conservation land and open space with people in my town. I posted a link to the galleries from the town's discussion forum when there was controversy around a 200 acre plot that the town was about to buy (funding didn't gpt through this time
Take a look at my gallery if you want -- http://bystander.smugmug.com/
Hope this helps,
Frank