Smugmug bugs and feature requests #7

[darryl]

Hello all... just signed up Friday and I've already submitted 8 bugs/feature requests. ("Oh no -- one of *those* users." :-)

A lot of the posts I see around here seem to be centered around the Professional side of the site -- customer management, ordering, etc. That's all well and good, but I hope that while that side certainly has the potential to provide a nice fat revenue stream for Smugmug, the founders will stand by their committment to providing a solid *sharing experience* to their non-professional users.

For instance, I saw a request to make the "buy this photo" link more prominent, as one of your sales was down after switching from DotPhoto. I feel your pain, but Smugmug's "about us" page states:

We founded smugmug in November of 2002 because we couldn't find an industrial-strength site free of clutter for photos, where great sharing is the center of gravity.

While we respect sites like Ofoto, their financial model depends entirely on selling prints. It means they have to limit the size and quality of photos they display, they have to surround your photos with ads, and they must collect the email address of your visitors so they can send them print offers. They cannot allow your family to download your high-resolution originals so they can make prints on their own printers. Here's a quick rundown of the user-oriented bug/feature requests that I've submitted so far. I'd love to hear Baldy (and any other smugmug management) comment on where they might fall on the priority list for your engineers. (And I really feel like some of these would be quick fixes, although there's always QA, yadda yadda.)

I also welcome all of you other users (pros and amateurs alike) to comment on my suggestions. Thanks!

--Darryl

Bugs (well, in my opinion :)
- Mac IE 5.2 - Slideshow style. Change "photo refresh" value and hit Enter key, and gallery jumps to beginning, but value does not change.
- Featured Photo should link to that Photo (Elegant styles) or the page of the gallery that Photo appears on (Traditional, Journal styles.) [However *text link* for a gallery should still link to first page, first photo of a gallery.]
- Selecting Slideshow style should *not* reset viewer back to the first photo of the Gallery. Should start with current photo, or first photo of current Journal or Traditional page.

Feature Requests:
- Allow sort by EXIF date.
- Allow inclusion of EXIF date below photo.
- Import iPhoto captions.
- Option to include file size of a movie would be great, since you can't really offer small versions of these files. I manually had to enter it into captions. How inelegant.
- Option to disable autoplay of movies. Some people like this, some people hate it.

[darryl]

Yes -- bad form to immediately reply to my own post, but I wanted to put this in a separate note, and also show that I hope I'm not just a complainer, but somebody who wants to try to help:

I moved this to its own thread:

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=1351

[darryl]

And here's a "tip" about sorting by EXIF dates (using iPhoto):

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=13074

[Andy]

it's so cool to have customers like you who really care enough to help make the service even better. i'm making sure right now that your posts are getting into the right hands.

thanks again!

[Baldy]

Hi darryl,

Welcome! And many thanks for taking the time to write so clear and detailed a list. We really love to see very actionable suggestions, and especially somewhat easy-to-implement things like you've suggested that make a difference. :D

On the different needs of the pro and consumer, at one time we thought the differences would be more pronounced than they turned out to be. It turns out that high-90% of their needs are identical. It's nice for us because features/code for one usually works for the other.

The buy button is a noteable exception and we've wrestled with that. Our solution is to create a commerce style (it may only appear for pro accounts and we may end up with several to choose between). Some pros don't want their customers to be able to display large images and one version of a commerce style could simply make it so the image to the right of Elegant style is not clickable. Also, we can harden right-click protection by saving a blank image on commerce style, so if you defeat JavaScript you still have another obstacle.

On my other reactions, first a disclaimer: I may say something is a great idea and we'll chase it only to find that it creates some unexpected confusion during user testing or one of the engineers points out why no one else has been able to fix that bug in IE or whatever.

But my reaction to clicking on the featured image and being taken to it is, why didn't I think of that? That's exactly the way Google news works and come to think of it, I hate it when I see a featured image (the best ones are usually featured) and then I have to muck around endlessly searching for it. Great idea.

The slide show is a bit of a swamp because we were so determined to use JavaScript and not require a plugin... I mention this because quick fixes to the slide show usually don't turn out to be quick, so we end up having to weigh them against The Big Three. But I'm glad you listed these things and we'll see what we can do.

iPhoto: anything relating to uploading is part of The Big Three and taking the Mac Uploader to version 1.1 and 2.0 is right in the middle of our radar. On the list is not only captions but comments and ratings and the possibility of synchronization, at least 1-way. I don't have a feel for when we can get it done but we're all over it.

(The other two on The Big Three are a revamped print ordering experience, which we're hot on the trail of, and making smugmug "skinnable.") You'll see the new shopping cart before anything else because it's the weakest part of smugmug and far more important to everyday consumers than we ever imagined it would be.

EXIF... Long story short, we think we'll have to use and display two date fields because some camera manufacturers use "date last modified." Ugh. So does Photoshop (it should), which blows away the date taken for some cameras. Deal with it. :cry

The honest answer for movies, EXIF and slide show is your suggestions are probably right on but we think we have to knock down at least 1 & 2 of The Big Three first (#2 uploading: breaking the 100 MB barrier for (Windows-based) uploads, better error detection & recovery for uploads, and the next version of the Mac uploader.)

Your thoughts.

Thanks!
Baldy

P.S.: Okay, I confess: there's a #0, ahead of The Big Three... It's lustre finish prints along with buttons and some bigger print sizes. We don't have much choice on timing because we're tethered to EZ Prints on this, so we're scrambling as we speak.

When I wrote that paragraph about sharing we didn't even offer prints. We still believe it's about sharing for consumers, but you wouldn't believe how many people post new baby and wedding photos, and want prints. Big ones for their walls; lots of them for their albums. Lustre is such a great finish for portraits and weddings.

[lemketron]

This thread is a great idea, and I appreciate the willingness of the SmugMuggers to interactively talk about service improvements. There aren't many companies where customers can talk directly to the folks in charge and help steer things (especially the "easy things" that just haven't been thought of yet). Anyway, could someone mark this thread "sticky"?

[Baldy]

Button alert: I ordered test buttons for a friend's daughter and they turned out remarkably well. The quality of printing seems better than on mugs and most other gifts.

Last night I used her for the official product shot:

http://taylor.smugmug.com/photos/4390105-L.jpg

We've had a lot of pros pushing for buttons so it will be nice to check these off the list (there's also a smaller button size).

[scrooks]

I believe this is a bug:

If security is set at least as low as "medium high" (in Internet Explorer), entering a password on a protected gallery simply returns back to the password screen. This is because cookies are required to be active for this feature. No message is given at all about why they are back on the password page.

I've had two users so far with this problem that I've had to walk through changing their security settings for. What I'd at least like to see is what happens on other sites that require cookies, a message explaining why they ended up back on that password page -- "cookies required for this feature, yada, yada". What would be even better is a link to a detailed, step-by-step explanation on how to fix it in their browser.

[Erik Olsen]

Button alert: I ordered test buttons for a friend's daughter and they turned out remarkably well. The quality of printing seems better than on mugs and most other gifts.

Last night I used her for the official product shot:

http://taylor.smugmug.com/photos/4390105-L.jpg

We've had a lot of pros pushing for buttons so it will be nice to check these off the list (there's also a smaller button size).
Great looking button...

I can't wait for them to become available to us. I recently photographed a Pony Club Rally (http://manevideo.smugmug.com/gallery/118636) with (http://manevideo.smugmug.com/gallery/118636)%20with) about 150 kids. I'm sure, they would love to buy up a bunch of these buttons.

Thanks for all the hard work everyone has done @ smugmug ! ! !

Erik Olsen

[{JT}]

Hey Scrooks,
We have had cookie detection for a while now, but it seems that it only made it to the sign up page and nowhere else. We have updated the other key areas that cookies are needed and they should be out there live tomorrow.

JT

[scrooks]

We have had cookie detection for a while now, but it seems that it only made it to the sign up page and nowhere else. We have updated the other key areas that cookies are needed and they should be out there live tomorrow.

Excellent! Thanks!

[scrooks]

We have had cookie detection for a while now, but it seems that it only made it to the sign up page and nowhere else. We have updated the other key areas that cookies are needed and they should be out there live tomorrow.

I just checked it out, and it's still not doing anything but showing me the password page again with no information about needing cookies. I'm trying to get into a gallery that is password protected and I have cookies turned off (to simulate being a user who knows nothing about cookies). If I understand you right, you thought this was one of the areas where you recently added in the cookie detection? Maybe you missed this one?

[scrooks]

How about an option on the email options page for getting a notification whenever a sale is made? I get tired of checking out the action manually every day. :)

[{JT}]

I am not sure about adding the email option. I will bring it up with Don and see what he thinks. I will also check the cookie problem out later on today - but as far as I know this made it out.

[scrooks]

I will also check the cookie problem out later on today - but as far as I know this made it out.

Here's a test gallery: http://scrooks.smugmug.com/gallery/131261
The password is "password".

I used IE and set my cookie protection to HIGH. I entered the password and it just bounced back to the same password screen, exactly the same, no error message. I dropped my cookie protection to MEDIUM HIGH, entered the password and got right in.

[Baldy]

Here's a test gallery: http://scrooks.smugmug.com/gallery/131261
The password is "password".Hmmmm... That's a bug we should have caught in testing but didn't. Thanks for pointing it out.

The issue is your header is replacing ours and the cookie notification. Here's how it should work:

http://cmac.smugmug.com/gallery/132913

(The password is password)

[rainforest1155]

Hi @ll,
First of all thanks for putting up such a nice support platform and very quick responses from the smugmug team. That's something rare nowadays.
I'd like to make some suggestions:

1. It would be nice to customize time zones incl. daylightsaving to my needs like here in the dgrin forum, because not everybody is familiar with timezones and that can be confusing. For example when I took a picture here in Germany from a nice sunyn day and in the gallery somethink like 4:00am pst is displayed. Also most of my friends are actually from Germany.

2. I resize all of my pictures for the galleries with my image database IMatch (the author hadn't time to look into the problem), but somehow it does somethink to exposure time and focal length in exif what smugmug doesn't like. Here is an example:
http://rainforest1155.smugmug.com/gallery/105368/1/3728025/Medium
I know what happened to exposure time: original: 0.005s (1/200)
resized: in Irfanview: 5368709/1073741824 s --> that's roughly 0.005s, but not exactly which results in this silly fracture.
Maybe you can add something to round these useless fractures. It's not your fault, but I don't know when the IMatch author has time to look into it, he's doing a one-man-show...
The focal length seems to be right in Irfanview, so I don't know why it isn't displayed in smugmug.
Here is the same picture resized with Irfanview where everything is ok:
(link not valid anymore)

I also would like to see a comma dividing the byte size of pictures every three numbers: instead of 297017 I would prefer 297,017.

3. I was searching in my original backup (password protected galleries - one for a month) in order to look up a picture from which I knew the name, but I had to browse through all pages in order to find it. The search function seemed only to return pictures from public galleries which were not password protected. So maybe you can add an advanced search function for the owners which allows to specify where (normal galleries, password protected, not public, select one or more galleries) and what (filename, caption, time and/or extracted iptc info) to search.

Wheee, pretty long post. I hope you get the idea of what I wanted to say! *grin*
That's it for now. Have a nice weekend and greetings to the smugmug team and their superb support!

Sebastian

[rainforest1155]

Hi,

I just was a littlebit shocked to see one of my galleries in a category of the mainpage. I didn't know/realized that until now that it's so easy to find any of my public galleries.
I thought having turned that off by selecting no community in the category customization dialog. :huh
Looks like this option has another function, but a confusing one.

I would like to have an option to restrict displaying my galleries and searching through them only to my gallery page and not the whole smugmug community. I don't want these galleries to be private, because my friends (and everyone I give my adress to) should have the possebility to come along and have a look at all the stuff, without any restrictions.

I'm awaiting your comments.:1drink
Ciao,
Sebastian

[Baldy]

Hi Sebastian,

Many thanks for taking the time to write these up. I'm going to respond to your second post now and do some more thinking about the first one, and return to it later.

Perhaps we can consider a global option to keep your smugmug pages out of the browse and search options. That way someone would have to know your nickname and type it in (or you'd have to send them a link) to find your list of galleries and bio.

To be 100% honest, I'm only aware of hearing a request like this from two other customers. I can imagine others who want it and haven't spoken up about it, because we have some customers with all private or password-protected galleries.

I only mention the few requests not because it doesn't sound like a good idea, but only because we're still in the situation where we're trying to prioritize according to the things we hear about from the most people. I didn't want to sound enthusiastic about your idea but then give false hope about when we would start work on it.

Thanks,
Baldy

[rainforest1155]

Hi Baldy,

thanks for your detailed answear.

Perhaps we can consider a global option to keep your smugmug pages out of the browse and search options. That way someone would have to know your nickname and type it in (or you'd have to send them a link) to find your list of galleries and bio.
That would be an idea, but I like that fact that my nature/landscape/animal pictures can be easily be hit by many people.
I'm just aware of pictures involving other people and using a password or private gallerie complicates it especially for party pictures were you don't even know everybody, neither have all their email-adresses to mail them gallery links or describe how to manage password protected galleries.

However I would like a option to decide for every gallery if it should be listed in the global pages. I like to be flexible. :thumb

Keep up the great work,
Sebastian

[scrooks]

Perhaps we can consider a global option to keep your smugmug pages out of the browse and search options. That way someone would have to know your nickname and type it in (or you'd have to send them a link) to find your list of galleries and bio.

I would use such a global option and feel much better about turning off the passwords on all my galleries.

[darryl]

So from a post three weeks ago (ack -- can actual post dates be enabled?) Baldy wrote (and I'm adding the numbers) that the current priorities were:

#0, ahead of The Big Three... It's lustre finish prints along with buttons and some bigger print sizes.
#1 iPhoto: anything relating to uploading is part of The Big Three and taking the Mac Uploader to version 1.1 and 2.0 is right in the middle of our radar. On the list is not only captions but comments and ratings and the possibility of synchronization, at least 1-way. I don't have a feel for when we can get it done but we're all over it.
...uploading: breaking the 100 MB barrier for (Windows-based) uploads, better error detection & recovery for uploads, and the next version of the Mac uploader.
#2 revamped print ordering experience, which we're hot on the trail of,
#3 making smugmug "skinnable."
#0 Let's see -- lustre finish, buttons, and bigger prints are here (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=1454), right?
#1 Ok, let me speak for the 5 Mac users in the audience. Nevermind the iPhoto sync, captions, comments or ratings. Seriously. We're used to being marginalized, and hey, I already found a workaround for the captions. Anyways, it's 5% of the market. Nevermind us.
Yes, get the Windows uploader fixed. And error detection and recovery. But really really -- nevermind the Mac. We're fine -- the uploader works great right now! We can workaround any minor limitations (captions).
#2 Ok, I guess you're still working on that, and it's a revenue source, so yeah, stay on that.
#3 Wait -- this is one that the kids are really excited about, right? C'mon -- skinning is something you do with your WinAmp MP3 player. Does any adult really care about it? You allow us plenty of customization via CSS + headers and footers. Please make this a lower priority.

Of course I have selfish reasons to want you to take a closer look at those priorities. Because many of my bug requests haven't been fixed. :-}

But right now, I could care less about the slide show and movie view quirks. And yeah yeah, EXIF dates are screwy and inconsistent -- I have a workaround for that too. I just want this one, tiny, but really annoying thing fixed:

- Featured Photo should link to that Photo (Elegant styles) or the page of the gallery that Photo appears on (Traditional, Journal styles.) [However *text link* for a gallery should still link to first page, first photo of a gallery.]

As you said:
But my reaction to clicking on the featured image and being taken to it is, why didn't I think of that? That's exactly the way Google news works and come to think of it, I hate it when I see a featured image (the best ones are usually featured) and then I have to muck around endlessly searching for it. Great idea.
(Oh, and fixing the back arrow bug (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=1444) would be nice too, but even that's really minor.)

[darryl]

So I realize I may have come off sounding like a jerk in that last post. But I do mean it to be constructive criticism.

Re: the Mac users. I really honestly believe that you're better served focusing on the Windows upload issues. In the 4 weeks I've been using Smugmug w/ the Mac Uploader it's been very solid. I don't see the point of wasting any more time (or resources, as the case may be) at the moment. (Yes, I know all of you guys are Mac users too, but seriously... 5% market share.)

Re: skinnability, you wrote (http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=11149&postcount=9) :

When JT finishes the new shopping cart, the plan is to make smugmug "skinnable." In other words, everything on the page will be customizable and people can design style sheets that others can use.

But but... you spent so much time perfecting your site design that you even got props for it:
"One of the classiest display designs...we've seen..." — Digital Photographer Magazine
"Absolutely elegant." — NBC's Tech Now TV

So why do you want to ruin that by allowing people to "skin" the thing to death? And anyways, what percentage of your users will even use this function? I think your current customization offerings provide plenty of flexibility without screwing up the good core page design you guys have obviously spent so much time perfecting.

*Maybe* if it were easier to "crib" somebody's header/footer HTML (just put some comment tags into the source showing where the header starts/ends!) that'd be nice. But I really don't see why this needs to be a priority beyond the fact that it's "cool". :-}

[scrooks]

#2 Ok, I guess you're still working on that, and it's a revenue source, so yeah, stay on that.
#3 Wait -- this is one that the kids are really excited about, right? C'mon -- skinning is something you do with your WinAmp MP3 player. Does any adult really care about it? You allow us plenty of customization via CSS + headers and footers. Please make this a lower priority.

I think you'll find that #2 and #3 are related. Many people selling their photos want to customize the experience to make it specific to their business. Ultimately, I think many sellers would like it if the customer didn't even have a clue that there was a third-party (Smugmug) involved (although I personally don't feel that way). Additionally, there are some customization items that would be very handy for those of us trying to sell our wares -- things the current "CSS + headers and footers" stuff doesn't cover at all.

So while #2 is at the very top of my list and I eagerly look everyday to see if it's here yet, I'd also be happy to see #3.

[Baldy]

Hey Darryl,

No worries about coming off as a jerk — I didn't sense that at all. The best customers are usually the most passionate.

And I like the way you think about how many people it affects.

Here's the update:

JT is slaving away almost full-time on the shopping cart and we've been user testing various scenarios. This is going to sound like a sob story, but it's become a very complex piece of code and that partly explains the time it's taking. The hard thing is alerting customers to cropping issues and then giving them the power in an intuitive way to do something about it.

Mac customers are far larger than 5% of our users because nearly half of pro photogs use them. A better estimate is 20% of our normal and power accounts, and higher for pros.

We're working on a new Java uploader first before the ActiveX one, largely because it works on more browsers and platforms than IE on Windows. It's in progress but I don't know how long it will take.

Aside from the new shopping cart, easy customization and pre-made style sheets really are the biggest thing we're asked about. When someone declines to continue with our trial and chooses a different site, it's nearly always (I hedged by saying nearly, but as far as I know it's always) either related to the shopping cart or customization.

Once you get past those big things, the list is incredibly long.... This week we knocked down one I didn't mention before — making statistics available over the months instead of just the current month, and making the reports faster. It's not live yet because the database is still building. But that one's been on our list for a year and I hate to think how many requests we had for it....

Thanks,
Baldy

[scrooks]

JT is slaving away almost full-time on the shopping cart and we've been user testing various scenarios. This is going to sound like a sob story, but it's become a very complex piece of code and that partly explains the time it's taking. The hard thing is alerting customers to cropping issues and then giving them the power in an intuitive way to do something about it.

And it's also not the kind of thing you can very well put out there and fix on the run. Pros who lose sales because of bugs will likely have very little sympathy or patience. I feel for you and am glad I'm not in your shoes for this one. :D Still eagerly looking forward to it becoming available however.... :rofl


Once you get past those big things, the list is incredibly long....

I continue to have the feeling that in a year from now I'll think back to what Smugmug was like when I joined and be very impressed with how far you've come. And I'll feel quite happy and satisfied with making that initial decision to drop $100 when I did instead of going with some other service. I like what you've got now, but I'm really looking forward to the future. Keep that dream alive for me! :nod

[darryl]

JT is slaving away almost full-time on the shopping cart and we've been user testing various scenarios. This is going to sound like a sob story, but it's become a very complex piece of code and that partly explains the time it's taking. The hard thing is alerting customers to cropping issues and then giving them the power in an intuitive way to do something about it.

Mac customers are far larger than 5% of our users because nearly half of pro photogs use them. A better estimate is 20% of our normal and power accounts, and higher for pros.

We're working on a new Java uploader first before the ActiveX one, largely because it works on more browsers and platforms than IE on Windows. It's in progress but I don't know how long it will take.

Aside from the new shopping cart, easy customization and pre-made style sheets really are the biggest thing we're asked about. When someone declines to continue with our trial and chooses a different site, it's nearly always (I hedged by saying nearly, but as far as I know it's always) either related to the shopping cart or customization.

Ok ok -- lots of Mac users. :-} But good to hear about the focus on the Java uploader. As I said, I think the Mac Uploader is completely usable in its current state.

I didn't realize customization would be such a dealbreaker (and I think my real problem is with the word "skinnable"). Coming from a consumer POV, I look at places like Shutterfly and Ofoto, and don't see *any* customization features. Or even a place like pbase.com.

Do the "pro" sites (I saw DotPhoto and PhotoReflect mentioned) even let you do the kind of customization smugmug currently does? Doesn't look like either of those sites let you do that. So I mean... what smugmug allows now is more than any other photo hosting site I've ever seen. But I haven't really shopped around from the POV of a pro, so I don't know.

But of course I recognize though that a robust and powerful ordering (and price/customer management) system is a huge need for the Pros, so it's completely understandable that you're making that priority #1.

[darryl]

I think you'll find that #2 and #3 are related. Many people selling their photos want to customize the experience to make it specific to their business. Ultimately, I think many sellers would like it if the customer didn't even have a clue that there was a third-party (Smugmug) involved (although I personally don't feel that way). Additionally, there are some customization items that would be very handy for those of us trying to sell our wares -- things the current "CSS + headers and footers" stuff doesn't cover at all.

So while #2 is at the very top of my list and I eagerly look everyday to see if it's here yet, I'd also be happy to see #3.

So hey, scrooks --

Is there some other company that offers more customization/personalization of its hosted photo galleries than smugmug does? Not that we'd want you to plug a competitor's site, but I'm just curious.

--Darryl

[scrooks]

Is there some other company that offers more customization/personalization of its hosted photo galleries than smugmug does? Not that we'd want you to plug a competitor's site, but I'm just curious.

I believe there are a few, but they were quite a bit more expensive. I honestly didn't look that hard, being mostly happy with Smugmug right now and believing that the few things I want improved will happen soon. (I'm kind of growing my business along with Smugmug.) When I talked about customizing a site, I was really putting on the generic pro hat and expressing what I'm sure many pros do want.

In my case it's not that I'm really looking to customize the look that much, I just need the ability to add in information on a more granular level. For example, I take event shots for a school and I classify all those images in a category for that school. I would very much like to put some text specific to that school on the gallery list page, but only in that category. I don't want the text to show up in other categories, because those other categories contain shots from completely different places. That page with the gallery list is the entry point I give to people when I take event shots, essentially http://pictures.crooks.net/category, so it would be very, very handy to be able to personalize each category.

I've let the Smugmug people know about all my requests and so far I believe they'll get to them. But I'm perfectly content with them spending almost all their time at the moment finishing the all-important ordering retooling.

[flyingpylon]

The hard thing is alerting customers to cropping issues and then giving them the power in an intuitive way to do something about it.
I'm very intrigued by this comment. Does this mean that customers (print buyers) will be able to crop photos the way they see fit when ordering prints? That would be huuuuuuuge!

Would we be looking at weeks, months, or years? Or am I jumping to conclusions?

[Baldy]

Does this mean that customers (print buyers) will be able to crop photos the way they see fit when ordering prints? That would be huuuuuuuge!

Would we be looking at weeks, months, or years? Or am I jumping to conclusions?Yes, that's exactly what we're doing. The first thing is to alert them to the fact that they have a cropping issue and second is to give them the power to specify their own cropping.

We've been just a few weeks away from it for, erem, a few months. It's software... And software that requires a lot of user testing and an interface with the lab and the all-important thing: compatibility with a zillion browsers without having to install a plugin like Flash.

Adding photos to the shopping cart will be much easier too with fewer clicks required.

[Baldy]

So hey, scrooks --

Is there some other company that offers more customization/personalization of its hosted photo galleries than smugmug does? Not that we'd want you to plug a competitor's site, but I'm just curious.

--DarrylSome would say PBase offers cool style sheets to its users so they can easily pick a look for a gallery. Also, Photosite offers backgrounds and borders, etc.

As far as pro sites, I'm not aware of any but we get tons and tons of requests for more customization from pros. One thing is when you place your own banner to replace ours, you blow our shopping cart icon away. Some pros want that back, so we're just adding that and some basic ability should be available in a few days.

[lemketron]

Re: the Mac users. I really honestly believe that you're better served focusing on the Windows upload issues. In the 4 weeks I've been using Smugmug w/ the Mac Uploader it's been very solid. I don't see the point of wasting any more time (or resources, as the case may be) at the moment. (Yes, I know all of you guys are Mac users too, but seriously... 5% market share.)


I have to respond to this... My wife and I are Mac users, and although we can handle using Caption Buddy and a one-way import, I would still like to see improvements to the Mac uploader. Given that Mac users are more like 20%+ here I think it's worthwhile (and relatively non-intrusive to other SmugMug priorities if a contractor is used as has previously been discussed) to continue improving the Mac uploader.

At the least, I would like to see the Mac uploader updated to import iPhoto captions. Having to run Caption Buddy to modify the original images is an extra step the people should not have to do.

An additional improvement I'd like to see would be the previously mentioned one-way sync. By one-way sync, I take that to mean that if I import an Album from iPhoto, and then later make a few changes to the album in iPhoto (add a few photos, change a few captions, and maybe delete a few photos or edit a couple of images by cropping, etc.) then the uploader should be smart enough to "mirror" that album into SmugMug so that the SmugMug gallery matches the updated iPhoto album but without wasting time uploading images that have not changed.

Another thing I just thought of but haven't seen discussed as an improvement to the uploader (and it might hold for any uploader, not just Mac) would be a high-quality resize option built-in to the uploader. That is, I should be able to point the uploader at my 4 megapixel album in iPhoto but request that it resize the images to (for example) 800x600 before uploading. This would further simplify (and speed up) the uploading process for those with hi-res cameras but who do not wish to upload the originals. Just a thought.

We just signed up for SmugMug and are looking forward to starting to upload our photos... I'm sure we'll come up with more requests as we continue to explore the system (probably around the password and public/private issue since we want a mix of public and private galleries).

[Now that I've used the iPhoto uploader once, I have another thought with respect to gallery naming:] The uploader should be able to create a new gallery with either the iPhoto album name or a user-specified one, rather than making me create the gallery in SmugMug first. In addition, when I create a gallery on the web site, it should assume I want to create it in the current category and subcategory (where I was when I clicked the "Create New GallerY' button) rather than making me select both of those from the popups.

Here's another quick one: We created a passworded gallery, where we would like to include a URL to our "home page" which has additional (html) content. There's no "private" place to put this URL (or other comments). Currently we put it into the gallery description, but then it appears in our gallery listing available to even those who have not entered the password that otherwise protects the gallery contents. I guess I'm asking for another gallery description field which is NOT displayed except from inside the (password-protected) gallery. [By the way, I do like the fact that a URL in this field is properly handled and converted to a clickable URL!]

Sorry for the lengthy posting but as you said - that's what you get from passionate users. :-)
Thanks!

[lemketron]

I can understand the showing of the "Password protected" gallery image when a guest has not yet entered the gallery password and is looking at a category. However, once the password has been entered (thus allowing access to the gallery), shouldn't this image give way to each gallery's (random or pre-specified) "featured image"?

If not, then why bother showing the image at all? It just takes up real estate (over and over again in a subcategory screen with several galleries). In fact, I'd like to see an option to leave it out and just list the Gallery info.

Also, category listings show how many galleries and images are in each sub-category. However, sub-category listings only show the name of each gallery and last mod date - not how many images the gallery contains. Could you add that? I think it would be useful in general, but it would also make it a lot easier to figure out which (recently created) galleries are still empty (and in need of uploading) and which ones have been populated. [It would also be great to see the number of images in the uploader's gallery picker.]

For those of us creating lots of galleries with the same password (e.g. private photos for friends and relatives only) it would be VERY nice to be able to assign a single password for an entire category or subcategory. Instead, we must REMEMBER to assign it to each new gallery we create which is a bit of a pain.

It would be great if we could enter text (including URLs) on the category and subcategory pages.

Is there a way to request a new categoy? I couldn't find anything pertaining to homes or home remodeling. I can probably get by with Landscapes and Architecture for now, though I'm not sure that's what those categories were intended for.

Thanks in advance,
--Steve

[darryl]

Actually, I think it's a bad idea to keep all of our bugs and feature requests in one thread. It's too easy to lose them in here.

For instance -- Steve's post should have been added to this existing thread on the Mac Uploader and how it could be improved:

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=14276#post14276

Bugs/requests already covered in that thread:
- Mac Uploader is not drag-and-droppable (darryl)
- Preference to have Uploader start in iPhoto or Files mode (DavidTO)
- Reset/clear files to upload w/o quitting (patch29)
- Show list of files to be uploaded (patch29)
- Creation and customization of a gallery from the uploader (patch29)
- Auto-creation of galleries if selecting an iPhoto album that *doesn't* match an exisitng Smugmug gallery (darryl)
- Or at least allow manual creation of gallery -- "New" option in target gallery drop-down menu and a dialog to get the name. (darryl) [Baldy says it's already on the list]
- Refresh button to get new latest gallery list (lynnesite)

Oh yeah, Baldy mentioned at the top of this thread that sync (at least 1-way) is already on the list for the next version of the Mac Uploader.

Hey Baldy, maybe if you could create a "SmugMug Features/Bug Requests" forum for us complainers, er "passionate users", that'd work. :-}

I'd happily volunteer to start organizing previous features/bugs requests in such a forum. Oh wait, can threads be moved between forums?

[darryl]

I have to respond to this... My wife and I are Mac users, and although we can handle using Caption Buddy and a one-way import, I would still like to see improvements to the Mac uploader. Given that Mac users are more like 20%+ here I think it's worthwhile (and relatively non-intrusive to other SmugMug priorities if a contractor is used as has previously been discussed) to continue improving the Mac uploader.

At the least, I would like to see the Mac uploader updated to import iPhoto captions. Having to run Caption Buddy to modify the original images is an extra step the people should not have to do.

20%+ are Mac users, but I'll bet you not many of the pros are using iPhoto. It's sooooo freaking slow (yeah yeah, I can't afford a G5 :-) -- I can't imagine somebody who does photography for a living putting up with it. If they're using a Mac, I bet they're using iView Media Pro or Cumulus or something more robust to manage all of their photos, including captioning.

(In fact, I just discovered last night that the venerable GraphicConverter has a IPTC editing function, and it's obvious he's spent some time making it very easy to quickly go through a big folder of images tagging them with keywords, captions, etc.)

Still, iPhoto caption import would be nice. I wonder whether they'd still be inaccessible on download though. (Right now Smugmug doesn't do anything like insert the caption into the IPTC fields, which is probably a whole 'nother can of worms -- messing with file headers.)

Interestingly, Smugmug has thought about IPTC headers, because their search function can dig through them (http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=11109&postcount=8).

[DJ-S1]

Hi guys, I have a suggestion for Smugmug. There is a gallery customization to remove the ability to order prints, which I set for a few galleries. It's a handy feature. However I was surprised that I couldn't order prints when I was logged in. I really didn't intend to keep myself from ordering prints, just other folks. I would suggest allowing the owner to do anything he wants to his own photos, and have the restrictions only apply to the outside world.

Thanks for the great sites you guys are providing us!:thumb

[Baldy]

Good idea. Thanks for bringing it up.

[cletus]

How 'bout adding the ability to have PDF files on a smugmug site???

They might be handy for price lists, contact info sheets, tutorials etc...

[pecheney]

Ok ok -- lots of Mac users. :-}
But of course I recognize though that a robust and powerful ordering (and price/customer management) system is a huge need for the Pros, so it's completely understandable that you're making that priority #1.Here! Here!

CRM! :-)
CRM! :-)
CRM! :-)

Now if I could get SmugMug to output to Oracle Small Business/NetSuite.com .... WOOF! :puke1

I dunno, I am digging it right now, though. I finally added my own header and footer and it is looking MUCH MUCH smoother if are a pro user. The order button needs to be on top! :-) Additionally, I would like a bigger spotlight put on the mugs and gift items! Like a "place this photo on this mug for only $$!!

All in all, it is great. Just some kind of output as a pro user so I can dump all of my SM customer info into my database to create accounts, folllow up with incentaives, thank you letters, and dump all my financial info into a database or spreadsheet for oracle, an accountant, or just my own records! Just my unsolicted two cents.

ALSO! Linkable images to external websites... Click on this image to go to this site... That way we could drop linkable graphics within our galleries! :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

One thing I DO hear a lot of lately is how intuitive and easy to use it is! ANd FAST! My clients and the folks who hit my site say they can;t believe how faST IT IS. By allowing cobranding, I am fairly CERTAIN 90% of my clients think the technology is mine! SmugMug is #1 hands down...

I am installing it on some client's as a value added bonus to their websites... I can now allow my client's to easily upload their own photos to their website... pretty cool.

One last thing. When you get a check cut for yoru commissions, the "profit to date" does not reset. Maybe a littel more reporting functionality here. For example, a report like:

Comission History:

3/23/2004 Commission: $23,087.07 Paid 3/28/2004 Click here for all sales in this period.

5/03/2004 Commission: $18,932.62 Paid 5/05/2004 Click here for all sales in this period.

7/24/2004 Commission: $27,492.22 Paid 5/05/2004 Click here for all sales in this period.



:rofl

[Baldy]

Great suggestions.

I have to say... There are a lot of photo sharing sites and styles. Some make you install a Windows app, some are peer-to-peer, some hope to be social networks. C|Net buys Webshots. Google buys Picasa.

When we speak to these companies, they're full of anxiety about what to do, and understandably so.

That's why it's so nice to hear a clear and compelling case for what you want and why. There's never much question about what we need to do because it's spelled out so clearly here, and in help emails.

Speaking of things we need to do, here's what the cropping tool looks like that we're testing. If you're familiar with the bulk move tool, you'll see some of the controls and code were filched from it. Unlike the bulk move tool, however, which doesn't work with the mouse for drag and drop, the cropping tool does work with the mouse.

We left the controls for keyboards there anyway for shortcuts.

This cropping tool will be available to all consumers who buy prints at the time they buy them. It will alert them to any cropping probs they have and automatically bring up the crop marks for whatever item they've selected, including gifts, which have all kinds of strange ratios.

http://cmac.smugmug.com/photos/6366629-L.jpg

[pecheney]

wow, that is very cool. Amazing actually.

I wonder if adding text on footers will ever be something folks want? Like collegiate fraternity and sorority photos.

I feel like I have tried almost all of the competitor's sites, and by odd luck I hit SmugMug almost last. I can say without a doubt, our company is not going anywhere soon.

If the app didn't change one bit from now on, it would still be way ahead of anybody else I have used... at least for my purposes.

Y'all keep it up.

my two cents.

[DJ-S1]

I've been screwing around with photos a lot more lately, and I think it would be great if you had a photo tool called "replace".

What I've been doing is slamming photos up on smugmug quickly after an event so that folks can check them out. But then there are always some that I want to photoshop to make better. It would be nice if I could 'shop one, and then go and easily replace the one that's already online. You know, keep the filename so links still work, and keep the comments too, just update the photo with the new version.

What do you think?

[Baldy]

I've been screwing around with photos a lot more lately, and I think it would be great if you had a photo tool called "replace".

What I've been doing is slamming photos up on smugmug quickly after an event so that folks can check them out. But then there are always some that I want to photoshop to make better. It would be nice if I could 'shop one, and then go and easily replace the one that's already online. You know, keep the filename so links still work, and keep the comments too, just update the photo with the new version.

What do you think?I have to admit I've wanted that feature sometimes too. I don't know how hard it would be to do for the engineers but I'll check when I get a chance to talk about possible new features.

Thanks for the suggestion!

[paulbiggy]

On a user's homepage, is there a setting (or, can one be made -- feature request :D !) to "Organize categories by Postion," much like how you can "Organize galleries by Postion" already? I ask because I have a ton of galleries, and when I add a couple new galleries it mixes up my current category sort order, which I really want to keep static. The only way I can fix this right now is by going in and reorganizing my galleries until the Categories get sorted correctly again. It's a hassle to sort through all the galleries to do this, when all I really need to do is be able to sort my 11 top-level Categories directly so i can control the order in which they appear on http://dreamprogram.smugmug.com (http://dreamprogram.smugmug.com/)

[scrooks]

For a professional account, I'd like to be able to remove the "Enhanced" option when people are purchasing pictures. I have the shots all tweaked and ready to go, but I have discovered that some people are turning on "Enhanced" anyway and they're not very thrilled with the results.

[paulbiggy]

It would also be nice if there was an option to link galleries in a specified order. For example, I took a 2 week trip, and have a gallery for each day under a subcategory. There should be a way for a viewer to move from day to day as they browse, without having to click back up to the subcategory, then find the next day/gallery. Some kind of "Next Gallery" and "Previous Gallery" links at the bottom or top of each gallery page?

[hellata]

The new bulk moving feature for arranging pics within the album is wonderful. I wonder what it would take to apply the same interface to arranging albums in sharegroups. I have a "superuser" sharegroup that allows one to view every protected album in my collection. Which, (un)fortunately, translates into *a lot* of albums.
Right now the following happens when I need to add an album:

- album uploaded
- Cool! I can now show it off
- add album to the sharegroup
- Er... The album landed on the very bottom, its closest neighbor being the album of 20+ year old black and white photos
- No problem! I'll just move them around a little. See, there are those handy "up", "down" and "delete" buttons under every album.
- Scroll all the way to the bottom to the new album
- "Up"
- Page reloading. Hum-hum-hum la-la-la
- Scroll all the way to the bottom
- Page reloading. Hum-hum-hum la-la-la
- "Up"
- Scroll *almost* all the way to the bottom
- ... [repeat as needed]


Sorry for the longish introduction. Here is the actual logic:

The sharegroup album list is similar to two other pages:
- the list of photographs within an album
- the list of all available galleries

Therefore, it would make sense to either use the existing picture-rearranging-tool for changing the sharegroup album order, or have options to sort by time in reverse (newest albums on top, not on the bottom).

Arggh... And I thought I didn't like to talk...
Thanks!

[{JT}]

I like it! It should not be too tought to implement a feature like that. My problem is that it relies on javascript, and I hate to force a page that uses javascript on users - so it would be in addition to the existing tool (much like the new new bulk move tool).

I will run it by the others here and maybe we can get it out after the shopping cart.

JT

[darryl]

I like it! It should not be too tought to implement a feature like that. My problem is that it relies on javascript, and I hate to force a page that uses javascript on users - so it would be in addition to the existing tool (much like the new new bulk move tool).

I will run it by the others here and maybe we can get it out after the shopping cart.

JT

Not to be a crybaby or anything, but I mentioned this problem two months ago in this forum. I don't think I sent a note to support about it though. My bad.

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=1730

Nevermind about a fancy JavaScript re-orderer. It'd be nice, but it's unnecessary.

The problem is that album sorting in ShareGroups does not work the same way it works in Public Albums.

1) "Auto-sort by: Most Recent" is missing.
2) No ability to reorder albums by changing their number.

No, it's not as slick as a JavaScript rearranger, but it would still be faster than the current system that hellata described.

(In Public Albums, you can click on "Organize galleries by Position", and with just a few keystrokes, assign any album to position number 1, moving it to the top.)

--Darryl

[ButterflySis]

Hi all. I've been a Smugmug user for about a year now and I absolutely love it. I finally signed up for this forum today and realize I have some catching up to do, but I have a few suggestions that may or may not have already been mentioned.

I would love to be able to upload an image once and reference the same image in several albums. Let's say I have a sunset image on a lake from my last vacation. I would like to be able to upload the image to my "vacation" album and then reference that same image to my "water" album, and my "sunsets" albums. I think something like this could be especially useful to the power/pro users. Maybe they have a customer that likes water prints but the customer wouldn't look in the sunset album to find one. I think you understand what I'm getting at.

I think the comment suggestion has already been brought up but I would love to be able to track my comments somehow. Right now I find myself saving all of the emails that are sent when I receive a comment. Couldn't something simple be made right on the site that could insert the latest comment into a table or something, creating a long list of commented on images/galleries? Maybe to simplify it a bit the links could be categorized by gallery.

My last suggestion - How about "pending referrals?" Someone signs up with your coupon and they appear as "pending" on your list of referrals....?

I guess that's it for now. I frequently think of things but I never write them down.

I would just like to say that Smugmug is the greatest and you guys are doing a fantastic job. I love all of the new features you've added. It keeps on getting better and better! Thanks for all of the hard work you do and for making our experience a great one.

Jen

[cilles]

A check all button when doing bulk delete (uncheck all too I guess). Saves having to delete the entire gallery and recreate it. I'm NOT going to check 200 checkboxes.

Ability to select a default gallery style but let the user change it if they want to, if this is how it is supposed to work now I'm confused because it doesn't seem to.

Ability to duplicate (clone) a gallery. Saves having to create a new gallery and make all the same changes again. Just make a copy of an existing gallery - with new name and no pictures.

Both would make my workflow easier.

I upload bulk to a temp gallery then bulk move into separate galleries. Easier than starting different bulk uploads (often would have to do in the middle of the night).

Thanks for the great site!

-Chris

[DJ-S1]

One more suggestion from me, sorry if it's a repeat.

Can you make a "tree" view of the gallery structure? Trying to remember which gallery a subgallery of a subgallery is under can be a pain, especially when I'm at my Dad's (dial-up hell).

Thanks!

[GREAPER]

Some time back, another user asked about a feature that I hoped would come to exist. I have not heard any more about it so I thought I would bring it up again.


It would be nice to have some gallery pricing options that would allow users to set up several pricing structures and then when the customise a gallery they could just choose the pricing set they want to use.

This would allow you to set (for example):

1) a price for family photos to share prints with family (cost for most of us:1drink )

2) a price for portrait work

3) a price for commisioned work

4) a price for art prints

Then when you create a gallery (or update it) you could just choose your own preset pricing option 1, 2, 3 or 4 instead of going through the entire list of prices every time.

I know I dont put the same prices on every gallery. I would use this option.

[tmlphoto]

Some time back, another user asked about a feature that I hoped would come to exist. I have not heard any more about it so I thought I would bring it up again.


It would be nice to have some gallery pricing options that would allow users to set up several pricing structures and then when the customise a gallery they could just choose the pricing set they want to use.

This would allow you to set (for example):

1) a price for family photos to share prints with family (cost for most of us:1drink )

2) a price for portrait work

3) a price for commisioned work

4) a price for art prints

Then when you create a gallery (or update it) you could just choose your own preset pricing option 1, 2, 3 or 4 instead of going through the entire list of prices every time.

I know I dont put the same prices on every gallery. I would use this option.
:thumb

[ButterflySis]

Some time back, another user asked about a feature that I hoped would come to exist. I have not heard any more about it so I thought I would bring it up again.


It would be nice to have some gallery pricing options that would allow users to set up several pricing structures and then when the customise a gallery they could just choose the pricing set they want to use.

This would allow you to set (for example):

1) a price for family photos to share prints with family (cost for most of us:1drink )

2) a price for portrait work

3) a price for commisioned work

4) a price for art prints

Then when you create a gallery (or update it) you could just choose your own preset pricing option 1, 2, 3 or 4 instead of going through the entire list of prices every time.

I know I dont put the same prices on every gallery. I would use this option.I only have a basic account but that's a really great idea, GReaper. It also reminded me of something else I had thought about.

I would love to be able to set up defaults for a gallery so that every time I create a new gallery the settings are the way I want them. I would only need to change the settings for special circumstances.

Edit:

I was wondering, too, why it says image "1 of 9" or something when you're on a page other than 1 in your gallery. Shouldn't it keep track of the total images in the gallery and list it as "1 of 53" or something? Everytime you go to another page in the same gallery you're back to "1 of whatever" image instead of the total images in the gallery.

Jen

[lynnesite]

Some time back, another user asked about a feature that I hoped would come to exist. I have not heard any more about it so I thought I would bring it up again.

It would be nice to have some gallery pricing options that would allow users to set up several pricing structures and then when the customise a gallery they could just choose the pricing set they want to use.I know I dont put the same prices on every gallery. I would use this option.

Yes oh yes oh yes oh yes. The answer to my prayers (after the cropping, which is fantastic BTW). I'd order a lot more prints for my portfolio--as it is, I have to copy or upload to a new gallery and mod the pricing. Or if there could be a button in a new gallery to "zero" out the pricing back to default-smugmug...

And a way to have the filename and a copyright statement on the back of every print, my life would be complete. Right now there's no way for a purchaser to know what image number (filename) he ordered, for reorder purposes?

Lynne

[scrooks]

Yes oh yes oh yes oh yes. The answer to my prayers (after the cropping, which is fantastic BTW). I'd order a lot more prints for my portfolio--as it is, I have to copy or upload to a new gallery and mod the pricing. Or if there could be a button in a new gallery to "zero" out the pricing back to default-smugmug...
If you want to make prints for yourself without giving yourself a profit, then what you are wanting has been asked for before as, "How about fixing it so that prints are at cost if we're signed in as the site owner?" That way you don't have to make copies or change prices when you print and then put them back again real fast before clients buy anything.

If you want to set pricing differently per category, that's been asked for before as, "How about giving us a way to have a set of pricing defaults that we can quickly apply, or at least pricing at the category level?"

Both great ideas that I hope to see implemented soon!

And a way to have the filename and a copyright statement on the back of every print, my life would be complete. Right now there's no way for a purchaser to know what image number (filename) he ordered, for reorder purposes?
I sort of asked for this a couple of weeks ago in this thread: Company Label (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=2461). While I'd really like to print a logo on the back (even a black & white one), I'd still be pleased as punch to even be able to specify text that will print on the back of every print.

[tmlphoto]

I don't have time for a detailed review, but I just finished trying to process an order using the new features and I am somewhat discouraged. The process seems to have too many choices for the average user and is very confusing IMHO. I don't think it passes the "grandma" test. Also I kept getting sent back to the credit card info screen without any error message that I could find. Another complaint: In order to use the bulk feature and then delete individual photos it seems that you have to go through a screen refresh for each pic that you decide to delete from your cart. How about check boxes for each print with one button refresh at the end? More later when I get the time.

[Andy]

I don't have time for a detailed review, but I just finished trying to process an order using the new features and I am somewhat discouraged. The process seems to have too many choices for the average user and is very confusing IMHO. I don't think it passes the "grandma" test. Also I kept getting sent back to the credit card info screen without any error message that I could find. Another complaint: In order to use the bulk feature and then delete individual photos it seems that you have to go through a screen refresh for each pic that you decide to delete from your cart. How about check boxes for each print with one button refresh at the end? More later when I get the time.

.... kept getting sent back to the credit card screen, endless loop. i was trying to use a new credit card, not the one on file with smugmug on my account.

also, i just did a print run of around 300 4x6s. it was very very time consuming, i had to keep waiting for all the thumbs to load etc. is there a way to speed that up?

a

[Baldy]

I don't have time for a detailed review, but I just finished trying to process an order using the new features and I am somewhat discouraged. The process seems to have too many choices for the average user and is very confusing IMHO. I don't think it passes the "grandma" test. Also I kept getting sent back to the credit card info screen without any error message that I could find. Another complaint: In order to use the bulk feature and then delete individual photos it seems that you have to go through a screen refresh for each pic that you decide to delete from your cart. How about check boxes for each print with one button refresh at the end? More later when I get the time.Thanks for letting us know about this. We'd love to hear more when you get a chance.

The bug that sends people back to the credit info screen is nasty and has proven tough to track down. We placed more debug code in the cart last night to trap it and hope we can nail it soon. We think it affects very few customers but the fact that it got you and Andy is disturbing.

On the too-many-options for grandma front, you're probably referring to two areas: cropping and color choices. Now that we've been online with the new cart, I can say with some confidence that the two are different.

Cropping was the #1 problem with lots of returns and anguish over missing body parts. We know from speaking to various labs that it's the killer problem in the age of digital prints. The good news is in the last 50,000 prints we've processed since the new cart was shipped, I'm not aware of a cropping complaint. It completely solved that problem and we're not getting customer support emails on how to do it.

Color is the #2 problem because digital cameras frequently make caucasian skin to red or too blue (shade). The color options have cut the color problems down but not eliminated them and they have added complexity to the process and hurt the speed for large orders (like Andy's) by generating more thumbnails. This is an area we could put more effort into.

It'd be interesting to hear your perspective on what can be done about color. Currently Ofoto just autocorrects everything without a choice for true color, and they've tried a few different algorithms. You can imagine how accurate auto color is on a mass scale — think of Photoshop autocolor.

Costco and Shutterfly allow you to turn autocolor off but it isn't easy to do.

One possibility is to have true color on by default and a link that said "color corrrection options." Then Andy's order would have processed faster (orders with >250 prints are less than 1 of 500 we receive and almost always from pros who don't want color corrrection). Fewer choices would mean less confusion.

Of course, the incidence of too cold or too warm bad print orders will rise.

[onethumb]

.... kept getting sent back to the credit card screen, endless loop. i was trying to use a new credit card, not the one on file with smugmug on my account.

also, i just did a print run of around 300 4x6s. it was very very time consuming, i had to keep waiting for all the thumbs to load etc. is there a way to speed that up?

a

Andy, the thumbnail problem is easily solved. Internet Explorer is roughly 5 years old, and it's got all sorts of bugs Microsoft doesn't feel like they have to fix (they're a monopoly, afterall). I really wish there was some way we could fix it, or get Microsoft to do so, but we can't. So...

If you install and use Firefox (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/) instead, not only will smugmug look better, load faster, and provide a super-fast shopping cart, but your computer will be much more secure. Just look at all the Internet Explorer security issues in the last few months...

Don

[tmlphoto]

.... kept getting sent back to the credit card screen, endless loop. i was trying to use a new credit card, not the one on file with smugmug on my account.


I was also using a new card instead of my stored one. Hope this helps.

[tmlphoto]

A few more comments:
- I was taken back to the galleries after page one of the "bulk add" page, instead of proceeding through the check out process. I would think that the default would be to continue the checkout process.

-It was very time consuming to pick a few glossy prints along with my many matte prints. I had to pick the paper type individually for each print, even though I only had a few glossy pics.(Did I miss something??) This is a real pain in the *ss when you have alot of images. The apply to all images button didn't seem to work for this unless I am missing something. This button is somewhat of a mystery to me as to what it does. I haven't spent alot of time with it, but it is not intuitive. Also, the default is for glossy, are they more popular than matte?

- Overall, I think a more streamlined approach, with extra choices ( ie color correction) as a link that sends the buyer to a more detailed page. In other words , it should be really easy to order 100 matte 4x6's with no cropping and no color correction.

Just some initial thoughts for now.... BTW I love smugmug & dgrin and really appreciate the level of communication you guys provide. Keep up the good work.

[Erik Olsen]

Hi Don,

I d/l fire fox, and I like it. However, in order to bulk u/l, I have to get the java plugin... the latest from Sun... that link is no good. Will you place a direct link for the plug-in on DG, please?

Thank you,

Erik Olsen
www.manevideo.com

[Baldy]

If you want to make prints for yourself without giving yourself a profit, then what you are wanting has been asked for before as, "How about fixing it so that prints are at cost if we're signed in as the site owner?"Okay, one small step for mankind... This should be working now.

One unanticipated outcome is some pros get a shock when they conclude that their prints are being sold at cost and their custom pricing is not taking effect. Actually, the custom pricing is showing up for everyone else as normal, just not them when they're logged in. They can check it by logging out.

We need to figure out a way to tell them this to prevent future heart attacks. :yikes:yikes:yikes

[jbee]

Don't mess with my colors! I work hard to set them on my prosite. In fact, I'd like to turn off that damned color correction....it just gives my customers another way to mess up.:D

[tmlphoto]

Oh Bald one, any word on smugmug christmas cards? I'm already getting requests to shoot some christmas card pictures. There will be christmas decorations up in stores before you know it:D .

[Baldy]

Oh Bald one, any word on smugmug christmas cards? I'm already getting requests to shoot some christmas card pictures. There will be christmas decorations up in stores before you know it:D .JT just began working on them yesterday. We're hoping it's perhaps a 2-week project for him but we really don't know until he gets into it more. The issue is we need a way to specify fonts, placement, etc.

More when we know more.

Thanks,
Baldy

[flyingdutchie]

...
EXIF... Long story short, we think we'll have to use and display two date fields because some camera manufacturers use "date last modified." Ugh. So does Photoshop (it should), which blows away the date taken for some cameras. Deal with it. :cry
...
.
My pictures' EXIF's 'Date Taken' fields always show the modified date on my SmugMug galleries (i use a D70, Photoshop and Nikon Capture 4.1.x). However, Windows' properties on a JPEG shows the 'Date Taken' field correctly (running WindowsXP).

Is there a way to show it correctly on SmugMug as well? Is it possible to show all the EXIF data from a image file (JPEG)?

Thank you very much.

[MainFragger]

I would love to see comments below a picture not be a link.

If someone clicks on the picture or follows a link to the picture..the comments should just show below the picture without needing another click.

MainFragger

[Erik Olsen]

Hi Chris,

Would it be too much trouble to have the order buttons directly under each image? It now displays the image size, and the option to chance it from med to large (eliminate that all together with orig, and lg turned off.) http://manevideo.smugmug.com/gallery/124050/1/9816456/Large

Thank you,

Erik Olsen

[patch29]

I don't know if I set something wrong, but it would be nice to be able to change the view style, when logged in, even when the gallery is set to only display via a certain style.

Why?

I made a page of emoticons and set the controlled view as thumbnails. By doing this I cannot access the photo tools without going to customize gallery and changing the view. The reason is the size of the majority of the emoticons are smaller than a regular thumbnail and it will not move to the view page where you can access the photo tools, mainly the ability to delete. So being able to override the customized view quickly while logged in would be an easy work around.

Let me know if this does not make sense or if it is easy to implement. It is not a big deal for me, but I could see how users could get frustrated if they did not know where to look if they were in a similar situation and wanted to bring it to your attention.

[tmlphoto]

I would like to request that multiple mailing addresses be saved in the checkout process in addition to the default mailing address. Ofoto has this feature. You can checkbox the mailing address that you want to use. There is also an edit feature for each address. This would be very helpful to me and my clients that want to repeatedly mail picture to friends and family members. This might increase smugmug sales numbers as well.

[Erik Olsen]

Hello,

I love the batch watermark add/remove features as well as the batch remove. It would seem quite easy to implement batch color correct, would it not?

Thank you,

Erik Olsen
www.manevideo.com

[{JT}]

For those who watch this thread and have not seen Don's announcement: color bulk tools are up along w/ pro pricing tools.

Hello,

I love the batch watermark add/remove features as well as the batch remove. It would seem quite easy to implement batch color correct, would it not?

Thank you,

Erik Olsen
www.manevideo.com

[arthousephotography]

I would love to be able to put my own text on instead of "proof" In a perfect world I would like to be able to put "copyright Art House Photography 2004" and select the size and position of the overprint. Thus if people download the picture they get a copyright notice, but if they order from the site they get an unblemished picture. If it is impossible to do all the variables above then choice of either across the centre in large and in one of four corners in small font would be ok.
Heres hoping....

[jordonringel]

I think smugmug needs to have the option to put event titles/dates on their pics. For Frat & Sorority functions, high school dances/prom/parties, etc. All it takes is a simple overlay of text on the photo. It would be so easy for smugmug to add the same title to every picture in the desired folder. Also, give the buyer the option of title/no title at checkout(Just as they have the opton of style and size). I am in college right now and have been to many of these events and check out the photographer's websites and this is the one thing I notcie that smugmug lacks. I am actually thinking of starting my own little photo business to rival these frat/sorority functions but I really think the customers like the option of having the title on their pics. It looks a lot more professional too. This is one thing I think the professional accounts have to have.

[nadi]

I'd like to be able to set my galleries to automatically sort the photos as I add them. I like to keep my photos with the most recent first, and it gets to be a pain to sort them every time I add new images. The order of the galleries can be automatically set this way, why not individual photos too?

[Nikolai]

Whenever I try to post some message with HTML/XML-like code samples here at DGrin, all the tags disappear upon post UNLESS I surround then with PHP marks. I also tried CODE and QUOTE, in combinations and separately - nothing works, except PHP marks. And even then, if I edit the message (or try to preview it first and then save) - they would disappear anyway...:cry

Is this me doing something incredibly stupid (or not doing something incredibly simple), or is this actually - omg!;-) - A BUG??:dunno

Thanks!

[DavidTO]

While I like the ability to make galleries private, I would like to have the thumb on the main page visible. We all have different reasons for making our galleries private, but for me and I'm sure many others, I just don't want a lot of prying/downloading eyes on my family. But the little shot on the main page that makes the entire page more inviting and useable...that's great.

How about the option of leaving the thumb on the main page for private galleries?

[Nikolai]

How about the option of leaving the thumb on the main page for private galleries?.. but only with once correction:
thumb will show up if I manually select the "feature photo".
If none is selected, none should be shown.

Just my $.02

[JBA]

I very freequently visit the site from friend's computers, and my work computer. Sometimes I want to be able to log in, and save a picture, or download an original from my own account. Would it be possible to disable all blocking features while logged in to your own account? It would just be very handy for me.

~JBA~

[Christian]

I'm new to SmugMug and I'd like to say I love it! But I do have one wish / suggestion, and a possible bug.
First the Wish:
I have a large variety of pictures with both friends and family, and I love the keyword options to keep track of individuals. I think it would also be nice to be able to do a keyword search. So that searching for "Dad Grandma" would return every picture than has both the keywords "Dad" and "Grandma" included in them.
Second the Bug / User Ignorance:
I've tried uploading a video that was just under the max size for videos. The upload tool gave no errors or complaints for the upload but the video was never posted to my galary. Is there something I'm doing wrong?

Thanks

[Christian]

Second the Bug / User Ignorance:
I've tried uploading a video that was just under the max size for videos. The upload tool gave no errors or complaints for the upload but the video was never posted to my galary. Is there something I'm doing wrong?

ThanksI've finaly found my video but it wasn't in a specfic gallery, I found it through the keywords. But the keywords tools don't allow me to move it to any of my existing galleries. Any ideas?

[onethumb]

I've finaly found my video but it wasn't in a specfic gallery, I found it through the keywords. But the keywords tools don't allow me to move it to any of my existing galleries. Any ideas?

Can you provide a link to the keyword you found it under? Or at the very least, a link to your smugmug account? :)

I'll take a look.

Don

[Christian]

Can you provide a link to the keyword you found it under? Or at the very least, a link to your smugmug account? :)

I'll take a look.

Don Sure, one of the clips are already in a "Video" gallery and the other is "supposed to be" in a "Labor Day" gallery but doesn't show. What's interesting is that if I use firefox to look at it I can sometime get to the move picture option and it will take me to the "Labor Day" gallery photos but the mpg isn't listed, or seen in the gallery itself.
http://cnelsen.smugmug.com/keyword/movie/1/13750763/Medium

[patch29]

Can you take a look at this thread (http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66844) on advrider, at least three users seem to be having odd log in problems and general problems. I tried to help and direct them to post here, but they are happy over there, just wanted to point it out to you.

[onethumb]

Sure, one of the clips are already in a "Video" gallery and the other is "supposed to be" in a "Labor Day" gallery but doesn't show. What's interesting is that if I use firefox to look at it I can sometime get to the move picture option and it will take me to the "Labor Day" gallery photos but the mpg isn't listed, or seen in the gallery itself.
http://cnelsen.smugmug.com/keyword/movie/1/13750763/Medium

Ahh, yeah, this is a known issue.

Videos don't have "Date Taken" information, and you have that gallery set to use "Date Taken (if available)", which means it freaks out and doesn't know what to do with videos.

We're working on a fix, but for now, if you change it to be "Position" or one of the other settings, your video should come back up.

Don

[Christian]

Ahh, yeah, this is a known issue.

Videos don't have "Date Taken" information, and you have that gallery set to use "Date Taken (if available)", which means it freaks out and doesn't know what to do with videos.

We're working on a fix, but for now, if you change it to be "Position" or one of the other settings, your video should come back up.

Don Great! Thank you for the tip, that explains a lot.

[Erik Olsen]

I would love to be able to search my photos by image ID#... Will it, or is it at all possible?

[chmoss]

Hi,
I often scan film -- and as a result, no technical details normally contained in EXIF (like Camera, Lens, etc) exist in the JPG.
I would like to be able to add this information to smugmug in such a way as to have it display just like EXIF data does.

[bham]

Hi,
I often scan film -- and as a result, no technical details normally contained in EXIF (like Camera, Lens, etc) exist in the JPG.
I would like to be able to add this information to smugmug in such a way as to have it display just like EXIF data does.
If you have Photoshop you can add some info under file info. Maybe then smugmug could default to that info if the exif is blank. Just an idea.

[chmoss]

If you have Photoshop you can add some info under file info. Maybe then smugmug could default to that info if the exif is blank. Just an idea.
Photoshop File Info can read and write IPTC data, and only display EXIF data. JPG EXIF data cannot be updated in Photoshop AFAIK.

pbase has the desired behavior in this area.

[like-pics]

Hi Sebastian,

Many thanks for taking the time to write these up. I'm going to respond to your second post now and do some more thinking about the first one, and return to it later.

Perhaps we can consider a global option to keep your smugmug pages out of the browse and search options. That way someone would have to know your nickname and type it in (or you'd have to send them a link) to find your list of galleries and bio.

To be 100% honest, I'm only aware of hearing a request like this from two other customers. I can imagine others who want it and haven't spoken up about it, because we have some customers with all private or password-protected galleries.

I only mention the few requests not because it doesn't sound like a good idea, but only because we're still in the situation where we're trying to prioritize according to the things we hear about from the most people. I didn't want to sound enthusiastic about your idea but then give false hope about when we would start work on it.

Thanks,
Baldy

I would absolutely love to have this feature. I want to use smugmug to share the pictures with my family and friends, and only my family and friends, but I would rather not have all of my galleries password protected. I really, really don't want my pictures to show up as a gallery that everyone in the world can easily find or is browseable and searchable in smugmug. I would love an easy way to do that as the default for all galleries under my account.

[ButterflySis]

Create individual referral links for each SM user to make it easier for us to promote SM and get referrals.

Thanks for considering.

Jen

[lemketron]

Create individual referral links for each SM user to make it easier for us to promote SM and get referrals.Already done. See this help page (http://www.smugmug.com/help/acctref) where it says to simply use http://www.smugmug.com/?referrer=<yourRefCode> (without the <>).

[ButterflySis]

Already done. See this help page (http://www.smugmug.com/help/acctref) where it says to simply use http://www.smugmug.com/?referrer=<yourRefCode> (without the <>).
Thanks! I didn't even see that.

[jfriend]

I was using the zoom thumbnail feature on one of my galleries. I found that what I often wanted was a zoom ratio setting for "original ratio". In other words, I wanted to zoom, but just maintain the current ratio. As it is now, I have to know or guess what my current ratio is and pick it. Also, if the image is portrait orientation, I not only have to guess my current ratio, I also have to rotate my choice. If you are doing this on a whole gallery of photos, this is a lot of manual steps just to maintain the current ratio. I'd also like to see the current ratio be automatically selected as the default.

Other than that, the zoom thumbnail feature is pretty neat and very useful for certain types of photos.

--John

[{JT}]

Good suggestion, look for it soon.

I was using the zoom thumbnail feature on one of my galleries. I found that what I often wanted was a zoom ratio setting for "original ratio". In other words, I wanted to zoom, but just maintain the current ratio. As it is now, I have to know or guess what my current ratio is and pick it. Also, if the image is portrait orientation, I not only have to guess my current ratio, I also have to rotate my choice. If you are doing this on a whole gallery of photos, this is a lot of manual steps just to maintain the current ratio. I'd also like to see the current ratio be automatically selected as the default.

Other than that, the zoom thumbnail feature is pretty neat and very useful for certain types of photos.

--John

[jfriend]

Cool thanks.

Good suggestion, look for it soon.

[jfriend]

While experimenting with the journal layout on one of my galleries, I saw some sort of HTML layout bug. You can see what I saw on screen here: http://jfriend.smugmug.com/photos/17218430-O.jpg. I could not reproduce this problem again once I had closed that window and left the gallery. I'm running FireFox 1.01. I don't know whether it's a Firefox problem or a smugmug problem.

[rainforest1155]

Also, category listings show how many galleries and images are in each sub-category. However, sub-category listings only show the name of each gallery and last mod date - not how many images the gallery contains. Could you add that? I think it would be useful in general, but it would also make it a lot easier to figure out which (recently created) galleries are still empty (and in need of uploading) and which ones have been populated. [It would also be great to see the number of images in the uploader's gallery picker.]
I reinforce this request. It's the only easy way to check if I missed a day in my daily photo galleries! :D

[brodick]

:dunno
Am I right in thinking that if I set a gallery as a featured gallery, then the number of photos in that gallery are not included in the figures shown on the categories. Hope that makes some sense. I have suddenly noticed that one of my categories was showing 2 galleries and 0 photos, and it so happens that both of these galleries are featured.
If you click into the category, both galleries are there and you can open them to view the photos. A small point, but a bit confusing for a poor old sole like me.

[eti]

hey i'm not sure where i should post this - i made an OP about it. anyway: the category listings are broken, albums created after the 15th of this month are not shown at all...

[jthomas]

I guess I'm too lazy to read through all 11 pages of this thread, so I'll enter a feature request at the risk that it's already been mentioned.

I've spent quite a bit of time selecting pictures to upload and thinking up good captions for them. I'd be willing to spend some $$ for a CD or DVD of my galleries just as they appear on my Smugmug page, with captions, etc.

The backup CD you currrently offer is helpful, but I want a little more...

Thanks for listening.

[flyingpylon]

I guess I'm too lazy to read through all 11 pages of this thread, so I'll enter a feature request at the risk that it's already been mentioned.

I've spent quite a bit of time selecting pictures to upload and thinking up good captions for them. I'd be willing to spend some $$ for a CD or DVD of my galleries just as they appear on my Smugmug page, with captions, etc.

The backup CD you currrently offer is helpful, but I want a little more...

Thanks for listening.
Do you mean that you want all of the HTML web pages, etc.? For that, I would just use an offline web page viewer. You can set them up to hit a specific web page, follow all of the links, and download and save all of the pages and images it finds. There are a lot of these applications out there, some are free.

If you just want to export a text file of image data including the caption for each image, you can try Smugmug Exporter, a free web application I created. The link is in my signature below.

[jthomas]

Do you mean that you want all of the HTML web pages, etc.? For that, I would just use an offline web page viewer. You can set them up to hit a specific web page, follow all of the links, and download and save all of the pages and images it finds. There are a lot of these applications out there, some are free.
Thanks. Apparently Internet Explorer 6.0 under Windows XP will do this too. I'll try it late tonight.

[jthomas]

Thanks. Apparently Internet Explorer 6.0 under Windows XP will do this too. I'll try it late tonight.
I tried it. It doesn't work.

[rainforest1155]

jthomas,
Here is a list of freeware offline browsers (http://www.trustmeher.net/freeware/offlinebrowsers.htm). I haven't tried them, but maybe it helps you.

Sebastian

[jthomas]

jthomas,
Here is a list of freeware offline browsers (http://www.trustmeher.net/freeware/offlinebrowsers.htm). I haven't tried them, but maybe it helps you.

Sebastian
Thanks. I had already found most of those, and many are actually not free anymore or had some other objectionable feature. I did find one on this list I hadn't seen that looks interesting. I'll give it a try tonight and report.

Again, many thanks for the help!:):

[jthomas]

Thanks. I had already found most of those, and many are actually not free anymore or had some other objectionable feature. I did find one on this list I hadn't seen that looks interesting. I'll give it a try tonight and report. I tried "Getleft v1.1.2". It appears to have worked o.k., and the price was sure right. Only complaint was that it is very slow. Took nearly 12 hours to download my entire Smugmug site.

[rainforest1155]

I tried "Getleft v1.1.2". It appears to have worked o.k., and the price was sure right. Only complaint was that it is very slow. Took nearly 12 hours to download my entire Smugmug site.Great to hear. Yeah, you can't be freeware in price. :rofl
How big is the downloaded folder on your harddrive and whats your connection speed?
Maybe the problem was that the program downloaded your original images. That could have happended if you didn't disabled this in every gallery and thus resulted in a much longer download time.

Sebastian

[winnjewett]

I have a suggestion regarding the manner in which suggestions, requests, and bugs are made. It seems as though many legitimate questions slip between the cracks on this forum. Support seems to be hit-or-miss. When it's a hit, it's always a home-run, but it often takes a lot of tries and a lot of patience. I don't mind waiting, but sometimes I feel as though if I don't bring a thread up from the bottom half of the first page, it will get lost forever.

Everyone at smugmug is so pationate about making their service the absolute best, and it shows. I sent an email with some of the forgotten threads, and received a response literally in seconds. Incredible.

So, you guys are more than capable of providing absolutely top-notch service. I just think that the options need to be spelled out more clearly to the customer.

On a related note, when all suggestions or bug reports are put into one thread on a forum, it makes it nearly impossible to browse without reading all 11+ pages. I think that if you are going to use a user forum for support, you will have to be extremely diligent about reading every post.

Thanks for listening to me vent a little frustration.
-Winn

[jthomas]

Great to hear. Yeah, you can't be freeware in price. :rofl
How big is the downloaded folder on your harddrive and whats your connection speed?
Maybe the problem was that the program downloaded your original images. That could have happended if you didn't disabled this in every gallery and thus resulted in a much longer download time.

Sebastian
The folder is about 870MB. I have a cable modem, which is pretty fast - I don't know what the actual download speed is.

It only downloaded the S,M,L and TI versions of each picture - but that's a lot of files!

[erics]

Just started using smugmug and I really like it so far. I also like the very involved user community.

I am a very amateur photorapher and the main things I use smugmug for:

1. Backup my full res pictures offsite
2. Share my pics with friends and allow them to download full res copies/make prints.

Here are my suggestions (sent some of these over to help, but also thought I would put them out for the community to see if any were useful for anyone else):

1. Have an option to display only pictures with comments when viewing a gallery in all modes except slideshow. The reason for this is that I will put a caption on my pictures and when my friends make comments, I would like to be able to see all the commented pictures at one time.

2. Be able to select the default view for each gallery for basic users (I like the Journal view as indicated below).

3. Be able to upload movies for basic users.

I think 2 and 3 are available for the step-up accounts, but I will never use (probably) more than the bandwidth for a basic account, so these features would be pretty nice on a basic.

My favorite view is the journal view, and here are some things I think can make it better for casual use with family/friends.

1. Make the number of pictures displayed per journal page selectable (high speed connection might want to view 20+ photos per page).

2. Under each photo, have a small 'Comment on this photo' link that pops a comment window with a tiny thumbnail over the journal page, gets the comment, and closes, without moving/doing anything to the journal page you are viewing.

3. Allow the display of comments in the journal box next to each photo, up to the size of the journal box, with a link to see any additional comments if they exist. For example, I uploaded the pics from a recent Florida trip. I entered captions on some of the photos that took up less than 10% of each journal box - if the remaining journal box was used to display my friends comments, it would make the photo viewing experience much more interective.

I think with the combination of the 3 suggestions to the journal view, plus the option to only view commented photos, the journal view would be a blast when sharing photos with family and friends (alot of my friends are funny/smart asses, and their comments would be very helpful in my galleries). I think the current way of viewing galleries/adding comments doesn't encourage a high enough level of interection.

Finally, since my camera's red-eye reduction is annoying, I don't really use it, and the software with the camera is terrible for red-eye reduction - how about red-eye reduction when physical prints are made.

Great photo sharing site - keep up the good work.

E

[rainforest1155]

1. Have an option to display only pictures with comments when viewing a gallery in all modes except slideshow.

2. Be able to select the default view for each gallery for basic users (I like the Journal view as indicated below).

My favorite view is the journal view, and here are some things I think can make it better for casual use with family/friends.

1. Make the number of pictures displayed per journal page selectable (high speed connection might want to view 20+ photos per page).

2. Under each photo, have a small 'Comment on this photo' link that pops a comment window with a tiny thumbnail over the journal page, gets the comment, and closes, without moving/doing anything to the journal page you are viewing.

3. Allow the display of comments in the journal box next to each photo, up to the size of the journal box, with a link to see any additional comments if they exist.Eric,
great suggestions, I second those quoted and would like to have those, too. :thumb
Sebastian

[Baldy]

Hi Eric,

Great suggestions and many thanks for taking the time to write them.

A few are on our list of things to do.

But I'm afraid we have to let you down as gently as possible on the video clips for standard users. Video is too expensive for us for more reasons than bandwidth, a primary one being customer support. Video formats and media players are a pain in the buttsky, especially when we end up accepting them from so many different sources.

Thanks,
Baldy

[erics]

No problem on the video - figured it couldn't hurt to ask. I use a pentax s5i and it only takes grainy 15 fps videos which are sometimes amusing but most often useless. Just thought it would be fun to share a few.

I'm most interested in changes to the journal view, to give it more of a blog with responses feel.

E


Hi Eric,

Great suggestions and many thanks for taking the time to write them.

A few are on our list of things to do.

But I'm afraid we have to let you down as gently as possible on the video clips for standard users. Video is too expensive for us for more reasons than bandwidth, a primary one being customer support. Video formats and media players are a pain in the buttsky, especially when we end up accepting them from so many different sources.

Thanks,
Baldy

[micknewton]

Oh yohoo... programmer guys... :poke

I recently created a new Smugmug photo community called "DPChallenge". On the settings page for this community there are radio buttons to let you specify whether or not to use my own cobranding look&feel. The buttons are Yes and No. When I select No, anyone viewing the community still sees my cobranding stuff (header, footer, etc..) When I select Yes, it's the same, but when I go back to the settings page the button has changed back to No.

I looked at several of the other photo communities, and none of them display any special cobranding. What's up with my community? Is my cobranding stuff just too powerful? :confused

[arthousephotography]

When you hover over a community it would be nice to be able to see a few lines summarising the objective of the community. I am sure this would be a pretty easy thing to programme.... please.

[minoltaman]

It's probably in this thread a few times already...digital downloads, maybe with a few different resolution choices would be nice. Maybe even with a primitive payment system like paypal/check/cod/2coms. Thanks for listening.
-don

[winnjewett]

Two weeks ago, I posted to this thread talking about support for smugmug. In that post, I stated how absolutely incredible the support is; when you get it.

The problem I have found is that some posts slip through the cracks. When this happens, It gives the impression that smugmug does not care about certain customers, which I know is most definitely not true.

I know that all of you are working as hard as humanly possible to maintain and grow smugmug, but I think that a little time spend developing a structured support system would go a long way. In the end, you would have happier, more informed customers.

The user forum is a great medium for peer to peer interactions, but when used as the primary support mechanism, things start to fall apart.

-Winn

[jfriend]

I'd also like to see the ability to "sell" digital images via download, not just prints.

On a recent ski trip, there was a photographic company taking pics on the slopes. The pics were then available for viewing later that afternoon at the lodge. You could order either prints or just buy the digital image to make your own prints. Since I never have any pics of myself skiing (since I do all the picture taking in our family). I was thinking about buying an 8x10 or 11x14 so it would be big enough to scan with good resolution, but then I realized they sell the JPEG image directly. So, I bought the JPEG for one of the pics of myself (for $40). I realized that is a great offering that smugmug should have. A lot of people will pay significant bucks for a digital image they like because it gives them the freedom to do many things with it (print their own, use it in a collage, post on their web-site, send it in email, etc...). For those with pro accounts, this could even further differentiate the smugmug offering from other sites.

It's probably in this thread a few times already...digital downloads, maybe with a few different resolution choices would be nice. Maybe even with a primitive payment system like paypal/check/cod/2coms. Thanks for listening.
-don

[jfriend]

When ordering prints from smugmug, the most complicated part of the whole process is getting the crop right for prints that don't match the print size exactly. For someone like my mom, this can be quite confusing. I'd like to pre-configure this for my print buyers.

My feature request is to let the owner of the gallery, preset the cropping for the sizes that don't match the aspect ratio of the photo. This would allow the customer to just order the print and know that they were going to get the best possible result without having to fuss with cropping (they customer wouldn't even have to see the crop dialogs). In the pro package, you should probably also let the owner of the gallery disable certain sizes that don't crop to a good result. I know that not that many people will go to the trouble of setting the crops for the different sizes, but for those that do (probably most those with pro accounts), it dramatically enhances the buying experience, increase the quality of prints by always getting the best crop and is a nice feature that I don't think any other similar services have. BTW, if you do this, it would be great to get a preview screen for each phot with all the sizes laid out, displaying the default centered crop so you could just make a few tweaks and hit Next to get to the next photo in the gallery. For sizes with the same aspect ratio, they obviously only have to be shown once (4x6, 8x12 or 5x7, 10x14).

Thanks for listening.

--John

[CSwinton]

feature request is to let the owner of the gallery, preset the cropping for the sizes that don't match the aspect ratio of the photo....

--John :thumb
I think this is a great idea. Some people here are even setting up different galleries for each crop size in order to ensure their photos are cropped/printed properly. I don't know how much coding this would take, but I think it would offer a wonderful level of control. I'd upgrade my account from standard to Power/Pro for this feature alone. Many of my galleries are family photos and my family orders lots of 4x6 prints and they tire of having to crop them. The fact that they have to crop them is a huge deterrent from ordering! My Mom recently gave up half-way through an order because she only has a modem-connection and the cropping took too long with all of the image loading after each crop. I'd be willing to spend the time to pre-crop as well in order to make the process more trouble-free for those that order my pictures. I'd also love knowing they won't screw up my photo with a poor crop.

[minoltaman]

I would also like some sort of pre-cropping feature. This would be useful to me in some instances for sure. It would also eliminate some dumb stuff by customers.

I am also for being able to disable that color adjusting jazz on pro accounts. That color adjustment thingie will make more trouble than it is worth for me and my customers. I don't want them adjusting a perfectly correct photo. Nor should you...

Good suggestion.

-don

[jfriend]

I'd second the request for being able to control whether t