I contacted the Exposure Manager folks to ask them about their customization abilities. They do, indeed, have full template customizability. This is what they said:
We allow for different sorts of customizations:
The first level is just using stylesheets, which doesn't require any
knowledge of stylesheets (which Smugmug requires) but has an easy to use Stylesheet selector where you can set the colors, borders and fonts.
On the third level you can customize the entire HTML. We give you the template, and you can adjust anything you want (it doesn't get more custom like this). As a good example: http://www.lightexposures.com/
On top of that we allow a lot of customization without needing to customize templates. You can change the sizes of your images, have an image watermark, define the location of the watermark per, etc.
SmugMug and ExposureManager are very different services and have different approaches on customization, as well as almost everything else. It often comes down to personal preferences which service works for you. From what we hear ExposureManager is better suited for event photography and SmugMug does well for portfolio websites. Again, that is a matter of personal preference, and since we are not experts on SmugMug, we can only comment on what we offer.
Please feel free to throw any other questions our way, and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.
I wonder if they charge for different levels of customizing capability? Also if you are at the most basic levels you will have a heck of a time trying to customize the majority of the page since they use tables and a minimal amount of classes. So short of building your whole site (the highest customization level) you are extremely limited on what you can do.
Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.
I wonder if they charge for different levels of customizing capability? Also if you are at the most basic levels you will have a heck of a time trying to customize the majority of the page since they use tables and a minimal amount of classes. So short of building your whole site (the highest customization level) you are extremely limited on what you can do.
They do not charge differently for customization abilities. It appears that they would be more work to make medium-sized style changes than smugmug, but ultimately allow more flexibility because you can just modify the template yourself to make your own original designs nearly from scratch (you control all the HTML). This is consistent with a pro product - more work, but more power.
Since you asked, here's what they say about their pricing: Select your subscription We offer two different subscriptions, 'Art' and 'Event'. Both have every feature ExposureManager offers. From watermarking to batch processing to sales. Everything is included. The only difference is the storage and bandwidth allotment.
Art: 1GB storage, 5GB bandwidth/mo, $4.99/mo or $49.99/hr Event: Unlimited storage, 10GB bandwidth/mo, $9.99/mo or $79.99/yr
They do not charge differently for customization abilities. It appears that they would be more work to make medium-sized style changes than smugmug, but ultimately allow more flexibility because you can just modify the template yourself to make your own original designs nearly from scratch (you control all the HTML). This is consistent with a pro product - more work, but more power.
Since you asked, here's what they say about their pricing: Step 1: Select your subscription We offer two different subscriptions, 'Art' and 'Event'. Both have every feature ExposureManager offers. From watermarking to batch processing to sales. Everything is included. The only difference is the storage and bandwidth allotment. ArtEventStorage1GBBandwidth5GB a month*Price per month$4.99Price per year$49.99[ Select this subscription ]StorageUnlimitedBandwidth10GB a month*Price per month$9.99Price per year$79.99 (Best Value)[ Select this subscription ]
--John
So I guess I don't see how their customization options are on par with smugmug's at all.
Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.
So I guess I don't see how their customization options are on par with smugmug's at all.
Different strokes for different folks. It depends upon what you want. Even the note from the Exposure Manager folks says that too.
If you want style sheet style modifications of a base set of unchangable templates, then Smugmug rocks. If you want full control over the entire presentation, including thumb size, numbers of rows/columns, full HTML control of everything, then you will find many controls over those things missing at Smugmug and need a different choice like Exposure Manager or your own hosting.
The original point of this thread was around the fullfillment options that Exposure Manager offers where Smugmug doesn't even come close and doesn't sound like they are moving in that direction.
I'm not advocating one or the other. I am intrigued by Exposure Manager's fullfillment options as I look to start charging for the event photography that I do. I'm also glad to know that (if I'm willing to resort to modifying the page template), I can do most anything I want to the page. I could even imagine a world where I keep my family and portfolio pictures on Smugmug and run my for-profit events somewhere else.
FWIW, it would be great if Smugmug offered template control (like some of the blogs do) on top of their style sheet customization (a pro-only feature, perhaps). That could remove all complaints about limitations in customizability if it was done right.
Finnally some info After posting in another thread (smugmug help suggested I do so) someone directed me here.
After reading through this thread I just realized part of the problem.
I add all my keywords in CS2. When I click on file info the keywords ARE indeed seperated by ; Other programs I use recognize this and display accordingly... but when I upload the pictures for whatever reason smugmug does NOT upload the ; seperator between keywords. Could this somehow be implemented so that upon upload the keywords would then display correctly?
IF NOT... If I add the "" around keywords in CS2 will smugmug recognize them and display correctly? I'm just trying to find away to save the loads of time it takes to re-organize my keywords after upload so ANY & ALL input greatly appriciated.
BTW: Here's what I'd asked in another thread:
Hi everyone. Smugmug help suggested I post my question here. Although I add keywords in CS2 & they are there after uploading... I’m finding I have to spend a lot of time customizing them in smugmugs bulk edit tools.
For example in CS2 keyword file info I may put in tigers, football, mark twain, 61 zach, utterback, football, 20051008
CS2 automatically separates them with comma's rather than "".
After uploading I have to go in and put "" around anything that should be one keyword such as "61 zach" "mark twain" "20051008"
Is there a simpler way to get the keywords right from the get go in CS2 so that after uploading they'll work & display properly so I don't have to spend so much time re-keywording them?
If I add the "" around the words in CS2's keywording will they remain together properly in smugmug? If so does this create any negative effects in other software I might need to be aware of before I start adding "" in all my CS2 keywords.
How does everyone else get around this quickly, successfully & painlesslessly? :-)
Different strokes for different folks. It depends upon what you want. Even the note from the Exposure Manager folks says that too.
If you want style sheet style modifications of a base set of unchangable templates, then Smugmug rocks. If you want full control over the entire presentation, including thumb size, numbers of rows/columns, full HTML control of everything, then you will find many controls over those things missing at Smugmug and need a different choice like Exposure Manager or your own hosting.
We know this is important to some - but we hope, in the end, not a deal killer for most folks!
The original point of this thread was around the fullfillment options that Exposure Manager offers where Smugmug doesn't even come close and doesn't sound like they are moving in that direction.
We've talked among the team about this quite a lot. And personally, I have some observations to make here. SmugMug provides customer service to and for our Pros and their customers. And to all levels of subscribers. We strive to answer support questions really fast - most always within minutes of receiving them - rarely longer than one hour. Customers love our responsiveness. One area we get a lot of help mail in is regarding prints. Customer ordered the wrong print - wrong size - wrong quantity -wrong shipping address. The colors are off. The package was damaged. You get the picture. In all of these cases, we'll handle a correction to the order, a reprint, spend hours color-correcting a pro's files (yep) all for the satisfaction of the customer. When we add "other fulfillment" options to the equation - our ability to provide this extremely high level of support goes out the window, becuase we don't have control over the printer. One outfit I tried this past week, they give the pro a choice of 20! labs to choose from. When I asked about what happens if my customer had any of the above issues - the answer was "that's between you (the pro) and the lab." The working pros I've met with, and have spoken to, really would rather spend their time shooting and getting more customers, than dealing with lab or print issues.
So it's not that we couldn't allow some of these fulfillment options, it's that when deciding on such things, we have to take into account our ability to provide the level of service that our pros, their customers, and in fact all subscribers have come to expect from us. So it's a tough choice to make, eh? We are looking at some of the features though - and I mention that below.
I'm not advocating one or the other. I am intrigued by Exposure Manager's fullfillment options as I look to start charging for the event photography that I do. I'm also glad to know that (if I'm willing to resort to modifying the page template), I can do most anything I want to the page. I could even imagine a world where I keep my family and portfolio pictures on Smugmug and run my for-profit events somewhere else.
Interesting. I suggest you try it out. I did a trial. Now I'm doubly-biased of course, having been a SmugMug customer for 2 1/2 years and now with the company, but I tried to be as objective as possible:
While style sheets are possible and customization yes, I've not found one single site that comes even close to any of the best of the hundreds of cusotomized SmugMug sites we've been exposed to here. Not saying it can't be done - but as far as I can see, it's not being done. One thing to remember, if one styles a SmugMug page, you also have the many "viewing styles" still: SmugMug, SmugMug Small, Traditional, Thumbs, Journal, Slideshow, and new ones we'll come out with, too. I couldn't find that anywhere on Exposure Manager.
Pricing: I liked the fact that to even set pricing, you had to submit your tax ID info (this is cool) so that you can be paid as soon as profits come in. I didn't like the one-by-one item pricing markup interface. You add an item to "your shelves" and you price it. Very tedious, and not-so-user-friendly. Makes me appreciate JT's sleepless nights!
They have "proof and reupload" which is a very cool feature, and we'd love to be able to offer this - and we know many have asked - and we've said we're talking about it. Stay tuned on that part...
FWIW, it would be great if Smugmug offered template control (like some of the blogs do) on top of their style sheet customization (a pro-only feature, perhaps). That could remove all complaints about limitations in customizability if it was done right.
--John
I've talked to dozens and dozens of our pros over the past two weeks, and the reaction to themes has been a universal "yay!" There are many pros who don't have the time or just can't fathom the slightest amount of html or customization, and they'll also never, ever come to dgrin to learn. Themes to the rescue!
Is there any update on keyword implementations? There were a lot of good suggestions here in this thread.
My database program doesn't like double quotes now necessary around wordgroups at all. Therefore I can't really use wordgroups as keywords.
Plus you already use the comma separator for gallery keywords - I hope it'll soon come for photo keywords, too.
Is there any update on keyword implementations? There were a lot of good suggestions here in this thread.
My database program doesn't like double quotes now necessary around wordgroups at all. Therefore I can't really use wordgroups as keywords.
Plus you already use the comma separator for gallery keywords - I hope it'll soon come for photo keywords, too.
Thanks,
Sebastian
Not yet, Sebastian. Thanks for posting again. I can't promise if or when but I can tell you that we talk about this a lot.
Not yet, Sebastian. Thanks for posting again. I can't promise if or when but I can tell you that we talk about this a lot.
Andy
Good to hear that you're on it - as usual. I just spent the whole night figuring on how to use keywords more effectively and hacked a script for my database program together to assist me with it. So I thought I'll warm up the topic again.
Actually the coding was a real trial&error run - as usual...but for now I figured an easy way to at least integrate the first names of the relevant persons on my photos into IPTC and therefore also smugmug. It's a good start I think. And as the sun began to rise I figured it was to late to go to sleep and I stayed awake till now and hopefully for the rest of the day.
Be aware bold ground-bashing statements ahead!
Okay, what about a fresh start on this topic? I'm now making the bold statement that we've been all wrong with all our observations on how keywords are separated and how multiple keywords should be read!
So you think how can he such a thing and get away with it?
We've simply looked at the wrong place to judge. It's not important how PS, iPhoto or WhatEver show us the keywords or handle the input of them. The important thing is how they're stored in the image file as the metadata!
Their come the before posted official IPTC specifications to rescue:
Keywords: Repeatable, maximum 64 octets, consisting of graphic char-
acters plus spaces.
Used to indicate specific information retrieval words.
Each keyword uses a single Keywords DataSet. Multiple key-
words use multiple Keywords DataSets.
It is expected that a provider of various types of data that are re-
lated in subject matter uses the same keyword, enabling the re-
ceiving system or subsystems to search across all types of data
for related material.
This basicly means that there are 64 keyword datafields possible. Each single-word keyword takes up it's own datafield. Keywords consisting of multiple words take up the space of multiple datafields - meaning that you can't have 64 multi-word keywords.
Now how does the whole thing look in the real world? Here's a screenshot of the actual data in a jpg-file consisting of keywords viewed with a hex-viewer:
In the small right part you see the actual characters, the big middle part shows the characters in it's hex-code (important for special characters which have no real symbol, like the highlighted part) and on the left you see the position in the file in hex-code, too.
Let's have a look at the right: The keywords are separated clearly by five dots. This even works good for longer keywords like 'now one in between' (one big keyword).
Now let's have a look at the highlighted part in the middle which means much more to the computer than just five dots. This actually tells the program that reads the IPTC that here a new keyword-field begins. If you look close you'll notice that the first four dots are exactly the same before every other keyword. Just the fifth is sometimes different and should specifiy the type of the following keyword-field.
I checked this behaviour in my image database iMatch, Irfanview and PS. They all work according to this scheme. For me the situation is quite clear now. The commas, semicolons, spaces and double quotes are just introduced for the user of the programs to clear up the interface, but shouldn't be used in the binary metadata. Here and here are threads from the iMatch forum commenting on this smugmug behaviour. Now let's see what you guys say!
If you've got any more questions - feel free to simply ask them! When you've got any sample files with IPTC saved with special programs - just send them to me (include with what program you wrote the data) and I've a look at the metadata.
Sebastian, Are you saying that smugmug isn't following the IPTC standard for storing multi-word keywords? If so, that was pointed out quite early in this thread, but never acknowledged by smugmug.
I'm dreading the day when smugmug finally fully supports the standard and I have to go back and remove all of the quotes from my images; however, I'd rather that day be tomorrow instead of days/weeks/months from now.
Thanks for keeping at 'em as adding the quotes isn't something I like doing.
Sebastian, Are you saying that smugmug isn't following the IPTC standard for storing multi-word keywords? If so, that was pointed out quite early in this thread, but never acknowledged by smugmug.
I'm dreading the day when smugmug finally fully supports the standard and I have to go back and remove all of the quotes from my images; however, I'd rather that day be tomorrow instead of days/weeks/months from now.
Thanks for keeping at 'em as adding the quotes isn't something I like doing.
I guess I'm a little at a loss as to why one would need multi-word keywords? Wouldn't that just make it more difficult to find an image using keywords? Besides, it's not like you can't use a phrase to come up with a keyword search to find images that have the desired keyword anyhow.
My latest gallery was of the 2005 Seattle Marathon. Each image in the gallery has at a minimum 3 keywords 2005, seattle, and marathon. Why would I need to have "2005 seattle marathon"? It would be less likely for people to find what they wanted if they were to search my site with keywords. But far more importantly (at least on my site) is Google's interaction with the smugmug keywords. I have found that google is very good at doing a keyword search on my site. Requiring people to type in "2005 seattle marathon" as a search in google would actually limit the number of hits I get from that.
So I guess I just don't understand what the fuss is all about.
Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.
I guess I'm a little at a loss as to why one would need multi-word keywords? Wouldn't that just make it more difficult to find an image using keywords? Besides, it's not like you can't use a phrase to come up with a keyword search to find images that have the desired keyword anyhow.
Sometimes I just want to enter the full name of a person and having a multi-word keyword is the clearest solution for me in this case. From what I can say google doesn't care if you use a multi-keyword or not as it also seems to match single words in them. It's even better do digest for the user in the little google snippet shown in the search - the whole name is included in the snippet and therefore stands more out then all the results with only the last or only the first name in the snippet.
Example: somebody named Safeco Diamondhead would turn up like this in the snippet. Not very easy to combine both words while browsing through. With the same name combined as a multi-keyword I would find it much easier to be spotted out of the result mass.
Agreed, this is only useful in a number of cases, but I would like to have the possebility to use it without having to go to the gallery and edit the keyword on my own adding double quotes. The keywording should be done only once - in my image database from where I can reuse it every time I upload the picture again or somewhere else. I want a standard to rely on - IPTC is that very standard and it's widely accepted. All I'm asking for is a proper integration of the standard, to which I posted an approach 3 posts ago.
If you need any further explanations - just shoot away.
Thanks for listening,
Sebastian
smugmug has a great ability to add/subtract words to filter the search, so the above implementation isn't as necessary as it used to be; however, I've been doing it this way for years and I don't see stopping now.
smugmug has a great ability to add/subtract words to filter the search, so the above implementation isn't as necessary as it used to be; however, I've been doing it this way for years and I don't see stopping now.
I saw here an interesting post regarding the use or misuse of multi-word keywords. I am trying to decide what to do for my own IPTC data. Now, I use multiple keywords. For example, if I take shots at Brookside Gardens, I enter "Brookside Gardens."
I found the post about not needing multiple-word keywords fascinating. Is there any follow-up to this? Does anyone agree with this assertion? I saw a bunch of people disagreeing, but would like to hear from those that agree with keeping keywords separated.
I found the post about not needing multiple-word keywords fascinating. Is there any follow-up to this? Does anyone agree with this assertion? I saw a bunch of people disagreeing, but would like to hear from those that agree with keeping keywords separated.
I started using Adobe Photoshop Elements to tag my photos and found when uploading them to Smugmug the keywords would be busted up. A good example is "New Zealand". Needing multiple-word keywords is a MUST but the debate is when to use them. There are obvious requirements for them however.
I think it's rediculous that users should have to encode their keywords to be Smugmug-compatible. Is smugmug going to correct this problem?
I don't know why they are adding all these suoerficial features, like the new "gears turning" animation when you click on a picture, when they can't just make smugmug IPTC standard compatible. It's making me thing about switching services.
So then is it standard to delimit first and last names together, ie kitchen; John Doe; Tree ?
Is the assertion before that there is no need to combine first and last name valid?
I don't know why they are adding all these suoerficial features, like the new "gears turning" animation when you click on a picture, when they can't just make smugmug IPTC standard compatible. It's making me thing about switching services.
So then is it standard to delimit first and last names together, ie kitchen; John Doe; Tree ?
Is the assertion before that there is no need to combine first and last name valid?
Hi askohen,
Thanks for voicing your concern about this feature. I'll make sure that the engineers see it!
Thanks for voicing your concern about this feature. I'll make sure that the engineers see it!
Thanks, but judging by this thread, the issue is something Smugmug has know about for a while. If it doesn't get fixed soon, it seems to me Smugmug is not listening to us. I love Smugmug, but it will be easy for me to switch to a service that better serves the advanced-am., pro market better. All I want is that smugmug conforms to IPTC standards!
Thanks, but judging by this thread, the issue is something Smugmug has know about for a while. If it doesn't get fixed soon, it seems to me Smugmug is not listening to us. I love Smugmug, but it will be easy for me to switch to a service that better serves the advanced-am., pro market better. All I want is that smugmug conforms to IPTC standards!
Hi Askohen, I realize it may not seem this way on this issue, but the entire company is aware of it, and we hope to have some changes that you'll like! I don't have any word on if/when but I can tell you that this issue is very important to us.
As to the rest of your comments - thanks for laying that straight on us - if you'd care to elaborate I would love to hear what else you're looking for.
Just wanted to voice my opinion on this... I would also love it if smugmug would correctly identify multi-word keywords.
I really do like smugmug actually... just switched here from running menalto's gallery on my own server... and that didn't even have keyword functionality as nice as smug mug.
But at the same time, if I have a couple friends named Guy, and I only want to see Guy Peterson, clicking "Guy" will turn up a bunch of people I don't care to see... and water down the effectiveness of keywords.
Or another example... I happen to listen to Dave Matthews Band, I also have friends named Dave and am in a Band called the 5th Street Band. So if I click Dave, I'll turn up picks of DMB and my friend Dave. If I click Band I'll turn up picks of DMB, my band, and any others. In this case I could click Matthews, but my visitors may not think of that.
But I don't want to have to add quotes into my metadata, or fix them all by hand on smugmug.
Couldn't this be a "theme" option along with all those other radio buttons? "Delineate keywords using semi-colons, not spaces"? That way you would give
If it was added in that manner, then I could add all my pictures now, and then just mass apply that theme option when it was available.
On Privacy
I do disagree with you when you said something to the effect of "privatizing keywords to just a users site would go against the principles of (global) keywords" For a majority of users, the most important aspect of keywords is to give their viewers yet another way to quickly narrow down their findings to just the photos they want to see. Its a tool born from usability. A big portion of users who want that function also aren't terribly interested in people doing a general search on smugmug to find their photos at random. (Not saying it shouldn't be an option though.) The main thought is, if I really want them to see my photos, then I'll give them my smugmug gallery link.
Keeping a site or galleries private should not prevent people from using that nice tool you have in keyword searches on a local scope.
That being said, keep up the great work! And hey lets see that mac uploader at 2.0 soon!
Looks like my issues with smugmug's IPTC-keyword import are resolved!
Have a look in March 16th release notes if you haven't seen it already. I opened already a thread over here for discussing the newest release. Feel free to add your thoughts.
Looks like my issues with smugmug's IPTC-keyword import are resolved!
Have a look in March 16th release notes if you haven't seen it already. I opened already a thread over here for discussing the newest release. Feel free to add your thoughts.
Their come the before posted official IPTC specifications to rescue:
This basicly means that there are 64 keyword datafields possible. Each single-word keyword takes up it's own datafield. Keywords consisting of multiple words take up the space of multiple datafields - meaning that you can't have 64 multi-word keywords.
Now how does the whole thing look in the real world? Here's a screenshot of the actual data in a jpg-file consisting of keywords viewed with a hex-viewer:
In the small right part you see the actual characters, the big middle part shows the characters in it's hex-code (important for special characters which have no real symbol, like the highlighted part) and on the left you see the position in the file in hex-code, too.
Let's have a look at the right: The keywords are separated clearly by five dots. This even works good for longer keywords like 'now one in between' (one big keyword).
Now let's have a look at the highlighted part in the middle which means much more to the computer than just five dots. This actually tells the program that reads the IPTC that here a new keyword-field begins. If you look close you'll notice that the first four dots are exactly the same before every other keyword. Just the fifth is sometimes different and should specifiy the type of the following keyword-field.
I know it's been a while, but this post just turned up in a search I was doing for a different issue I'm facing and I wanted to point out an error in the preceeding logic that I didn't see corrected in the thread. The last two bytes of the five bytes shown in that hex dump before each keyword are the length of the following keyword. In that hex dump we see 7 keywords:
Andreas (7 chars long)
Conrad (6 chars long)
Maike (5 chars long)
now one in between (18 chars long (hex 18 == decimal 12)
Norbert (7 chars long)
Tanja (5 chars long)
a very long keyword consisting of multiple words (48 chars long (hex 30 == decimal 48))
Each of which is preceeded by a 5 byte field header:
1c 02 19 00 07
1c 02 19 00 06
1c 02 19 00 05
1c 02 19 00 12
1c 02 19 00 07
1c 02 19 00 05
1c 02 19 00 30
The 5 bytes in that field header are:
1c = tag marker, this says what syntax to use to interpret the next few bytes
02:19 = decimal 2:25, This is the IPTC header for "keyword" (2 means "optional envelope", 25 means "keyword"
00:?? = the length of the following tag, in hex.
You can have more than 64 keywords, but each keyword is limited to 64 characters (for reasons I can't find any explanation for, there's enough room to encode up to 1024 times that many characters per keyword.)
Interestingly, the field preceeding these keywords ends with hex 83, decimal 131, which is the total number of bytes in all 7 keywords, with their headers. However, I can not find any indication of an iptc envelope in the data preceeding it.
SmugMug Sorcerer - Engineering Team Champion for Commerce, Finance, Security, and Data Support http://wall-art.smugmug.com/
Comments
http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
They do not charge differently for customization abilities. It appears that they would be more work to make medium-sized style changes than smugmug, but ultimately allow more flexibility because you can just modify the template yourself to make your own original designs nearly from scratch (you control all the HTML). This is consistent with a pro product - more work, but more power.
Since you asked, here's what they say about their pricing:
Select your subscription We offer two different subscriptions, 'Art' and 'Event'. Both have every feature ExposureManager offers. From watermarking to batch processing to sales. Everything is included. The only difference is the storage and bandwidth allotment.
Art: 1GB storage, 5GB bandwidth/mo, $4.99/mo or $49.99/hr
Event: Unlimited storage, 10GB bandwidth/mo, $9.99/mo or $79.99/yr
--John
Homepage • Popular
JFriend's javascript customizations • Secrets for getting fast answers on Dgrin
Always include a link to your site when posting a question
http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
Different strokes for different folks. It depends upon what you want. Even the note from the Exposure Manager folks says that too.
If you want style sheet style modifications of a base set of unchangable templates, then Smugmug rocks. If you want full control over the entire presentation, including thumb size, numbers of rows/columns, full HTML control of everything, then you will find many controls over those things missing at Smugmug and need a different choice like Exposure Manager or your own hosting.
The original point of this thread was around the fullfillment options that Exposure Manager offers where Smugmug doesn't even come close and doesn't sound like they are moving in that direction.
I'm not advocating one or the other. I am intrigued by Exposure Manager's fullfillment options as I look to start charging for the event photography that I do. I'm also glad to know that (if I'm willing to resort to modifying the page template), I can do most anything I want to the page. I could even imagine a world where I keep my family and portfolio pictures on Smugmug and run my for-profit events somewhere else.
FWIW, it would be great if Smugmug offered template control (like some of the blogs do) on top of their style sheet customization (a pro-only feature, perhaps). That could remove all complaints about limitations in customizability if it was done right.
--John
Homepage • Popular
JFriend's javascript customizations • Secrets for getting fast answers on Dgrin
Always include a link to your site when posting a question
After reading through this thread I just realized part of the problem.
I add all my keywords in CS2. When I click on file info the keywords ARE indeed seperated by ; Other programs I use recognize this and display accordingly... but when I upload the pictures for whatever reason smugmug does NOT upload the ; seperator between keywords. Could this somehow be implemented so that upon upload the keywords would then display correctly?
IF NOT... If I add the "" around keywords in CS2 will smugmug recognize them and display correctly? I'm just trying to find away to save the loads of time it takes to re-organize my keywords after upload so ANY & ALL input greatly appriciated.
BTW: Here's what I'd asked in another thread:
Hi everyone. Smugmug help suggested I post my question here. Although I add keywords in CS2 & they are there after uploading... I’m finding I have to spend a lot of time customizing them in smugmugs bulk edit tools.
For example in CS2 keyword file info I may put in tigers, football, mark twain, 61 zach, utterback, football, 20051008
CS2 automatically separates them with comma's rather than "".
After uploading I have to go in and put "" around anything that should be one keyword such as "61 zach" "mark twain" "20051008"
Is there a simpler way to get the keywords right from the get go in CS2 so that after uploading they'll work & display properly so I don't have to spend so much time re-keywording them?
If I add the "" around the words in CS2's keywording will they remain together properly in smugmug? If so does this create any negative effects in other software I might need to be aware of before I start adding "" in all my CS2 keywords.
How does everyone else get around this quickly, successfully & painlesslessly? :-)
Thanks,
Cindy
We know this is important to some - but we hope, in the end, not a deal killer for most folks!
We've talked among the team about this quite a lot. And personally, I have some observations to make here. SmugMug provides customer service to and for our Pros and their customers. And to all levels of subscribers. We strive to answer support questions really fast - most always within minutes of receiving them - rarely longer than one hour. Customers love our responsiveness. One area we get a lot of help mail in is regarding prints. Customer ordered the wrong print - wrong size - wrong quantity -wrong shipping address. The colors are off. The package was damaged. You get the picture. In all of these cases, we'll handle a correction to the order, a reprint, spend hours color-correcting a pro's files (yep) all for the satisfaction of the customer. When we add "other fulfillment" options to the equation - our ability to provide this extremely high level of support goes out the window, becuase we don't have control over the printer. One outfit I tried this past week, they give the pro a choice of 20! labs to choose from. When I asked about what happens if my customer had any of the above issues - the answer was "that's between you (the pro) and the lab." The working pros I've met with, and have spoken to, really would rather spend their time shooting and getting more customers, than dealing with lab or print issues.
So it's not that we couldn't allow some of these fulfillment options, it's that when deciding on such things, we have to take into account our ability to provide the level of service that our pros, their customers, and in fact all subscribers have come to expect from us. So it's a tough choice to make, eh? We are looking at some of the features though - and I mention that below.
Interesting. I suggest you try it out. I did a trial. Now I'm doubly-biased of course, having been a SmugMug customer for 2 1/2 years and now with the company, but I tried to be as objective as possible:
While style sheets are possible and customization yes, I've not found one single site that comes even close to any of the best of the hundreds of cusotomized SmugMug sites we've been exposed to here. Not saying it can't be done - but as far as I can see, it's not being done. One thing to remember, if one styles a SmugMug page, you also have the many "viewing styles" still: SmugMug, SmugMug Small, Traditional, Thumbs, Journal, Slideshow, and new ones we'll come out with, too. I couldn't find that anywhere on Exposure Manager.
Pricing: I liked the fact that to even set pricing, you had to submit your tax ID info (this is cool) so that you can be paid as soon as profits come in. I didn't like the one-by-one item pricing markup interface. You add an item to "your shelves" and you price it. Very tedious, and not-so-user-friendly. Makes me appreciate JT's sleepless nights!
They have "proof and reupload" which is a very cool feature, and we'd love to be able to offer this - and we know many have asked - and we've said we're talking about it. Stay tuned on that part...
I've talked to dozens and dozens of our pros over the past two weeks, and the reaction to themes has been a universal "yay!" There are many pros who don't have the time or just can't fathom the slightest amount of html or customization, and they'll also never, ever come to dgrin to learn. Themes to the rescue!
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My database program doesn't like double quotes now necessary around wordgroups at all. Therefore I can't really use wordgroups as keywords.
Plus you already use the comma separator for gallery keywords - I hope it'll soon come for photo keywords, too.
Thanks,
Sebastian
SmugMug Support Hero
Not yet, Sebastian. Thanks for posting again. I can't promise if or when but I can tell you that we talk about this a lot.
Andy
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Actually the coding was a real trial&error run - as usual...but for now I figured an easy way to at least integrate the first names of the relevant persons on my photos into IPTC and therefore also smugmug. It's a good start I think. And as the sun began to rise I figured it was to late to go to sleep and I stayed awake till now and hopefully for the rest of the day.
Sebastian
SmugMug Support Hero
No wonder you have "red eyes!"
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Sebastian
SmugMug Support Hero
Okay, what about a fresh start on this topic? I'm now making the bold statement that we've been all wrong with all our observations on how keywords are separated and how multiple keywords should be read!
So you think how can he such a thing and get away with it?
We've simply looked at the wrong place to judge. It's not important how PS, iPhoto or WhatEver show us the keywords or handle the input of them. The important thing is how they're stored in the image file as the metadata!
Their come the before posted official IPTC specifications to rescue: This basicly means that there are 64 keyword datafields possible. Each single-word keyword takes up it's own datafield. Keywords consisting of multiple words take up the space of multiple datafields - meaning that you can't have 64 multi-word keywords.
Now how does the whole thing look in the real world? Here's a screenshot of the actual data in a jpg-file consisting of keywords viewed with a hex-viewer:
In the small right part you see the actual characters, the big middle part shows the characters in it's hex-code (important for special characters which have no real symbol, like the highlighted part) and on the left you see the position in the file in hex-code, too.
Let's have a look at the right: The keywords are separated clearly by five dots. This even works good for longer keywords like 'now one in between' (one big keyword).
Now let's have a look at the highlighted part in the middle which means much more to the computer than just five dots. This actually tells the program that reads the IPTC that here a new keyword-field begins. If you look close you'll notice that the first four dots are exactly the same before every other keyword. Just the fifth is sometimes different and should specifiy the type of the following keyword-field.
I checked this behaviour in my image database iMatch, Irfanview and PS. They all work according to this scheme. For me the situation is quite clear now. The commas, semicolons, spaces and double quotes are just introduced for the user of the programs to clear up the interface, but shouldn't be used in the binary metadata. Here and here are threads from the iMatch forum commenting on this smugmug behaviour. Now let's see what you guys say!
If you've got any more questions - feel free to simply ask them! When you've got any sample files with IPTC saved with special programs - just send them to me (include with what program you wrote the data) and I've a look at the metadata.
Sebastian
SmugMug Support Hero
I'm dreading the day when smugmug finally fully supports the standard and I have to go back and remove all of the quotes from my images; however, I'd rather that day be tomorrow instead of days/weeks/months from now.
Thanks for keeping at 'em as adding the quotes isn't something I like doing.
I guess I'm a little at a loss as to why one would need multi-word keywords? Wouldn't that just make it more difficult to find an image using keywords? Besides, it's not like you can't use a phrase to come up with a keyword search to find images that have the desired keyword anyhow.
My latest gallery was of the 2005 Seattle Marathon. Each image in the gallery has at a minimum 3 keywords 2005, seattle, and marathon. Why would I need to have "2005 seattle marathon"? It would be less likely for people to find what they wanted if they were to search my site with keywords. But far more importantly (at least on my site) is Google's interaction with the smugmug keywords. I have found that google is very good at doing a keyword search on my site. Requiring people to type in "2005 seattle marathon" as a search in google would actually limit the number of hits I get from that.
So I guess I just don't understand what the fuss is all about.
http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
Example: somebody named Safeco Diamondhead would turn up like this in the snippet. Not very easy to combine both words while browsing through. With the same name combined as a multi-keyword I would find it much easier to be spotted out of the result mass.
Agreed, this is only useful in a number of cases, but I would like to have the possebility to use it without having to go to the gallery and edit the keyword on my own adding double quotes. The keywording should be done only once - in my image database from where I can reuse it every time I upload the picture again or somewhere else. I want a standard to rely on - IPTC is that very standard and it's widely accepted. All I'm asking for is a proper integration of the standard, to which I posted an approach 3 posts ago.
If you need any further explanations - just shoot away.
Thanks for listening,
Sebastian
SmugMug Support Hero
http://www.koalaplayhouse.com/gallery/906894
smugmug has a great ability to add/subtract words to filter the search, so the above implementation isn't as necessary as it used to be; however, I've been doing it this way for years and I don't see stopping now.
Well done, Pat
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I found the post about not needing multiple-word keywords fascinating. Is there any follow-up to this? Does anyone agree with this assertion? I saw a bunch of people disagreeing, but would like to hear from those that agree with keeping keywords separated.
I think it's rediculous that users should have to encode their keywords to be Smugmug-compatible. Is smugmug going to correct this problem?
So then is it standard to delimit first and last names together, ie kitchen; John Doe; Tree ?
Is the assertion before that there is no need to combine first and last name valid?
Hi askohen,
Thanks for voicing your concern about this feature. I'll make sure that the engineers see it!
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Hi Askohen, I realize it may not seem this way on this issue, but the entire company is aware of it, and we hope to have some changes that you'll like! I don't have any word on if/when but I can tell you that this issue is very important to us.
As to the rest of your comments - thanks for laying that straight on us - if you'd care to elaborate I would love to hear what else you're looking for.
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On Keywords
Just wanted to voice my opinion on this... I would also love it if smugmug would correctly identify multi-word keywords.
I really do like smugmug actually... just switched here from running menalto's gallery on my own server... and that didn't even have keyword functionality as nice as smug mug.
But at the same time, if I have a couple friends named Guy, and I only want to see Guy Peterson, clicking "Guy" will turn up a bunch of people I don't care to see... and water down the effectiveness of keywords.
Or another example... I happen to listen to Dave Matthews Band, I also have friends named Dave and am in a Band called the 5th Street Band. So if I click Dave, I'll turn up picks of DMB and my friend Dave. If I click Band I'll turn up picks of DMB, my band, and any others. In this case I could click Matthews, but my visitors may not think of that.
But I don't want to have to add quotes into my metadata, or fix them all by hand on smugmug.
Couldn't this be a "theme" option along with all those other radio buttons? "Delineate keywords using semi-colons, not spaces"? That way you would give
If it was added in that manner, then I could add all my pictures now, and then just mass apply that theme option when it was available.
On Privacy
I do disagree with you when you said something to the effect of "privatizing keywords to just a users site would go against the principles of (global) keywords" For a majority of users, the most important aspect of keywords is to give their viewers yet another way to quickly narrow down their findings to just the photos they want to see. Its a tool born from usability. A big portion of users who want that function also aren't terribly interested in people doing a general search on smugmug to find their photos at random. (Not saying it shouldn't be an option though.) The main thought is, if I really want them to see my photos, then I'll give them my smugmug gallery link.
Keeping a site or galleries private should not prevent people from using that nice tool you have in keyword searches on a local scope.
That being said, keep up the great work! And hey lets see that mac uploader at 2.0 soon!
Thanks,
Bob
Have a look in March 16th release notes if you haven't seen it already. I opened already a thread over here for discussing the newest release. Feel free to add your thoughts.
Sebastian
SmugMug Support Hero
Thanks for noticing, Sebastian
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- Andreas (7 chars long)
- Conrad (6 chars long)
- Maike (5 chars long)
- now one in between (18 chars long (hex 18 == decimal 12)
- Norbert (7 chars long)
- Tanja (5 chars long)
- a very long keyword consisting of multiple words (48 chars long (hex 30 == decimal 48))
Each of which is preceeded by a 5 byte field header:- 1c 02 19 00 07
- 1c 02 19 00 06
- 1c 02 19 00 05
- 1c 02 19 00 12
- 1c 02 19 00 07
- 1c 02 19 00 05
- 1c 02 19 00 30
The 5 bytes in that field header are:1c = tag marker, this says what syntax to use to interpret the next few bytes
02:19 = decimal 2:25, This is the IPTC header for "keyword" (2 means "optional envelope", 25 means "keyword"
00:?? = the length of the following tag, in hex.
You can have more than 64 keywords, but each keyword is limited to 64 characters (for reasons I can't find any explanation for, there's enough room to encode up to 1024 times that many characters per keyword.)
Interestingly, the field preceeding these keywords ends with hex 83, decimal 131, which is the total number of bytes in all 7 keywords, with their headers. However, I can not find any indication of an iptc envelope in the data preceeding it.
http://wall-art.smugmug.com/
http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/