Oversize image handling

petemoor

I have a Power smugmug account which I know limits photos to 12MB however the way oversize images are handles appears to have changed. I shoot in raw @ 21M. For some time I was able to export to smugmug from lightroom at jpg quality @ 100% and I believe any image larger than 12MB was automatically downsized by smugmug to be 12MB. Lately, the behavoir of smugmug has changed and regardless of whether I export from lightroom or use the smugmug upload tools,any jpg > 12 Mb returns an error instead of being handled by a downscaling backend process. Am I correct that smugmug has changed or am I missing something. AT the moment I have to downgrade all my jpgs to 80% to ensure I don't get any images larger that 12MB !!!

rainforest1155

Hi Pete,

That's correct. Currently, we don't resize any photos larger than 12MB (or 24MB on Pro accounts). It has been like that for many, many months. I can't say if or when the resizing feature might return. Sorry.

Sebastian

petemoor

OK, thanks, IMHO it was a very nice feature that smugmug downsized the images for me "many, many months ago". I assume there was a lot of processing associated with that "feature" so it was removed at the expense of user experience. Jeffrey Friedl’s Lightroom plugin for exporting to smugmug provides 3 options fo handling images that are too large for my "Power" account level (larger thn 12 megabytes or 48 megapixels). They can be Uploaded, Not Uploaded or Ask. For the "Uploaded" option there is a comment that (SmugMug will quietly and permanently downsize the copies uploaded), which is obviously no longer the case. Jeffrey's login is great in that it offers the choice; most other uploaders crash or give an error because they were written for the time when smugmog was a bit "nicer" about large images. I will write to Jeffrey as well so he can modify his plugin, unless you let me know that smugmug may change its position on this.

jfriend

FYI, JPEG quality level of 85% is more than sufficient for any on-screen or printing from your Smugmug account and it generates JPEGS that are TONS smaller than when using 100%. I would suggest you try using 85%. That's what I use for all my images going from Lightroom to Smugmug.

TheDuck

Well, now...that's rather annoying. Your help page (http://www.smugmug.com/help/upload-photos) currently says "If a file exceeds those limits, we'll try to resample it (in the case of too many pixels) or recompress it (in the case of large file size) to bring it within the limits." I never knew of the double secret probation "upload error log", and now I see that when I use your normal uploaders, large files simply vanish....I'll have to spend quite a bit of time rebuilding jpgs from raws just to see which files weren't actually uploaded and aren't in my galleries. I've only got 15,000 or so photos in Lightroom, so I'm sure it will only take a moment. Geez guys....you used to be the friendly photo site.

jfriend

TheDuck wrote: »

Well, now...that's rather annoying. Your help page (http://www.smugmug.com/help/upload-photos) currently says "If a file exceeds those limits, we'll try to resample it (in the case of too many pixels) or recompress it (in the case of large file size) to bring it within the limits." I never knew of the double secret probation "upload error log", and now I see that when I use your normal uploaders, large files simply vanish....I'll have to spend quite a bit of time rebuilding jpgs from raws just to see which files weren't actually uploaded and aren't in my galleries. I've only got 15,000 or so photos in Lightroom, so I'm sure it will only take a moment. Geez guys....you used to be the friendly photo site.

That's why I use StarExplorer for all uploading. If a file fails to upload for any reason, it's left right in my upload queue so I know exactly which one it is. I can also set the upload limits in StarExplorer according to my account type and it will even tell me if an image exceeds my limits before I start the upload (so I can fix it then).

Like you, I'm amazed that Smugmug has such horrible error handling on such a core and basic operation (uploading images). It has always been this way and there just doesn't seem to be much interest from them in making a bullet-proof, fail-safe experience for customers on upload. I've been suggesting to them how it should be improved along these lines for five years now and never seen them address the core issue of upload errors.

dogwood

jfriend wrote: »

That's why I use StarExplorer for all uploading. If a file fails to upload for any reason, it's left right in my upload queue so I know exactly which one it is. I can also set the upload limits in StarExplorer according to my account type and it will even tell me if an image exceeds my limits before I start the upload (so I can fix it then).

Like you, I'm amazed that Smugmug has such horrible error handling on such a core and basic operation (uploading images). It has always been this way and there just doesn't seem to be much interest from them in making a bullet-proof, fail-safe experience for customers on upload. I've been suggesting to them how it should be improved along these lines for five years now and never seen them address the core issue of upload errors.

I use Star*Explorer too. It's really the best and most efficient way to upload files to SM. Yeah, Star*Explorer costs money but it would be well worth it at a much higher price (shhhh... don't tell Nikolai I said that). It basically automates your uploads (and notifies you of errors when done) so that you can step away and let it do it's own thing. I often start an upload of hundreds of files before bed and wake up with a confirmation that everything uploaded.

Andy

jfriend wrote: »

It has always been this way and there just doesn't seem to be much interest from them in making a bullet-proof, fail-safe experience for customers on upload. I've been suggesting to them how it should be improved along these lines for five years now and never seen them address the core issue of upload errors.

We improved the Simple Uploader, based on input from you John (and others) a lot. Could we do more? You bet. But it's a vast improvement over prior versions. To say we've never addressed your suggestions, we'll, that's a bit unfair, no?

I'd love to improve it more - can you either post or email me your specific further suggestions? And more is already coming, even as we speak.

Jan 2010: http://releasenotes.blogs.smugmug.com/2010/01/15/tweaks-bug-fixes-and-control-panel-love/
"The simple uploader now counts up instead of down as images are added."

July 2009: http://releasenotes.blogs.smugmug.com/2009/07/23/bug-fixes-and-cleanup-july-23-2009/
"Our Simple uploader is now more patient and doesn’t quit on files that take a longer time to transfer."

July 1, 2009: http://releasenotes.blogs.smugmug.com/2009/07/02/be-social-uploader/
"We built this one in-house and it offers better real-time reporting of errors in addition to more robust error retrying and duplicate handling (see the drop-down menu at the bottom). When loading it for the first time, be sure to click “Trust” when the prompt from Sun Java comes up!"

Andy

TheDuck wrote: »

Well, now...that's rather annoying. Your help page (http://www.smugmug.com/help/upload-photos) currently says "If a file exceeds those limits, we'll try to resample it (in the case of too many pixels) or recompress it (in the case of large file size) to bring it within the limits." I never knew of the double secret probation "upload error log", and now I see that when I use your normal uploaders, large files simply vanish....I'll have to spend quite a bit of time rebuilding jpgs from raws just to see which files weren't actually uploaded and aren't in my galleries. I've only got 15,000 or so photos in Lightroom, so I'm sure it will only take a moment. Geez guys....you used to be the friendly photo site.

We'll address the upload help page, thanks Duck for pointing that out.

ETA: we do resample a file that's too many megapixels (if we can - just validated that again). I'm checking on why we're not compressing the too-many megabytes files... more as I get it.

jfriend

Andy wrote: »

We improved the Simple Uploader, based on input from you John (and others) a lot. Could we do more? You bet. But it's a vast improvement over prior versions. To say we've never addressed your suggestions, we'll, that's a bit unfair, no?

I'd love to improve it more - can you either post or email me your specific further suggestions? And more is already coming, even as we speak.

Jan 2010: http://releasenotes.blogs.smugmug.com/2010/01/15/tweaks-bug-fixes-and-control-panel-love/
"The simple uploader now counts up instead of down as images are added."

July 2009: http://releasenotes.blogs.smugmug.com/2009/07/23/bug-fixes-and-cleanup-july-23-2009/
"Our Simple uploader is now more patient and doesn’t quit on files that take a longer time to transfer."

July 1, 2009: http://releasenotes.blogs.smugmug.com/2009/07/02/be-social-uploader/
"We built this one in-house and it offers better real-time reporting of errors in addition to more robust error retrying and duplicate handling (see the drop-down menu at the bottom). When loading it for the first time, be sure to click “Trust” when the prompt from Sun Java comes up!"

Here's a start. It's real, real, real simple in concept. Reliable, robust, full and complete error reporting and leaves things in a state for easy recovery by the user without knowing anything more than is presented in the uploader UI:

1. The simple uploader should report ALL upload failures to the end-user and when an image fails to upload, it should leave that image in the upload queue so you can very clearly see which image had a problem and why. The whole notion that useful error information is only in the upload log in the control panel and that the failed images are not easily identified is horrible UI design. Your users should NEVER have to ask support why an image didn't upload successfully. They should be told right in the uploader when that happens and each image with an issue should be clearly identified in a way that makes it easy to fix each one without having to do a giant compare. The ultimate test case is someone uploading 800 images and having 10 failures. It should be easy to identify and fix those 10 failures and reupload just those.
2. If the failure was not permanent (e.g. a glitch in network connectivity or hiccup in Smugmug), it should be easy to just hit upload again and have the failed uploads repeat. Duplicates should never be uploaded in this process of retrying (e.g. the uploader needs to reliably know which images got uploaded and which didn't so it never retries something that did successfully upload).
3. The end-user should NEVER have to go look in the control panel upload log to find out if everything uploaded or why something didn't upload (since 98% of your users don't even know that log exists). That information should be reported right in the uploader with an easy way to see which images have which problem.
4. Images that are known ahead of time to exceed account limits (too many MBs or too many pixels) should be reported the moment they are added to the uploader and not wait until after one attempts to upload them.
5. The uploader should know about read-only mode and gracefully handle that condition, telling the user what is happening and allow either an automatic or manual restart when read-only mode clears.

Andy

John - thanks for the great feedback. I've shown it to our Uploader Sorcery team and Baldy and our Product Manager.

TheDuck

dogwood wrote: »

I use Star*Explorer too. It's really the best and most efficient way to upload files to SM.

I agree that S*E is fantastic....I was an early paid user, and later upgraded to use multiple SM accounts. Then....I switched to Mac. It might be worth booting up Windoze again just to return to S*E if SM can't play nice with uploaders, but I'm eternally optimistic that SM will get it right....occasionally, anyway.

Be seeing you,
The Duck

Tango

rainforest1155 wrote: »

Hi Pete,

That's correct. Currently, we don't resize any photos larger than 12MB (or 24MB on Pro accounts). It has been like that for many, many months. I can't say if or when the resizing feature might return. Sorry.

Sebastian

Andy / Sebastian / or Smugmug:

After trying to download a few images tonight with 50% failure I started to investigate in whats was going on....and found this thread.

So why limit file size at all if I have unlimited space as a SM pro user? Im not very happy that I cannot simply convert a single Raw image from LR to JPEG and download it to a SM gallery...NOW I HAVE TO MANAGE EVERY SINGLE IMAGE AND ADJUST IMAGE SIZES TO DOWNLOAD IT TO MY WEBSITE !?!? What a pain, especially now that many of my images are over 29.01MB using the simple method described.
And not even mentioning stitched images...UGH!

granted, 99% of my photography is not worth downloading,
but..... this 24MB thing kinda sucks...

jfriend

AaronNelson wrote: »

Andy / Sebastian / or Smugmug:

After trying to download a few images tonight with 50% failure I started to investigate in whats was going on....and found this thread.

So why limit file size at all if I have unlimited space as a SM pro user? Im not very happy that I cannot simply convert a single Raw image from LR to JPEG and download it to a SM gallery...NOW I HAVE TO MANAGE EVERY SINGLE IMAGE AND ADJUST IMAGE SIZES TO DOWNLOAD IT TO MY WEBSITE !?!? What a pain, especially now that many of my images are over 29.01MB using the simple method described.
And not even mentioning stitched images...UGH!

granted, 99% of my photography is not worth downloading,
but..... this 24MB thing kinda sucks...

You are wasting space if you are ending up with 29MB JPEG images. There is no reason to process them the way you are processing them. Save them at JPEG level 10 or 85% and they will be indistinguishable from what you are doing now and probably half the size. They will also upload substantially fasater. Smugmug enforces this because to let you upload 29MB JPEGs is wasteful of resources (bandwidth, CPU, storage and server memory to process them) when they are simply not needed. You get unlimited storage of efficiently compressed images.

Tango

jfriend wrote: »

You are wasting space if you are ending up with 29MB JPEG images. There is no reason to process them the way you are processing them. Save them at JPEG level 10 or 85% and they will be indistinguishable from what you are doing now and probably half the size. They will also upload substantially fasater. Smugmug enforces this because to let you upload 29MB JPEGs is wasteful of resources (bandwidth, CPU, storage and server memory to process them) when they are simply not needed. You get unlimited storage of efficiently compressed images.

What size of print do you imagine that indistinguishable becomes distinguishable using your method?

jfriend

AaronNelson wrote: »

What size of print do you imagine that indistinguishable becomes distinguishable using your method?

None. Mild compression isn't visible. No compression doesn't help you - it just makes the image twice as large.

Tango

jfriend wrote: »

None. Mild compression isn't visible. No compression doesn't help you - it just makes the image twice as large.

sounds naive to me... but I dont have time to worry about it...

I will stick to a big as a file possible....