Newbie needs help

ImagemarksImagemarks Registered Users Posts: 2 Beginner grinner
edited January 10, 2011 in SmugMug Support
HI!
I'm brand new & I just became a paying member today. Thus far my experiences with support have been a bit disappointing & I'm wondering if that is what I should expect or if the staff is simply overwhelmed with new cases? What can I do to get a better first impression of this service? I am at the end of my year as a premium subscriber on Zenfolio and the features and capabilities of SmugMug are very appealing to me but the tutorial was very basic and I think I'm in need of a tutor to become successful using and applying these features/layouts, etc...suggestions welcomed!
Thanks.
Alan

Comments

  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited January 7, 2011
    Hi, I see you wrote us today about uploading, and your last reply to us indicated that you're doing fine now. Is there something I can help with? Are there other open issues that I can assist you with - we want your startup days and your years to come to be filled with awesome service - with no disappointments. If we're falling short in any way at all I'll fix it. I've also assigned a dedicated member of our hero squad to work with you - and Wendee will be in touch to work with you.
  • ImagemarksImagemarks Registered Users Posts: 2 Beginner grinner
    edited January 8, 2011
    Andy wrote: »
    Hi, I see you wrote us today about uploading, and your last reply to us indicated that you're doing fine now. Is there something I can help with? Are there other open issues that I can assist you with - we want your startup days and your years to come to be filled with awesome service - with no disappointments. If we're falling short in any way at all I'll fix it. I've also assigned a dedicated member of our hero squad to work with you - and Wendee will be in touch to work with you.

    Unfortunately I closed my account. The on-boarding process was disappointing and the program is NOT user-friendly at all. Had too many problems uploading and error messages throughout the application. After 8 hours of dedication to design, I've determined this is not for me. Hopefully in a few years it will be easier to use and I'll take another look. Your Gallery sizes are miniscule, and I see your clients have been asking about that for more than a year. The Square format of the slideshow cuts off every picture & unfortunately, presentation is everything.

    Thanks for trying to assist me.
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited January 8, 2011
    Imagemarks wrote: »
    The Square format of the slideshow cuts off every picture & unfortunately, presentation is everything.

    Thanks for trying to assist me.

    Thanks for the feedback, it's very much appreciated. Our slideshow is not square format, we can help you with that if you come back. You can even see 2:1 on my site, http://www.moonriverphotography.com
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited January 8, 2011
    Andy wrote: »
    Thanks for the feedback, it's very much appreciated. Our slideshow is not square format, we can help you with that if you come back. You can even see 2:1 on my site, http://www.moonriverphotography.com
    Andy, I think he's talking about the thumbnails in the slideshow which do look absolutely horrid as square if you have portrait oriented photos of people because they cut off everyone's head. I've mentioned this several times and is one of the things I severely dislike about the slideshow view. Haven't ever heard that you guys even acknowledge it as an issue, but for some kinds of images, it's a big problem and the presentation does, indeed look horrid. Doesn't really affect horizontal photos of landscapes, but it's particularly bad for many vertical shots.

    Look at the thumbnail ribbon in the full screen slideshow of this gallery and you'll see how stupid it looks with nearly every head cut off in the portrait oriented images. And the worst part about it is there is NOTHING we can do to change it in any way other than disable all slideshow views.
    --John
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  • WinsomeWorksWinsomeWorks Registered Users Posts: 1,935 Major grins
    edited January 9, 2011
    I can certainly see how the distress with uploading happened too. Uploading was all freakish tonight, of course on the last evening I had to show my daughter how to do it. I know now that HTML 5 doesn't work with IE, but tonight it wouldn't work in FF either. It just went blank, gave an error message & said to choose another uploader. Also, the log-in.... sheeesh. So ridiculous with those checks & un-checks, and how often you have to do it. Even though she was already logged-in as an assistant, when we clicked "upload", we were taken to the same log-in screen again. This happened with both browsers (went through the process twice).

    Yeah, it worked-- uploading, I mean. But as I predicted, explaining all the weirdness in the wording on the upload pages (for the Simple Uploader) was very frustrating for both of us. The aggravating thing is, no one is telling us anything. Please, please-- this is such basic user-interface stuff. Can't someone just take a few moments and fix the wording so that it's not nonsensical to people? And if they can't, could they at least tell us when it'll be fixed? I find it really embarrassing for such a sophisticated site. "Time Remaining: Uploads Pending" -- the wording for when the upload is complete. That's the worst. And then the other stuff. Just... spare us. Fix it before more people run away.
    Anna Lisa Yoder's Images - http://winsomeworks.com ... Handmade Photo Notecards: http://winsomeworks.etsy.com ... Framed/Matted work: http://anna-lisa-yoder.artistwebsites.com/galleries.html ... Scribbles: http://winsomeworks.blogspot.com
    DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited January 9, 2011
    jfriend wrote: »
    Haven't ever heard that you guys even acknowledge it as an issue,

    I've acknowledged it a long time ago and I agree with you. We need to get some face detection stuff going, eh?
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited January 9, 2011
    I can certainly see how the distress with uploading happened too. Uploading was all freakish tonight, of course on the last evening I had to show my daughter how to do it. I know now that HTML 5 doesn't work with IE, but tonight it wouldn't work in FF either. It just went blank, gave an error message & said to choose another uploader. Also, the log-in.... sheeesh. So ridiculous with those checks & un-checks, and how often you have to do it. Even though she was already logged-in as an assistant, when we clicked "upload", we were taken to the same log-in screen again. This happened with both browsers (went through the process twice).

    Anna Lisa, I'm willing to have one of my heroes schedule an appointment with you this coming week. Logging in takes microseconds for us. I think you just need to have someone walk you through a few things. I suspect that things are being conflicted in your browser and also your use of your main password and an assistant password. If you want this help, please email ATTN: Andy at the help desk I will assign a hero to contact you and walk you through this in person, live.

    We have received your Simple Uploader feedback numerous times, thanks for providing it again. I'm going to see about getting it sorted.
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited January 9, 2011
    Andy wrote: »
    I've acknowledged it a long time ago and I agree with you. We need to get some face detection stuff going, eh?
    Good luck with that. It doesn't need to be that high tech. Just give us some options to control the shape and let it take an uncropped shape. I have entire galleries of vertical shots.
    --John
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  • WinsomeWorksWinsomeWorks Registered Users Posts: 1,935 Major grins
    edited January 10, 2011
    Andy wrote: »
    Anna Lisa, I'm willing to have one of my heroes schedule an appointment with you this coming week. Logging in takes microseconds for us. I think you just need to have someone walk you through a few things. I suspect that things are being conflicted in your browser and also your use of your main password and an assistant password. If you want this help, please email ATTN: Andy at the help desk I will assign a hero to contact you and walk you through this in person, live.

    We have received your Simple Uploader feedback numerous times, thanks for providing it again. I'm going to see about getting it sorted.
    It wasn't that. I was logged in just fine as an assistant, as evidenced by the things I was allowed/not allowed to do. All was correct-- I couldn't delete photos as an assistant & that's as it should be. The problem was/is that clicking "upload" shouldn't trigger the site to ask for a password yet again. No matter whether assistant-logged-in or whether owner-logged-in, the site should allow one to upload. There was nothing I was doing that could be done differently. It's just that the site needs to know not to ask for log-in every time "upload" is clicked.

    I won't be using the assistant password from here anymore. If it gets used, it'll be from someone else's computer. I just hope they won't have to click the log-in screen every time they upload.
    Anna Lisa Yoder's Images - http://winsomeworks.com ... Handmade Photo Notecards: http://winsomeworks.etsy.com ... Framed/Matted work: http://anna-lisa-yoder.artistwebsites.com/galleries.html ... Scribbles: http://winsomeworks.blogspot.com
    DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
  • WinsomeWorksWinsomeWorks Registered Users Posts: 1,935 Major grins
    edited January 10, 2011
    Andy wrote: »
    I've acknowledged it a long time ago and I agree with you. We need to get some face detection stuff going, eh?
    It's not just faces/portraits/people that are a problem. It's the cropping in general. A lot of my animals look silly too, and then there's all the unrecognizable stuff that just shouldn't be cropped at all.
    Anna Lisa Yoder's Images - http://winsomeworks.com ... Handmade Photo Notecards: http://winsomeworks.etsy.com ... Framed/Matted work: http://anna-lisa-yoder.artistwebsites.com/galleries.html ... Scribbles: http://winsomeworks.blogspot.com
    DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
  • PBolchoverPBolchover Registered Users Posts: 909 Major grins
    edited January 10, 2011
    The default auto-square gallery thumbnails also has similar issue. That is why I have to hand-crop-to-square all of my gallery thumbnails.

    My suggestion for all automatic square thumbnails (e.g. gallery, slideshow, etc) is to do the following:
    • For portrait shots, assume the "point of interest" is 1/3 from the top
    • For landscape shots, assume the "point of interest" is 1/3 from the left [or the right - I'm not certainly which is more common]
    • When generating the square thumbnail, instead of using a center-crop, use a crop that keeps the "point of interest" at the same ratio in the thumbnail as in the original
      • E.g. for portrait 1:1.5 ratio photos, the crop should be from 0.1111 to 0.7777 of the vertical axis (from the top).
    This should solve a large proportion of the problems with minimal computing resources.
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited January 10, 2011
    PBolchover wrote: »
    The default auto-square gallery thumbnails also has similar issue. That is why I have to hand-crop-to-square all of my gallery thumbnails.

    My suggestion for all automatic square thumbnails (e.g. gallery, slideshow, etc) is to do the following:
    • For portrait shots, assume the "point of interest" is 1/3 from the top
    • For landscape shots, assume the "point of interest" is 1/3 from the left [or the right - I'm not certainly which is more common]
    • When generating the square thumbnail, instead of using a center-crop, use a crop that keeps the "point of interest" at the same ratio in the thumbnail as in the original
      • E.g. for portrait 1:1.5 ratio photos, the crop should be from 0.1111 to 0.7777 of the vertical axis (from the top).
    This should solve a large proportion of the problems with minimal computing resources.
    This might be better that what we have now (I'm honestly not sure), but it's still a wild guess. Auto face detection might work for some images better than we have now (again I really don't know how well it works).

    Bit, in the end, both of those are going to be just slightly better guesses and still significantly imperfect. Auto-cropping a non-square image into square and expecting to end up with the right part of the subject in the resulting crop is just NEVER going to be reliable. There is NO way for a computer to automatically know what the important part of the image is.

    The only two reliable solutions are letting the site owner specify the crop (like they can do with gallery thumbnails) or letting the site owner have non-cropped thumbs (like galleries set to "original" thumbs can have). Slideshow thumbs need to do the same as galleries do - give us the control we have in galleries.
    --John
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