Upload Size

LRussoPhoto

I am fairly new to Smugmug and have a Pro account. What size do most of you use to upload your photos? Smugmug says you can upload smaller file sizes to save time then when someone purchases you can replace the photo with a bigger size, but if someone wants to purchase a digital image you dont get the option to replace the photo. I usually take my photos in 3216x2136, Nikons med size. I would like to upload my files in something like 1800x1196 but feel that if someone purchases a dig, they will be getting jipped out of a big image. What do you guys think?

SamirD

I upload full resolution overnight and then cull the next day before publishing the gallery. Others have a different workflow, but most people just upload the full resolution. Unless you're under tight deadlines (<24hrs) and have 2000+ photos, you should be able to do this within your workflow.

LRussoPhoto

SamirD wrote: »

I upload full resolution overnight and then cull the next day before publishing the gallery. Others have a different workflow, but most people just upload the full resolution. Unless you're under tight deadlines (<24hrs) and have 2000+ photos, you should be able to do this within your workflow.

Sorry for the dumb question but what do you mean by cull?

SamirD

QuadRacer041 wrote: »

Sorry for the dumb question but what do you mean by cull?

Never a dumb question! It took me months to figure out what that meant. Culling=the process where you sort out what's good and what's not from a shoot.

LRussoPhoto

Ahhh, so you upload all the photos then delete before posting to the gallery? How do u do that? Once I upload and then click "finished uploading" they are in the gallery, right?

MSkaffari

Make the gallery unlisted by default and once you are ready with the contents you can make it public

LRussoPhoto

Ok, good idea, thanks!

SamirD

QuadRacer041 wrote: »

Ahhh, so you upload all the photos then delete before posting to the gallery? How do u do that? Once I upload and then click "finished uploading" they are in the gallery, right?

MSkaffari wrote: »

Make the gallery unlisted by default and once you are ready with the contents you can make it public

Yep, that's one way to do it. The other way would be to assign a password to the gallery if you already sent out an email blast or spread the gallery url some other way, and then remove the password.

And I find that just hiding is much faster than deleting. The whole process can be completely mouseless. Right and left arrow move from one photo to the next and 'H' will hide/unhide a photo from public view.

I went through 1400 photos from this weekend this way and it's pretty quick.

Kikoprice

If your going to hide or delete photos, wouldnt it be just as easy to not upload them? I cull first then only work on the photos that are keepers. Instead of looking through your shots for the ones you dont want, try looking for just the keepers. Assign stars/check marks or whatever your software uses to rank photos. I know it might sound confusing right now, but give it a try.

SamirD

Kikoprice wrote: »

If your going to hide or delete photos, wouldnt it be just as easy to not upload them? I cull first then only work on the photos that are keepers. Instead of looking through your shots for the ones you dont want, try looking for just the keepers. Assign stars/check marks or whatever your software uses to rank photos. I know it might sound confusing right now, but give it a try.

Depends on your workflow. I'm sleeping during the upload process, so I don't lose any time uploading everything.

jfriend

SamirD wrote: »

Depends on your workflow. I'm sleeping during the upload process, so I don't lose any time uploading everything.

My workflow is at least 3x more efficient to sort through photos on my computer (I use Adobe Lightroom and have a reasonably fast computer) and I only upload the ones I want to actually display. I don't find Smugmug very efficient for tweaking or culling compared to my own local computer. Plus, I only display about 1/10 to 1/4 of what I shoot so it would be a lot of extra upload time for me to upload that much more than necessary. I realize everyone's workflow is different, so I thought I'd share why I do it differently.

Kikoprice

jfriend wrote: »

My workflow is at least 3x more efficient to sort through photos on my computer (I use Adobe Lightroom and have a reasonably fast computer) and I only upload the ones I want to actually display. I don't find Smugmug very efficient for tweaking or culling compared to my own local computer. Plus, I only display about 1/10 to 1/4 of what I shoot so it would be a lot of extra upload time for me to upload that much more than necessary. I realize everyone's workflow is different, so I thought I'd share why I do it differently.

I do the same thing because of deadlines.

SamirD

jfriend wrote: »

My workflow is at least 3x more efficient...

It wouldn't be with my hardware. Different scenario and different requirements. I also don't have to do as much culling. I rarely cut more than 10% of my shots.

MT Stringer

@OP. it depends on what the largest size print you want to sell. I have been testing different size images...2166, 1800, and 1600 pixels on the longest side. The 1600's will produce a 16x24 inch print and still leave a small amount of cropping room for the customer.

And like the others, I only upload the keepers. In fact, I may use multiple computers to upload an upcoming softball tournament that will have approx. 50 galleries of approx 200 photos each. Can't sleep and upload them at the same time.

jfriend

MT Stringer wrote: »

@OP. it depends on what the largest size print you want to sell. I have been testing different size images...2166, 1800, and 1600 pixels on the longest side. The 1600's will produce a 16x24 inch print and still leave a small amount of cropping room for the customer.

And like the others, I only upload the keepers. In fact, I may use multiple computers to upload an upcoming softball tournament that will have approx. 50 galleries of approx 200 photos each. Can't sleep and upload them at the same time.

The more original pixels you upload, the higher the quality of fine detail will be in large prints. More pixels = higher quality in big prints.

When you're saying that the 1600s will produce a 16x24 inch print, you're saying that Smugmug will allow that print as the "lowest acceptable quality". That is not the highest quality print you can achieve. More pixels than that will give more detail and higher quality.

So ... when you want the potential for a high quality large print, upload the maximum pixels you get out of your camera. Do NOT resize the image in any way. You may crop lightly for composition purposes, but not resize. Every resize operation degrades your image. Resizing downwards throws away detail that may be noticeable in a print.

MT Stringer

So ... when you want the potential for a high quality large print, upload the maximum pixels you get out of your camera. Do NOT resize the image in any way. You may crop lightly for composition purposes, but not resize. Every resize operation degrades your image. Resizing downwards throws away detail that may be noticeable in a print.

Sounds like excellent advice, except for one thing. In my case, I will be uploading upwards of 10,000 images (from a softball tournament) as fast as possible. If someone orders a large print, I will replace it with the original, tweak it and then approve the order. That is why I tested to see what the largest print size will be available for the customer to purchase.

It is going to take hours of upload time as it is, even if I use three computers and two different carriers to do the uploading. I did this the last two years. Not fun.

My website has a tournament or two posted.

jfriend

MT Stringer wrote: »

Sounds like excellent advice, except for one thing. In my case, I will be uploading upwards of 10,000 images (from a softball tournament) as fast as possible. If someone orders a large print, I will replace it with the original, tweak it and then approve the order. That is why I tested to see what the largest print size will be available for the customer to purchase.

It is going to take hours of upload time as it is, even if I use three computers and two different carriers to do the uploading. I did this the last two years. Not fun.

My website has a tournament or two posted.

Yes, that is a different case and not something you made clear to the other participants in this thread in your previous post. If you will be replacing the image with a high res original before any prints are made, then you can upload anything that you think looks good enough on the web and enables a large enough print to be ordered.

If, on the other hand, you sell digital downloads, you have to upload what you want to sell because there is no proof delay for digital downloads. I usually buy digital downloads for the purpose of being able to make my own prints (now and in the future) so I'd only buy a digital download that was full resolution. Some people buy digital downloads for web use (Facebook, etc...) in which case lower resolutions might work for that.

SamirD

MT Stringer wrote: »

It is going to take hours of upload time as it is, even if I use three computers and two different carriers to do the uploading. I did this the last two years. Not fun.

Sounds like my volume. What type of bandwidth do you have access to?

MT Stringer

What type of bandwidth do you have access to?

Comcast. I check my speed last night and got a speed of almost 11mb/sec download and 3.2mb/sec upload.

SamirD

MT Stringer wrote: »

Comcast. I check my speed last night and got a speed of almost 11mb/sec download and 3.2mb/sec upload.

That's some healthy upload bandwidth. You just need more.

Price out how many more sales, etc you'd get if you could have the photos up faster. You may be able to justify getting a second connection. That will bring your upload bandwidth to 6.4Mb.