Collect Photos - Am I the only one with this issue?

e-Scape Photo

I have what appears to be a simple and, I would hope, not unique problem that I had hoped that the collect photos capability in smug would very nicely solve for me.. but on advice from the smug heroes I'm wrong... and I'm hugely frustrated as a result....

I am uploading ALL my images to smugand am doing so via publish service from Lightroom in the same folder heirarchy as they are stored in my LR catalog - ie by camera type and image number. These galleries are all private and within them I want as much freedom in my gallery settings as poss (original view, right click etc) Clearly this approach does not lend itself to public galleries that make any sense so....

What I want to do is collect photos from these galleries to display by theme/subject/project as public galleries. But I want these COLLECTED photos to have the security settings of the DISPLAYED Gallery (ie restricted size view, rigth click disabled etc).

It appears collected photos only display the security characteristics of their original gallery. This strikes me as completely the WRONG way round! Surely its far more likely to want to hide source galleries and open up to public view selected collections/smart galleries which would, by definition, be more restrictive!


Anyone else faced this issue and got a way round it... other than to upload second copies of same images for public galleries, which is thwe advice I got from smughelp and completely defeats the object of me managing my images through LR/Publish/Smug and is using smug server space for the sake of it as well as wasting my time and upload bandwidth!

Help.. anyone??

Andy

This is by design - collected photos always obey the settings of the source gallery. I wish I could tell you otherwise.

jfriend

I'm just a customer so I don't speak for Smugmug, but to be blunt here, Smugmug isn't designed to do what you're trying to do.

It sounds like you want a big private repository of all your photos and you'll collect them into public galleries with lesser viewing privileges. Smugmug does not support that.

What Smugmug does support is you create a public gallery with appropriate public viewing settings and then you can display those same images in other public ways (with the same settings). I use this to display a similar set of sports photos by game and by player, but in this setting all images have the same public settings on them.

If I want to share some photos from this set with a less restrictive group or settings (say allow originals to be downloaded), then I literally have to upload a new copy of the photos in order to have different settings on them. There are arguments for the way you want it to work and there are arguments for the way Smugmug designed it - which way you want it depends more on what you're trying to do overall. Smugmug made it work only one way so we have to live with that.

e-Scape Photo

Andy and jfriend. I KNOW that's how it is!!! It jut strikes me as counter-intuitive.... especially as the only apparent way round this is to either set all my private galleries (which is a feature of smugmug and therefore something designed in for a reason) to have totally restrictive priviliges or I upload second copies which again seems to go totally against the principles.

What I'd be keen to understand is is this a conscious decision or a design limitiation of the software.

jfriend..... recognisisng your bluntness in return, it might not be designed to do so but it doesnt make it the 'best way'. Just trying to understand if its this way because it can ONLY be one way or why it cant be such that we can have both. Is it simply not possuible to chose to have collected images obey EITHER the source gallery or the destination gallery settings? If its not possible I'll leave alone, if its possible FEATURE Request forthcoming!

Andy

I'm sorry there's just no other way for us to do this - the collected photos -must- obey the settings in their original gallery. Yes, this is the way we designed it. Thanks!

BigRed

e-Scape Photo wrote: »

I am uploading ALL my images to smugand am doing so via publish service from Lightroom in the same folder heirarchy as they are stored in my LR catalog - ie by camera type and image number. These galleries are all private and within them I want as much freedom in my gallery settings as poss (original view, right click etc) Clearly this approach does not lend itself to public galleries that make any sense so....

What I want to do is collect photos from these galleries to display by theme/subject/project as public galleries. But I want these COLLECTED photos to have the security settings of the DISPLAYED Gallery (ie restricted size view, rigth click disabled etc).

This may not work exactly as you'd like, but here's a workaround process that I've found works for me... I upload to galleries that are Public* but are assigned to a hidden category so visitors won't find them through normal navigation (see jfriend's Customization #14 here). The gallery settings for these "Source" galleries enable right-click protection and limit sizes, which drives how they will be presented in the Smart galleries where I collect them by theme/subject/project/etc. But of course, as owner, I can always see the source galleries, download images via Owner Save and thereby see Originals, etc.

*My source galleries are shooting-date-based, which not only helps with inventory control but gives me a target for my date-based blog. Most are Public because I do want them searchable (Unlisted & Smart galleries aren't included in search engines.)

jfriend

e-Scape Photo wrote: »

Andy and jfriend. I KNOW that's how it is!!! It jut strikes me as counter-intuitive.... especially as the only apparent way round this is to either set all my private galleries (which is a feature of smugmug and therefore something designed in for a reason) to have totally restrictive priviliges or I upload second copies which again seems to go totally against the principles.

What I'd be keen to understand is is this a conscious decision or a design limitiation of the software.

jfriend..... recognisisng your bluntness in return, it might not be designed to do so but it doesnt make it the 'best way'. Just trying to understand if its this way because it can ONLY be one way or why it cant be such that we can have both. Is it simply not possuible to chose to have collected images obey EITHER the source gallery or the destination gallery settings? If its not possible I'll leave alone, if its possible FEATURE Request forthcoming!

I don't speak for Smugmug's intentions (because I mostly don't know them). I just speak for what I observe. I observe that architecturally, it would be hard for Smugmug to have different size restrictions in different galleries that contain the same image. That's because they use the same image URL in both places (e.g. it is the same image) and when it comes time for their server to decide if a given size of an image can be rendered to the public or not, there is only an image URL which isn't tied to a gallery.

For example, Smugmug will render an image from an URL with only an imageID/imageKey in it like this:

http://jfriend.smugmug.com/photos/344291068_HdnTo-M.jpg

When the web server responsible for serving this image gets this request, it does not know what gallery the image is being presented in or if it is even being presented in a gallery. It might be embedded in my blog. So, for Smugmug to know what sizes are allowed, there must be only one setting that corresponds to that URL.

In order to do what you want (which I fully understand the desire for), Smugmug would have to coin new image IDs anytime you collected a photo and use those new images IDs in that gallery. Those image IDs could internally still point to the original copy of the image (shared storage), but they would have to be completely separate image IDs that could have different settings controlling them. Smugmug doesn't currently do it that way. I have no idea how hard it would be for them to change to that way, but it would be an architectural change in order to do so, not just a new feature to add.

SamirD

BigRed wrote: »

This may not work exactly as you'd like, but here's a workaround process that I've found works for me... I upload to galleries that Public* but are assigned to a hidden category so visitors won't find them through normal navigation (see jfriend's Customization #14 here). The gallery settings for these "Source" galleries enable right-click protection and limit sizes, which drives how they will be presented in the Smart galleries where I collect them by theme/subject/project/etc. But of course, as owner, I can always see the source galleries, see Original images, and Owner Save, etc.

*My source galleries are shooting-date-based, which not only helps with inventory control but gives me a target for my date-based blog. Most are Public because I do want them searchable (Unlisted & Smart galleries aren't included in search engines.)

I really like this idea! I don't know if it would work for me where I do actually keep two copies of each image on SM. But it's a really innovative way to present and organize images. I also keep my galleries based on shoot date.

jfriend wrote: »

I don't speak for Smugmug's intentions (because I mostly don't know them). I just speak for what I observe. I observe that architecturally, it would be hard for Smugmug to have different size restrictions in different galleries that contain the same image. That's because they use the same image URL in both places (e.g. it is the same image) and when it comes time for their server to decide if a given size of an image can be rendered to the public or not, there is only an image URL which isn't tied to a gallery.

For example, Smugmug will render an image from an URL with only an imageID/imageKey in it like this:

http://jfriend.smugmug.com/photos/344291068_HdnTo-M.jpg

When the web server responsible for serving this image gets this request, it does not know what gallery the image is being presented in or if it is even being presented in a gallery. It might be embedded in my blog. So, for Smugmug to know what sizes are allowed, there must be only one setting that corresponds to that URL.

In order to do what you want (which I fully understand the desire for), Smugmug would have to coin new image IDs anytime you collected a photo and use those new images IDs in that gallery. Those image IDs could internally still point to the original copy of the image (shared storage), but they would have to be completely separate image IDs that could have different settings controlling them. Smugmug doesn't currently do it that way. I have no idea how hard it would be for them to change to that way, but it would be an architectural change in order to do so, not just a new feature to add.

Great insight as always! s It always amazes me how well you know the inner workings of SM.

e-Scape Photo

Rant Over..!

So at least I now know it's not something that is likely (is easy) to change and therefore I'll live with /work around it. THe easiest way to do it is simply to set my source galleries to be restrictive and live with the limitations that imposes on me in 'managing' my site.

Thanks all for inputs. I'll wait to see if it ever changes... and will probably raise a feature request anyway!


Reading again I thikn BigRed your 'work around' might solve it.... I'll investigate your way further!!!

jfriend

BigRed wrote: »

This may not work exactly as you'd like, but here's a workaround process that I've found works for me... I upload to galleries that Public* but are assigned to a hidden category so visitors won't find them through normal navigation (see jfriend's Customization #14 here). The gallery settings for these "Source" galleries enable right-click protection and limit sizes, which drives how they will be presented in the Smart galleries where I collect them by theme/subject/project/etc. But of course, as owner, I can always see the source galleries, see Original images, and Owner Save, etc.

*My source galleries are shooting-date-based, which not only helps with inventory control but gives me a target for my date-based blog. Most are Public because I do want them searchable (Unlisted & Smart galleries aren't included in search engines.)

It's a bad idea to make these galleries public as there are many ways that the public can find a public gallery that the customization you referenced will not prevent. They will even be indexed by Google if they are not unlisted. They are available through the public API if they are not unlisted. They are available in the mobile interface if they are not unlisted. They are available in RSS feeds if they are not unlisted. These galleries should be unlisted. You don't lose any access rights when logged in when they are unlisted and being unlisted doesn't prevent any of the other things you want to do with these images. Your source galleries should be unlisted.

BigRed

jfriend wrote: »

It's a bad idea to make these galleries public as there are many ways that the public can find a public gallery that the customization you referenced will not prevent. They will even be indexed by Google if they are not unlisted. They are available through the public API if they are not unlisted. They are available in the mobile interface if they are not unlisted. They are available in RSS feeds if they are not unlisted. These galleries should be unlisted. You don't lose any access rights when logged in when they are unlisted and being unlisted doesn't prevent any of the other things you want to do with these images. Your source galleries should be unlisted.

Jfriend, I think you may have missed my comment that I DO want my source galleries viewable and searchable (and RSS-able). I just don't want them listed. This may not be what the OP wants, though.

jfriend

BigRed wrote: »

Jfriend, I think you may have missed my comment that I DO want my source galleries viewable and searchable (and RSS-able). I just don't want them listed. This may not be what the OP wants, though.

OK. That can work for you then.

I think many people exploring this are uploading a repository of which they intend to only make some subset public and I wouldn't want them to get confused about the two. They should be using unlisted galleries for that. The collected photos will be searchable in their public, collected locations.

BigRed

jfriend wrote: »

OK. That can work for you then.

I think many people exploring this are uploading a repository of which they intend to only make some subset public and I wouldn't want them to get confused about the two. They should be using unlisted galleries for that. The collected photos will be searchable in their public, collected locations.

Has this changed recently? In my experience, the images in a virtual gallery are not searchable if they are sourced in an Unlisted (i.e., non-indexed) gallery. I learned this from your explanation here.

jfriend

BigRed wrote: »

Has this changed recently? In my experience, the images in a virtual gallery are not searchable if they are sourced in an Unlisted (i.e., non-indexed) gallery. I learned this from your explanation here.

I would think that any image in a public virtual gallery that has searching enable for the gallery (in gallery settings) would be findable and indexable and searchable by Google. I don't know about Smugmug's searching as they could implement whatever they wanted to in their index because they could know any individual image's source gallery settings, but Google doesn't know that.

If Google sees a gallery with images in it and the gallery itself is not marked for "noindex, nofollow" then Google can index it and it's contents regardless of whether the images themselves are virtual or not (Google wouldn't even know it was a virtual gallery as it looks just like a regular gallery to Google).

I suppose an experiment would ultimately be required to verify this, but such an experiment might take awhile (for Google to find the new gallery/new images and index them).

BigRed

jfriend wrote: »

I would think that any image in a public virtual gallery that has searching enable for the gallery (in gallery settings) would be findable and indexable and searchable by Google. I don't know about Smugmug's searching as they could implement whatever they wanted to in their index because they could know any individual image's source gallery settings, but Google doesn't know that.

If Google sees a gallery with images in it and the gallery itself is not marked for "noindex, nofollow" then Google can index it and it's contents regardless of whether the images themselves are virtual or not (Google wouldn't even know it was a virtual gallery as it looks just like a regular gallery to Google).

I suppose an experiment would ultimately be required to verify this, but such an experiment might take awhile (for Google to find the new gallery/new images and index them).

Right, Google may work differently. My comment was just intended to clarify how SmugMug search works.

P.S. There's a possibly related bug being worked on: http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=199692

e-Scape Photo

But of course, as owner, I can always see the source galleries, see Original images, and Owner Save, etc.

Bigred, I'm definitely missing something here, how do I see Originals in galleries with restricted size as the Owner?

BigRed

e-Scape Photo wrote: »

Bigred, I'm definitely missing something here, how do I see Originals in galleries with restricted size as the Owner?

I'm sorry if I confused you. To see Originals in such a situation, logged-in owners need to download them.