Portrait vs. Landscape

LGPhotoArt

Hi,
I love my Smugmug Pro account and I have used it for years now. But there is one thing that really bothers me and I have seen it has been reported in the past but it was never actually given a satisfactory answer: If I select a maximum display size for the photos in my gallery, let's say "Large", the landscape photo is set at the actual value, while the portrait photo are displayed much smaller...that is really annoying. How difficult it is to use let say 800x600 and 600x800 instead of different sizes? Come on.
Here is an example from the same gallery:

Landscape (Large):


and Portrait (Large):


I really don't understand it, if there is a way I can fix this in my galleries please let me know.
Thanks,
Luigi.

rainforest1155

Hi Luigi,

Our display sizes are optimized for displaying on screens without the need for visitors to scroll. Lets take the resolution of a regular widescreen monitor or laptop screen which may use 1440x900 pixel. You can see it's much wider than high. In addition you have to take into consideration that there may be horizontal bars, like toolbars, the browser menu bar and possibly the Windows taskbar or Mac dock. All that takes away additional screen estate from the available screen height. When you then also take into account the SmugMug header or your custom header and the basic gallery interface (if you add a longer gallery description, that'll also take up space), a considerable chunk for your 900 pixel height are already used up.

Now with the large size, in landscape orientation it's about 800 x 600 pixel, which fits with no problems in the browser without scrolling. But if you were to translate that over to landscape, 600 x 800 pixel would likely not fit the browser window without scrolling. That's why we've taken into account that monitors are usually wider than high and adapted our portrait display sizes accordingly.
You can find the size details for our display sizes here:
http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93250-display-quality

The key again is that we want to serve up photos that fit the visitors browser window without the need for scrolling.

LGPhotoArt

Sebastian,
Thank you for your reply and explanation. Let's me say though that while I understand what you are trying to do, It does not always make sense.
For the very reasons you have described in your reply ("horizontal bars, like toolbars, the browser menu bar and possibly the Windows taskbar or Mac dock") your attempt is at fail most of the times.
There are better way to do it, for example the description we write for a gallery sits on top of both the thumbnails (on the left, in Smugmug view) and the photo (on the right). This takes a lot of real estate. If you could limit it to sit on top of the thumbnails it would not erode photo space. In addition the thumbnails are always too big than they need to be, to the point that many viewers don't even click on them because they feel they have already seen the photo looking at the thumbnails on the left. Also, being so big they require scrolling thru pages (much worse than scrolling up and down within the page).

Also, your approach does not make sense if I choose "journal", which by definition is going to require vertical scrolling...so why limiting portrait size there too? It makes no sense!!!

As a pro user, I would like to have control of something like this, and would greatly appreciate if this were an option that users can switch on or off in the gallery settings.

I do mostly fashion photography and 90% of my photos are in portrait mode, the unbalance between smugmug way of displaying landscape vs. portrait is a real concern for me.

I hope this will be taken into serious consideration, because as i said I love smugmug and want to stay with it.
Once again thanks, your reply is appreciated but not satisfactory in its explanation.
Best regards,
Luigi.

rainforest1155

Luigi,

Larger thumbnails are only displayed for browser window sizes wider than about 1600 pixel. On smaller windows, you get smaller thumbnails.

As to journal style, the idea is to have the whole photo shown in its entirety without scrolling. We don't want visitors to just see a partial strip of the photo and then having to scroll down to see the rest. It's the photographer's composition and it deserves to be viewed as such in one piece.

I just explained how our system works. I'm sorry if that doesn't work as you'd like. If you'd like to suggest a change, I would recommend you add your suggestion to our feedback page:
http://feedback.smugmug.com/forums/17723-smugmug
Thanks!

For a sneak peek on what's to come with our new gallery style, you can check out the goodies option described here:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=198816

LGPhotoArt

Quote: "As to journal style, the idea is to have the whole photo shown in its entirety without scrolling. We don't want visitors to just see a partial strip of the photo and then having to scroll down to see the rest. It's the photographer's composition and it deserves to be viewed as such in one piece."

Well, it's the photographer's (your customer) photo and it deserves to be seen AS THE PHOTOGRAPHER (your customer) WANTS! Hope you do get my point, cause honestly you do not seem to.
And please explain how in the world you can avoid vertical scrolling in a journal photogallery? Do you even know what a smugmug journal style photogallery is???

I'll follow your suggestion to take this up to the feedbacks page.

rainforest1155

Of course I'm familiar with our journal style. I think you misunderstand my comment about scrolling. It's about being able to see the *whole* photo at once without the need for scrolling:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/283274/sc4/20111018153810-00546x1015238.jpg

I think you can understand our reasoning not wanting to show a visitor a photo like this where only a portion of it fits his screen:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/283274/sc4/20111018153958-00547x5815239.jpg
and then him having to scroll down to see the remainder of the photo:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/283274/sc4/20111018154127-00548x2715241.jpg

LGPhotoArt

It's a pity that I have to get frustrated like this. If you say you understand the Journal display format I am sure you also understand that most of us have more than 1 single image in our galleries. Therefore the point about avoiding vertical scrolling is getting old and quite frankly ridiculous.
If I choose Large format/journal (or if I click on a photo to see it full screen), there is plenty of space to display the portrait photos at the same resolution than the landscape ones (800 pixels on the longer side). Your automatic scaling down of the portrait ones to 600 pixels is creating an unnecessary shrinking of the portrait photos, which look much smaller than the supposedly "same size" landscape ones. Let the customer (us who pay) pick what size we want to display, we know our demographics, you don't! My stats show me that less than 7% of my viewer have a vertical resolution smaller than 900 pixels, and that includes smartphones (which we are not trying to design our websites to, right?).
At least let your customers choose in their gallery settings if they want your "smart" shrinking function enabled or not. That would be the smart thing to do, let the photographers make their style decision and don't be so arrogant that you believe you have to decide for us. I think I have stated it clear, so please don't try explaining more what your software does cause I know what it does, that's why I am writing. Thanks.

PBolchover

If the viewer has enough pixels to be able to display the larger portrait picture then Smugmug will display it. It is only if they don't have enough pixels that Smugmug will reduce the size of the portait size.

LGPhotoArt

Ok, for the other users that feel like me and that would be in favor of making the shrinking of the portrait photos optional, rather than automatic, I have put in a request. You can read it here:
http://feedback.smugmug.com/forums/17723-smugmug/suggestions/2327799-don-t-automatically-shrink-portrait-photos-size-vs?ref=title
Please vote for it, if you would like it to be considered.
Thanks.

LGPhotoArt

PBolchover wrote: »

If the viewer has enough pixels to be able to display the larger portrait picture then Smugmug will display it. It is only if they don't have enough pixels that Smugmug will reduce the size of the portait size.

No, sorry but you are wrong. If you click on a photo that is set at Large format in the photogallery it will be displayed at full page but with different sizes depending on whether it's Landscape or Portrait.
In Landscape the longest side (horizontal) is at 800 pixels, in Portrait the longest side (Vertical) is set at 600 pixels only. That applies to journal view too.
That info is reported also by smugmug here:
http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93250-display-quality

PBolchover

Sorry - I missed the fact that you have limited the maximum display size for the gallery.

In that case I can see the point. It is not that the "stetchy" logic is wrong. It is that the maximum display size is different for portrait and landscape photos.

LGPhotoArt

PBolchover wrote: »

Sorry - I missed the fact that you have limited the maximum display size for the gallery.

In that case I can see the point. It is not that the "stetchy" logic is wrong. It is that the maximum display size is different for portrait and landscape photos.

Exactly!

SamirD

LGPhotoArt wrote: »

Exactly!

But this is something pretty well ingrained into the SM system at a base level. I don't see it being changed unless it was the number one feature request for two years. Then it might have a shot.

This is one of those situations where if this function of SM doesn't work for you, you'll need to see if someone else fits the bill. It's unfortunate, but that's sometimes the best business decision to make.

LGPhotoArt

SamirD wrote: »

But this is something pretty well ingrained into the SM system at a base level. I don't see it being changed unless it was the number one feature request for two years. Then it might have a shot.

This is one of those situations where if this function of SM doesn't work for you, you'll need to see if someone else fits the bill. It's unfortunate, but that's sometimes the best business decision to make.

SamirD,
I hope it can be made an option in the gallery settings, rather than enforced. I still like my smugmug site and what it offers, so while I am always checking what's out there, switching to a different service provider is an option I hope I can avoid at this time.
Maybe smugmug need to realize their customers are not all into landscape photography.

Andy

LGPhotoArt wrote: »

Maybe smugmug need to realize their customers are not all into landscape photography.

I do lots of landscapes in portrait!

http://www.moonriverphotography.com/Galleries/Wild-Utah/2907824_b7dFpB#665882394_etKKR

http://www.moonriverphotography.com/Galleries/Landscapes-for-Sale/634937_kBmgdb#218623516_LcWsJ

jfriend

Andy wrote: »

I do lots of landscapes in portrait!

http://www.moonriverphotography.com/Galleries/Wild-Utah/2907824_b7dFpB#665882394_etKKR

http://www.moonriverphotography.com/Galleries/Landscapes-for-Sale/634937_kBmgdb#218623516_LcWsJ

And, I think the point is that when you look at how the Smugmug view handles that image, more than half the screen space is unused. The Smugmug view does not use screen real-estate efficiently with portrait images. I used to have entire sports galleries of portrait images and half the screen space was wasted.

Andy

jfriend wrote: »

And, I think the point is that when you look at how the Smugmug view handles that image, more than half the screen space is unused. The Smugmug view does not use screen real-estate efficiently with portrait images. I used to have entire sports galleries of portrait images and half the screen space was wasted.

John, great time in Kenya!

What am I missing here

jfriend

Andy wrote: »

John, great time in Kenya!

What am I missing here

Love to see some more Kenya photos. I'm sure you had a great time (how could you not).

I don't know about you, but I'm seeing 50% of the display space for the main image wasted on many portrait images. It looks worse in some screen geometries than others and it's really horrible when an entire gallery is portrait orientation. This is the one you linked earlier which just isn't using space efficiently at all:

SamirD

LGPhotoArt wrote: »

SamirD,
I hope it can be made an option in the gallery settings, rather than enforced. I still like my smugmug site and what it offers, so while I am always checking what's out there, switching to a different service provider is an option I hope I can avoid at this time.
Maybe smugmug need to realize their customers are not all into landscape photography.

The option is not the issue, its the implementation. All of SMs systems are designed for the current sizing. Could you imagine re-writing all that code for a new size? Not easy at all. HUGE task.