One immediate suggestion: on pages like this one: http://paulwestlake.smugmug.com/Stock-Framing/Stock-Frames-Delux-quality/i-PQ4CwNn having price list as description of the gallery pushes image of the frame too far down, making whole page look unbalanced. Have you considered moving prices in a separate text/html block (or may be even in the left sidebar)?
Much better now - homepage text is readable, and bacground images load in 1-2 sec (I guess it more depends on server load than on sixe of the image now). I also thin large galleries in smugmug style are more useable now.
What a beautiful site. FYI you have two galleries for Peaches. They are #3 and #4 in the lineup. I see they have different breadcrumbs, and maybe even a different number of photos in each (didn't have time to sort that out). Not sure if you intended to have them be one and the same, or very different. Maybe different names are needed?
After six or seven years with "old" SmugMug, this was an anxious moment for me! Nothing compared to the gauntlet that I know the engineers at SmugMug overcame to make this monumental change, but a big deal for me nonetheless.
After six or seven years with "old" SmugMug, this was an anxious moment for me! Nothing compared to the gauntlet that I know the engineers at SmugMug overcame to make this monumental change, but a big deal for me nonetheless.
Nimai,
you have some relly god photos there, but your "home" page and your "browse" page look nearly identical. If you want all your folders/galleries to be shown directly on the home page, I'd just remove "browse" link completely.
Also, some sort of "about" page would be nice addition.
Nimai,
you have some relly god photos there, but your "home" page and your "browse" page look nearly identical. If you want all your folders/galleries to be shown directly on the home page, I'd just remove "browse" link completely.
Also, some sort of "about" page would be nice addition.
Excellent suggestions!!
Thank you so much. I didn't even realize that I could do that - remove/edit those links.
I'll get on a new "about" as well. Loving it!
I had to search to find out about the About page - but glad you pointed me in the right direction: The No-Hack Custom Page Tutorial
I recently started using Smugmug and really liking it compared to what I remember so far! I haven't put nearly the time into it that it deserves but feedback is always appreciated!
The one suggestion I have is to remove the smugmug footer. The smug copyright and login are supposed to stay but you can remove the rest of the footer. Go to Customize, customize site, settings, and set smug header and footer to off.
I've made some adjustments to the background when on mobile and added a background to the menu bar as well :-)
I hope you likey!
Boneheads.smugmug.com
-Jef
OMG - I love this site! ... You did this all with the new smugmug?? ... I can't even figure out how to make an HTML page on the new templates (which means, I now have no more "About Me" page. Yikes! -- I was too trigger-happy when I clicked on "OK-publish-migrate-whatever" ...totally forgot about that page.)
Also -- the social network buttons all open in the same window. I want a new window/tab. That's actually why I am here. Was going to submit this as feedback somewhere.
I unveiled a while back but have finally got things sorted out. I'm happy with my mish mashed up site, I love the collage formats now offered so everything is thrown in together, scroll through and tell me what you think
I unveiled a while back but have finally got things sorted out. I'm happy with my mish mashed up site, I love the collage formats now offered so everything is thrown in together, scroll through and tell me what you think
Paul
Paul,
you have great images, but are you sure you want to show all of them on a single page? I'm not a big fan of long scrolls, and if user wants to find something specific, it may be difficult to navigate in a single huge collage.
Lesha
Thanks for the feedback Lesha, I've just finally got it to work properly since I unveiled in August so for now I'm leaving it be
I know it's is long but I don't want to mess with it just yet. I might break it up a bit down the track as it doesn't grow very fast but it is an option later on. You make a good point about people not finding things fast but that's sort of my point, have a scroll and relax. I appreciate your thoughts and time, thank you!
Paul
Very nicely done, Chris. Clean and simple, the colours work well.
What I did notice - a very minor nitpick - is when you scroll to the bottom of your "about" page, the social media icons and the "Photo Sharing by Smugmug" clash together. Something you may want to tidy up.
Also in your Search section, most people now have one of those word globes, to help people in their quests/searches. Was this something you wanted to omit on purpose (perhaps for the clean aesthetics?)
Cheers,
Harmeet
Harmeet, thanks for taking the time to look so thoroughly. I've made the adjustment you recommend. Also correct, I don't want the clutter of a word cloud and prefer the crisp look.
... including yours! A nice example of a "less is more" website that others can use as an example of elegant design - including keeping all images in the slideshow in the same aspect ratio.
The only suggestion I can make is to ensure you select images used for folder and gallery covers that crop suitably in your chosen cover photo aspect ratio.
Unveiled tonight
Ok, bit the bullet tonight and unveiled my site. Tried to keep it a simple site with over 20,000 images. Only took over a month to keep it simple! Let me know if there are issues I did not catch! Thanks!:D
Ok, bit the bullet tonight and unveiled my site. Tried to keep it a simple site with over 20,000 images. Only took over a month to keep it simple! Let me know if there are issues I did not catch! Thanks!:D
There are few things that I like a lot: dark background, rounded corners, centered captions... not to mention photos themselves.
Couple of things seemed questionable:
- too many top-level links: multiple searches, separated "info" and "questbook", "slideshow" in addition to home page slideshow...
- variable width: some pages are stretchy, some are fixed width ±750 px, "info" is very narrow...
- some galleries (like "slideshow photos" and whole "others" folder) do not seem to be intended for "galleries" page - have you thought about unlisting them?
There are few things that I like a lot: dark background, rounded corners, centered captions... not to mention photos themselves.
Couple of things seemed questionable:
- too many top-level links: multiple searches, separated "info" and "questbook", "slideshow" in addition to home page slideshow...
- variable width: some pages are stretchy, some are fixed width ±750 px, "info" is very narrow...
- some galleries (like "slideshow photos" and whole "others" folder) do not seem to be intended for "galleries" page - have you thought about unlisting them?
Troup, not Bob! Yeah, was playing with the different search options to help folks find their way thru 20,000+ images. The home page slideshow only shows 6 images and repeats...waiting for SM to fix slideshows and will then replace it and delete the other slideshow. All pages were suppose to be stretchy. Will look into that. Something is still stuck from legacy narrowing down info page. Meant to separate guestbook from info. I should remove comment field from info. Will see about unlisting those galleries, but think that breaks something using something in them. Maybe I can figure that out and do it in a different way. Not sure I want or need the Recent menu item either. And after going to ALOT of trouble creating the keywords page, I may remove it, too. Notice the rounded tops and square bottoms to the images. Something is clobbering the rounded bottoms. Probably I could not reproduce what is doing it! But I like the look! Thanks for the feedback!
EDIT: Made some changes! Hmmm, probably don't need the cart either.
Troup, not Bob! Yeah, was playing with the different search options to help folks find their way thru 20,000+ images. The home page slideshow only shows 6 images and repeats...waiting for SM to fix slideshows and will then replace it and delete the other slideshow. All pages were suppose to be stretchy. Will look into that. Something is still stuck from legacy narrowing down info page. Meant to separate guestbook from info. I should remove comment field from info. Will see about unlisting those galleries, but think that breaks something using something in them. Maybe I can figure that out and do it in a different way. Not sure I want or need the Recent menu item either. And after going to ALOT of trouble creating the keywords page, I may remove it, too. Notice the rounded tops and square bottoms to the images. Something is clobbering the rounded bottoms. Probably I could not reproduce what is doing it! But I like the look! Thanks for the feedback!
EDIT: Made some changes! Hmmm, probably don't need the cart either.
Well this is interesting because I remember unveiling, and stumbled across you Troup in the process, right here in Dgrin. How are you!!
Both yourself and Denise were of great help to me even though my site wasn't working properly until this week. I really appreciated that, so thanks again. It sound like you made a great choice by holding off. I had no ADD TO CART button and no icons, where as a lot of others had problems with their slideshows, actually everyone seemed to have a little bug somewhere. I just wanted to thank you and I love your site it looks great. Mine's very chaotic with the collages and stretchy works great for me. I like the way it's slightly different every time I log on too. I also had problems with unlisted galleries not working but it came good, I didn't change anything either.
Paul
Ok, bit the bullet tonight and unveiled my site. Tried to keep it a simple site with over 20,000 images. Only took over a month to keep it simple! Let me know if there are issues I did not catch! Thanks!:D
Customized: Northern VA Portfolio Site
Hi everyone! I use my website for contact, information, and client admin. As well as linked images for blogger.
alexandramanning.com
The customization is based on Zoe. Additionally I edited the 404 page, to somewhat skirt the Case Sensitivity issue for now. I have 2 menus: one in the top right and one in the standard spot. The homepage has my one H1 and H2 informations. I have a footer with some links. I like my information page, as it is more polished looking than previously.
Hi everyone! I use my website for contact, information, and client admin. As well as linked images for blogger.
alexandramanning.com
The customization is based on Zoe. Additionally I edited the 404 page, to somewhat skirt the Case Sensitivity issue for now. I have 2 menus: one in the top right and one in the standard spot. The homepage has my one H1 and H2 informations. I have a footer with some links. I like my information page, as it is more polished looking than previously.
Do you think I can remove the margins around the smugmug style galleries?? So I can get more real estate.
Also, how would you folks link .pdf files for clients directly in the website. IE maybe through Client Folder: Proofing Gallery, and Documents Page?
For your style of photography Alexandra I love the site, the soft bokeh background suits it very nicely. I'm pretty sure you can change the width of all boxes/containers, but I don't use Zoe. Sorry I can't help you with anything else but the people on dgrin are great and the smug heroes could talk you through it. Nice work
Harmeet, thanks for taking the time to look so thoroughly. I've made the adjustment you recommend. Also correct, I don't want the clutter of a word cloud and prefer the crisp look.
... including yours! A nice example of a "less is more" website that others can use as an example of elegant design - including keeping all images in the slideshow in the same aspect ratio.
The only suggestion I can make is to ensure you select images used for folder and gallery covers that crop suitably in your chosen cover photo aspect ratio.
Thank you for the suggestion. Since I only have old photos to work with, I am waiting to slowly update my galleries, then I will do as you suggest - crop the "cover photos" as appropriately for the folder/gallery covers.
The site has a good structure to it but there are a couple of things that jumped out at me.
You have a login link on your homepage that is of no use to your viewers. Why not remove it? You can always login at www.smugmug.com.
I'm not sure why you have used the titles "Multiple Nested Galleries" and "Stand-alone Galleries". I don't believe those sections need titles at all.
I would make the Other folder unlisted. You would need to change the URL for the galleries in that folder that you reference to include the code that is generated if it is unlisted, but there is really no reason to allow someone to browse to the galleries in that folder.
I will do as you suggest - crop the "cover photos" as appropriately for the folder/gallery covers.
You can't (at least presently, if ever) crop the cover images AFAIK. SmugMug crops them automatically to the aspect ratio you have selected, so you will need select images that give a pleasing cropped appearance.
I have adopted the 4:3 cover image ratio which will works well for many landscape-aspect images, but certainly not all. Your cover images which have heads cut off are attributable to being portrait-aspect images as far as I can see, but with more images to choose from, you will be able to overcome this problem.
To Denise
Hey Denise I'd also like to thank you when I unveiled back in August if you remember. Even though it took until this week to have it fully functional, your suggestions did help me get my site viewable to others and for that I thank you too. Remember the bizarre lightbox guy who had no add to cart button or icon in his lightbox? Anyhow if not, it was remembered and appreciated.
You can't (at least presently, if ever) crop the cover images AFAIK. SmugMug crops them automatically to the aspect ratio you have selected, so you will need select images that give a pleasing cropped appearance.
True, but there is a workaround.
Say, you have an image that you want to use as a gallery cover, but its orientation/composition causes SmugMug to pick a "wrong" part of the image (typically, heads off). However, tool that allows to select "feature image" (I assume this is what you call cover image) for the gallery does not restrict you to pich photo from the same gallery.
So, my trick is:
- re-crop my preferred cover photo on the desktop and upload to an unlisted gallery
- got to gallery settinfs and select feature image that you just uploaded
Check "New England Dance..." gallery at http://www.alexmoiseyev.com/Dance/2013 - it has cover image set I just described. Square thubmnail of the image from tha gallery has heads cut off.
Hey Denise I'd also like to thank you when I unveiled back in August if you remember. Even though it took until this week to have it fully functional, your suggestions did help me get my site viewable to others and for that I thank you too. Remember the bizarre lightbox guy who had no add to cart button or icon in his lightbox? Anyhow if not, it was remembered and appreciated.
I'm glad I was able to help, thanks for letting me know that all is well now!
Your site looks good (although I have to say I was surprised that it is essentially one page!).
Allright Customization gurus, we want to see what you have been doing to the New SmugMug. Reply to this thread with your new SmugMug site. If you can also give a brief overview of the additional customization you did, that would be awesome.
We are going to start showing off awesome sites via our social media channels soon, so show us what you got!
Michael
I am a High School Sports Photographer and have been a SmugMug Pro customer for quite a few years. A year ago I completely revamped my SmugMug site, using lots of customizations from information here at Digital Grin. I wasn't very happy to hear a brand new SmugMug was coming, which would render much of my previous work worthless - particularly since it was going to happen just prior to the start of a new football season, my busiest time.
Anyway, I avoided making any attempts of changing my site but finally got tired of having to go to the Legacy mode all the time and was scared to death I would inadvertently click on "Unveil" and be completely screwed. I bit the bullet and started creating a new site an hour here and two or three hours there.
Things kind of went smooth, except when it came to creating Pages. For some reason I had a heck of a time getting changes to "Save" and quite a few times I would lose several hours worth of work, which would seem to disappear on its own. I finally hit on a weird system of getting the changes to stick. I would make the necessary changes, choose Done, and then Exit and select the option of "Save For Later". Then I would go back into Customization mode on the Page I had previously worked on, go into a previous text box, enter a meaningless space after the end of any paragraph, hit Done and then hit "Publish Now". My previous important change would then be saved. I have no idea why that works, but it did for me.
Anyway, at the end of the process I love my site. My Home Page is filled with my favorite jaw-dropping sports shots and I'm getting the "WOW!" feedback from my customers.
I think SmugMug could have made the process easier, but if you stick with it, the rewards are great. By the way, I sent an email to SmugMug Support four days ago for help on the Saving Pages problems I was having and have yet to hear back except for the promise to get back to me within 48 hours. I suspect they are swamped with a deluge of questions from frustrated site customers.
Comments
One immediate suggestion: on pages like this one: http://paulwestlake.smugmug.com/Stock-Framing/Stock-Frames-Delux-quality/i-PQ4CwNn having price list as description of the gallery pushes image of the frame too far down, making whole page look unbalanced. Have you considered moving prices in a separate text/html block (or may be even in the left sidebar)?
My site: www.alexmoiseyev.com
What a beautiful site. FYI you have two galleries for Peaches. They are #3 and #4 in the lineup. I see they have different breadcrumbs, and maybe even a different number of photos in each (didn't have time to sort that out). Not sure if you intended to have them be one and the same, or very different. Maybe different names are needed?
My site: www.alexmoiseyev.com
I pulled the trigger!
http://photosByNimai.com/
you have some relly god photos there, but your "home" page and your "browse" page look nearly identical. If you want all your folders/galleries to be shown directly on the home page, I'd just remove "browse" link completely.
Also, some sort of "about" page would be nice addition.
My site: www.alexmoiseyev.com
Excellent suggestions!!
Thank you so much. I didn't even realize that I could do that - remove/edit those links.
I'll get on a new "about" as well. Loving it!
I had to search to find out about the About page - but glad you pointed me in the right direction:
The No-Hack Custom Page Tutorial
www.anthonyeliasphotography.com
Unveiled today to celebrate yesterday's finale at one of the local race tracks that I shoot at. http://creativeoutbursts.smugmug.com/
The one suggestion I have is to remove the smugmug footer. The smug copyright and login are supposed to stay but you can remove the rest of the footer. Go to Customize, customize site, settings, and set smug header and footer to off.
--- Denise
Musings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com
OMG - I love this site! ... You did this all with the new smugmug?? ... I can't even figure out how to make an HTML page on the new templates (which means, I now have no more "About Me" page. Yikes! -- I was too trigger-happy when I clicked on "OK-publish-migrate-whatever" ...totally forgot about that page.)
Also -- the social network buttons all open in the same window. I want a new window/tab. That's actually why I am here. Was going to submit this as feedback somewhere.
Sirin
www.sirinsamman.com
PS: and the dogs are too cute. all soo happy! what a cool service.
Paul
you have great images, but are you sure you want to show all of them on a single page? I'm not a big fan of long scrolls, and if user wants to find something specific, it may be difficult to navigate in a single huge collage.
Lesha
My site: www.alexmoiseyev.com
I know it's is long but I don't want to mess with it just yet. I might break it up a bit down the track as it doesn't grow very fast but it is an option later on. You make a good point about people not finding things fast but that's sort of my point, have a scroll and relax. I appreciate your thoughts and time, thank you!
Paul
Harmeet, thanks for taking the time to look so thoroughly. I've made the adjustment you recommend. Also correct, I don't want the clutter of a word cloud and prefer the crisp look.
I'm grateful for your feedback,
Kind regards
Chris
www.chrisdaviesphotography.com
@cmjdavies
+ChrisDavies
Chris Davies on Facebook
The only suggestion I can make is to ensure you select images used for folder and gallery covers that crop suitably in your chosen cover photo aspect ratio.
Ok, bit the bullet tonight and unveiled my site. Tried to keep it a simple site with over 20,000 images. Only took over a month to keep it simple! Let me know if there are issues I did not catch! Thanks!:D
http://www.southeasternphotography.com
There are few things that I like a lot: dark background, rounded corners, centered captions... not to mention photos themselves.
Couple of things seemed questionable:
- too many top-level links: multiple searches, separated "info" and "questbook", "slideshow" in addition to home page slideshow...
- variable width: some pages are stretchy, some are fixed width ±750 px, "info" is very narrow...
- some galleries (like "slideshow photos" and whole "others" folder) do not seem to be intended for "galleries" page - have you thought about unlisting them?
My site: www.alexmoiseyev.com
Troup, not Bob!
EDIT: Made some changes! Hmmm, probably don't need the cart either.
My site: www.alexmoiseyev.com
Well this is interesting because I remember unveiling, and stumbled across you Troup in the process, right here in Dgrin. How are you!!
Both yourself and Denise were of great help to me even though my site wasn't working properly until this week. I really appreciated that, so thanks again. It sound like you made a great choice by holding off. I had no ADD TO CART button and no icons, where as a lot of others had problems with their slideshows, actually everyone seemed to have a little bug somewhere. I just wanted to thank you and I love your site it looks great. Mine's very chaotic with the collages and stretchy works great for me. I like the way it's slightly different every time I log on too. I also had problems with unlisted galleries not working but it came good, I didn't change anything either.
Paul
My Website index | My Blog
Hi everyone! I use my website for contact, information, and client admin. As well as linked images for blogger.
alexandramanning.com
The customization is based on Zoe. Additionally I edited the 404 page, to somewhat skirt the Case Sensitivity issue for now. I have 2 menus: one in the top right and one in the standard spot. The homepage has my one H1 and H2 informations. I have a footer with some links. I like my information page, as it is more polished looking than previously.
blog.alexandramanning.com
I am really happy I was able to match my blogger about 99%
What do you think?
Also, how would you folks link .pdf files for clients directly in the website. IE maybe through Client Folder: Proofing Gallery, and Documents Page?
Virginia and DC Wedding Photographer
Google+ Me
For your style of photography Alexandra I love the site, the soft bokeh background suits it very nicely. I'm pretty sure you can change the width of all boxes/containers, but I don't use Zoe. Sorry I can't help you with anything else but the people on dgrin are great and the smug heroes could talk you through it. Nice work
Excellent, looks good and works well.
Thank you for the suggestion. Since I only have old photos to work with, I am waiting to slowly update my galleries, then I will do as you suggest - crop the "cover photos" as appropriately for the folder/gallery covers.
- You have a login link on your homepage that is of no use to your viewers. Why not remove it? You can always login at www.smugmug.com.
- I'm not sure why you have used the titles "Multiple Nested Galleries" and "Stand-alone Galleries". I don't believe those sections need titles at all.
- I would make the Other folder unlisted. You would need to change the URL for the galleries in that folder that you reference to include the code that is generated if it is unlisted, but there is really no reason to allow someone to browse to the galleries in that folder.
--- DeniseMusings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com
I have adopted the 4:3 cover image ratio which will works well for many landscape-aspect images, but certainly not all. Your cover images which have heads cut off are attributable to being portrait-aspect images as far as I can see, but with more images to choose from, you will be able to overcome this problem.
Hey Denise I'd also like to thank you when I unveiled back in August if you remember. Even though it took until this week to have it fully functional, your suggestions did help me get my site viewable to others and for that I thank you too. Remember the bizarre lightbox guy who had no add to cart button or icon in his lightbox? Anyhow if not, it was remembered and appreciated.
Cheers
Paul
Say, you have an image that you want to use as a gallery cover, but its orientation/composition causes SmugMug to pick a "wrong" part of the image (typically, heads off). However, tool that allows to select "feature image" (I assume this is what you call cover image) for the gallery does not restrict you to pich photo from the same gallery.
So, my trick is:
- re-crop my preferred cover photo on the desktop and upload to an unlisted gallery
- got to gallery settinfs and select feature image that you just uploaded
Check "New England Dance..." gallery at http://www.alexmoiseyev.com/Dance/2013 - it has cover image set I just described. Square thubmnail of the image from tha gallery has heads cut off.
My site: www.alexmoiseyev.com
Your site looks good (although I have to say I was surprised that it is essentially one page!).
--- Denise
Musings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com
I am a High School Sports Photographer and have been a SmugMug Pro customer for quite a few years. A year ago I completely revamped my SmugMug site, using lots of customizations from information here at Digital Grin. I wasn't very happy to hear a brand new SmugMug was coming, which would render much of my previous work worthless - particularly since it was going to happen just prior to the start of a new football season, my busiest time.
Anyway, I avoided making any attempts of changing my site but finally got tired of having to go to the Legacy mode all the time and was scared to death I would inadvertently click on "Unveil" and be completely screwed. I bit the bullet and started creating a new site an hour here and two or three hours there.
Things kind of went smooth, except when it came to creating Pages. For some reason I had a heck of a time getting changes to "Save" and quite a few times I would lose several hours worth of work, which would seem to disappear on its own. I finally hit on a weird system of getting the changes to stick. I would make the necessary changes, choose Done, and then Exit and select the option of "Save For Later". Then I would go back into Customization mode on the Page I had previously worked on, go into a previous text box, enter a meaningless space after the end of any paragraph, hit Done and then hit "Publish Now". My previous important change would then be saved. I have no idea why that works, but it did for me.
Anyway, at the end of the process I love my site. My Home Page is filled with my favorite jaw-dropping sports shots and I'm getting the "WOW!" feedback from my customers.
I think SmugMug could have made the process easier, but if you stick with it, the rewards are great. By the way, I sent an email to SmugMug Support four days ago for help on the Saving Pages problems I was having and have yet to hear back except for the promise to get back to me within 48 hours. I suspect they are swamped with a deluge of questions from frustrated site customers.
Here's my new site http://photoexperts-net.smugmug.com/
http://photoexperts-net.smugmug.com/
http://photoexperts.zenfolio.com/