New Photo Editor

mbonocorembonocore Registered Users Posts: 2,299 Major grins
edited August 21, 2014 in SmugMug Product News
Click here if you want to jump straight to the announcement on our blog


If you’ve used our photo editing tools since we launched the New SmugMug you’ve probably noticed that our new look didn’t stretch beyond the surface. Many of our owner-only features still displayed the old legacy look and feel.

We’ve been working on it! So today, in addition to giving your photo tools a makeover, we’ve gone one step further and combined a few of the best owner-only features into one easy-to-use screen.

What Does It Do?

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Our new Photo Editor lets you edit photos (and videos) that you’ve already uploaded into your galleries:

Add or edit image titles, captions, and keywords
Apply, remove, and change Watermarks
Crop and rotate photos
Apply color effects
Add or edit geolocation

Where To Find It

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You’ll find your new photo editor under any single uploaded photo or video, right in your gallery. You’ll see “Open in Editor” as the first option under the wrench icon.

http://schmoohost.smugmug.com/photos/i-NsBN7jh/0/O/i-NsBN7jh.jpg

Or, edit multiple photos at once: Open up your site-wide Organizer and select the photos you want to tweak in the preview pane on the right. Then click the wrench icon. Any of the photo editing options you’ll see there will automatically take you to the new Photo Editor. Presto!

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“What About Video Files?”

You’ll still be able to open the Photo Editor for your video files to edit your Titles, Captions, Keywords, as well as geographical info.

However, the other options you’ll usually see for photos aren’t available for videos.

About Your Originals…

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Since keeping your original files archived is (and always has been) super important to us, we’ll display a confirmation window any time changes you’re making here will affect your originals, such as cropping and the application of color effects.

Tip: If you’re unsure, we always suggest that you make a copy of the image first, then work on that. You can always delete it if you change your mind

“Is It Available On My Account?”

Yes! All accounts from Basic to Business get this feature, with the exception of the Watermarking tools, which are only available at the Portfolio and Business levels.

You can read all the nitty-gritty details about the Photo Editor in our updated help pages.

Enjoy quicker, easier editing for everything you shoot!
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Comments

  • leftquarkleftquark Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 3,784 Many Grins
    edited May 22, 2014
    Neat! The changes definitely are in line with the New SM look and make some of the editing features much simpler. Bravo

    Looks like you got rid of the feature for "Crop Thumbnail", though, where we could select the way the thumbnail would look. Response from Heroes was that the feature may be gone for good. That would be quite the bummer for those people using "Thumbnail" gallery view and no longer can control how their images look in their galleries. I'm sure we'll see some requests to get the feature back.

    Still crossing my fingers for that Shopping Cart upgrade. It's one of the only remaining items still with the Legacy look! headscratch.gifne_nau.gif
    dGrin Afficionado
    Former SmugMug Product Team
    aaron AT aaronmphotography DOT com
    Website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com
    My SmugMug CSS Customizations website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com/Customizations
  • kimbomackimbomac Registered Users Posts: 99 Big grins
    edited May 22, 2014
    I have to say that I am confused as to why an image hosting and website producing company would prioritise online image editing above actual site functionality as items to be worked on. Are there really so many people out there who would prefer to do image editing online rather than on their originals on their own computers?

    Personally, I would have loved to see real and actual CSS capabilities introduced to enable us to customise sections of the site (and all cascading sub-sections) as should be the case with CSS, since those I can't do myself at home, whereas image editing is something that virtually all computers have at least the basic capabilities to do.

    Am I really in the minority while people are editing the images on their websites in situ?!
    Kimbomac

    (FeaturePhotography.net)
  • leftquarkleftquark Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 3,784 Many Grins
    edited May 22, 2014
    kimbomac wrote: »
    I have to say that I am confused as to why an image hosting and website producing company would prioritise online image editing above actual site functionality as items to be worked on.

    ...

    Am I really in the minority while people are editing the images on their websites in situ?!

    I completely agree but I figured I'd at least thank them, first, for making the site better. It may not be exactly what we want at this moment but there are uses where this new functionality can be handy. From a site migration stand-point, though, it does make sense. They came out with this new amazing SmugMug almost a year ago but still have Legacy features? Those should definitely see upgrades. And also remember, that as mobile smartphone usage goes up, so does uploads to SmugMug via Smart-Phones. This positions them to be able to edit photos taken on your camera-phone.

    Would I rather see other things? Yes, definitely. I'd rather see a shopping cart upgrade since the current one is causing me to lose business. I'd rather see a real WYSIWIG text editor that actually has functionality so people don't have to use HTML/CSS blocks. I'd rather have the capability to customize the SmugMug Gallery layout without having to use crazy CSS tweaks. I'd rather be able to turn on/off features of the site with the click of a button and not with CSS hacks. I'd love to be able to use more than 1 google font without a CSS hack. The list goes on but at least we are getting site updates!
    dGrin Afficionado
    Former SmugMug Product Team
    aaron AT aaronmphotography DOT com
    Website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com
    My SmugMug CSS Customizations website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com/Customizations
  • pilotdavepilotdave Registered Users Posts: 785 Major grins
    edited May 22, 2014
    leftquark wrote: »
    I completely agree but I figured I'd at least thank them, first, for making the site better. It may not be exactly what we want at this moment but there are uses where this new functionality can be handy.

    What new functionally are you thanking them for? For the most part this is just a new way to get to old functions. All the editing functions existed before except adding titles in bulk. But being able to put the same title on multiple images is hardly a useful feature.

    The reality is that this "upgrade" consists more of a removal of functionality than an increase. This is smugmug cleaning up their interface to remove lesser used tools which confuse new users and create a lot of help desk tickets. Instead of making tools more intuitive and adding functionality, smugmug's new policy is to just delete and make things better looking. Try adding a bunch of keywords using the new tool... It's slow, clunky, and great looking. Typical smugmug upgrade.

    Dave
  • dennismullendennismullen Registered Users Posts: 709 Major grins
    edited May 22, 2014
    What have you done?

    I used to be able to go into organize, select keywords, view all the pictures and their keywords, and copy and paste from one to the other.
    Now I have to type in the same keywords over and over again!
    This is not progress.
    See my gallery at http://www.dennismullen.com
  • kimbomackimbomac Registered Users Posts: 99 Big grins
    edited May 22, 2014
    OMG, I just looked at the new Organiser and I have to say, it's awful. I haven't tried using it, but I can't say it invites me to do so.

    I used to be able to type in and copy and paste things all over and be able to see everything about the images that I needed to. Whilst I asked for and appreciate the addition of the title to the organiser capabilities, I hadn't thought it required the whole thing to be reworked to the point of being much harder to use. Clicking from one image to the next to edit them will take so much more clicking about and not being able to compare the data in any of the images at a glance is really going backwards.

    This organiser wants us to blindly add keywords to images in bulk when we can't even see what's there already without viewing them one at a time...

    Not happy about this one as it really feels like going backwards...
    Kimbomac

    (FeaturePhotography.net)
  • pilotdavepilotdave Registered Users Posts: 785 Major grins
    edited May 22, 2014
    Don't know if this will work for people using new smug, but the address for the old bulk caption/keyword tool is: yoursite.com/photos/tools.mg?AlbumID=XXXX&AlbumKey=YYYY&tool=bulkcaption

    You can find the albumid and albumkey in a gallery's source code. Definitely not ideal but if you really want to use the old tool, it's still there... I think! Anyone want to see if it still works?

    Dave
  • denisegoldbergdenisegoldberg Administrators Posts: 14,376 moderator
    edited May 22, 2014
    pilotdave wrote: »
    Don't know if this will work for people using new smug, but the address for the old bulk caption/keyword tool is: yoursite.com/photos/tools.mg?AlbumID=XXXX&AlbumKey=YYYY&tool=bulkcaption
    Thanks for the URL Dave.

    Yes, it still works. It's a bit disconcerting though - when I clicked save I ended up on an http page not found page but I verified that the changes I made were saved successfully.

    --- Denise
  • BaldyBaldy Registered Users, Super Moderators Posts: 2,853 moderator
    edited May 22, 2014
    What have you done?

    I used to be able to go into organize, select keywords, view all the pictures and their keywords, and copy and paste from one to the other.
    Now I have to type in the same keywords over and over again!
    This is not progress.
    Here's a couple tips in 40 seconds on the new keyword tool that aren't very discoverable but once you do discover them, very helpful:

    http://youtu.be/rXaftgbM21M
  • AllenAllen Registered Users Posts: 10,013 Major grins
    edited May 22, 2014
    In the old caption/keyword tool I used browser search to jump to words in the WHOLE gallery. I could quickly jump
    to another caption/keyword that I might want to copy from. Now every edit is stand-alone for a single photo with
    no way of finding anything similar in the gallery to use/paste in.
    Al - Just a volunteer here having fun
    My Website index | My Blog
  • BaldyBaldy Registered Users, Super Moderators Posts: 2,853 moderator
    edited May 22, 2014
    kimbomac wrote: »
    I have to say that I am confused as to why an image hosting and website producing company would prioritise online image editing above actual site functionality as items to be worked on. Are there really so many people out there who would prefer to do image editing online rather than on their originals on their own computers?
    Unfortunately, yes, it's a very large topic. There are so many other things we'd rather work on if we could (the shopping cart team is separate, btw, not affected by what the tools team is doing).

    But the most common workflow is to upload to SmugMug and go straight to tools for organizing, captioning, keywording, watermarking, deleting, etc. The volume is really heavy.

    I can see from the posters here that some people were satisfied with the current tools, but that wasn't the majority view. Some of the very common asks were things like show me bigger images when I'm keywording, give me a quick way to select a group of photos and add/subtract/replace a keyword, let me add titles in bulk (a common use case is copyright info), save me from having to tab tab tab scroll scroll scroll when keywording and captioning, etc.

    Reading what's being said here, watching other customers and using the tools ourselves, we've come up with a long list of improvements to save us all time and aggravation, and hopefully we'll be able to get a lot of it done relatively quickly.
  • BaldyBaldy Registered Users, Super Moderators Posts: 2,853 moderator
    edited May 22, 2014
    Allen wrote: »
    In the old caption/keyword tool I used browser search to jump to words in the WHOLE gallery. I could quickly jump
    to another caption/keyword that I might want to copy from. Now every edit is stand-alone for a single photo with
    no way of finding anything similar in the gallery to use/paste in.
    Hey Allen, we both posted about the same time and i wasn't sure if you had seen this tips video:

    http://youtu.be/rXaftgbM21M

    But if you did see it, I can understand the point because each time you click an image, you don't get a list of keywords for the whole gallery to just plus. If that were there, would that solve what you're looking for?
  • AllenAllen Registered Users Posts: 10,013 Major grins
    edited May 22, 2014
    Baldy wrote: »
    Hey Allen, we both posted about the same time and i wasn't sure if you had seen this tips video:

    http://youtu.be/rXaftgbM21M

    But if you did see it, I can understand the point because each time you click an image, you don't get a list of keywords for the whole gallery to just plus. If that were there, would that solve what you're looking for?
    Saw it.
    It's the combination of all the captions and keywords. It could be a caption further down or up that
    I'll use on multiple photos. Nothing worst then having to recreate a caption for similar photo subjects.
    That's where the old tool was great, I'd add XXXX to a blank caption, search for similar caption,
    search back to XXXX and paste in.

    There is nothing that can be created that's better then seeing the captions/keywords for the whole
    gallery on one page. Cycling thru photos one at a time is really non-productive.

    I worked as a design engineer and retired after 40yrs so I think in logic only. :D
    Al - Just a volunteer here having fun
    My Website index | My Blog
  • BaldyBaldy Registered Users, Super Moderators Posts: 2,853 moderator
    edited May 22, 2014
    Allen wrote: »
    Saw it.
    It's the combination of all the captions and keywords. It could be a caption further down or up that
    I'll use on multiple photos. Nothing worst then having to recreate a caption for similar photo subjects.
    That's where the old tool was great, I'd add XXXX to a blank caption, search for similar caption,
    search back to XXXX and paste in.

    There is nothing that can be created that's better then seeing the captions/keywords for the whole
    gallery on one page. Cycling thru photos one at a time is really non-productive.

    I worked as a design engineer and retired after 40yrs so I think in logic only. :D
    Hmmm..., that's interesting, thanks for that. The tools have been out a day and we're seeing very heavy usage. The numbers seem to be indicating that 25% of photos are being keyworded with multi-select in bulk, and about 75% individually.

    I wonder how the numbers will trend over the upcoming days and weeks as people pick up on multi-select. You don't have to copy and paste from field to field anymore. Just select the photos you want to have the same keywords, enter the keywords once and done.

    We have many rough corners to smooth to reduce clicks, etc., but the paradigm of multi select rather than browser search, select, copy, scroll, tab, paste...seems easier for most people, no?
  • AllenAllen Registered Users Posts: 10,013 Major grins
    edited May 22, 2014
    I think you missed my point, which has nothing to with slamming a common caption on a bunch of photos.
    Almost every one of my photos gets a different caption.
    Al - Just a volunteer here having fun
    My Website index | My Blog
  • mbonocorembonocore Registered Users Posts: 2,299 Major grins
    edited May 23, 2014
    leftquark wrote: »
    Neat! The changes definitely are in line with the New SM look and make some of the editing features much simpler. Bravo

    Looks like you got rid of the feature for "Crop Thumbnail", though, where we could select the way the thumbnail would look. Response from Heroes was that the feature may be gone for good. That would be quite the bummer for those people using "Thumbnail" gallery view and no longer can control how their images look in their galleries. I'm sure we'll see some requests to get the feature back.

    Still crossing my fingers for that Shopping Cart upgrade. It's one of the only remaining items still with the Legacy look! headscratch.gifne_nau.gif

    Aaron, take a look at Baldy's post in another thread. http://dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1954968&postcount=59
  • dennismullendennismullen Registered Users Posts: 709 Major grins
    edited May 23, 2014
    Baldy wrote: »
    Hmmm..., that's interesting, thanks for that. The tools have been out a day and we're seeing very heavy usage. The numbers seem to be indicating that 25% of photos are being keyworded with multi-select in bulk, and about 75% individually.

    I wonder how the numbers will trend over the upcoming days and weeks as people pick up on multi-select. You don't have to copy and paste from field to field anymore. Just select the photos you want to have the same keywords, enter the keywords once and done.

    We have many rough corners to smooth to reduce clicks, etc., but the paradigm of multi select rather than browser search, select, copy, scroll, tab, paste...seems easier for most people, no?

    You can't see what you have. There is no global view to spot problems. You are forced to blindly put keywords in without the feedback of seeing the results. No, It doesn't seem easier at all.
    See my gallery at http://www.dennismullen.com
  • Traces of TexasTraces of Texas Registered Users Posts: 77 Big grins
    edited May 23, 2014
    Allen wrote: »
    In the old caption/keyword tool I used browser search to jump to words in the WHOLE gallery. I could quickly jump
    to another caption/keyword that I might want to copy from. Now every edit is stand-alone for a single photo with
    no way of finding anything similar in the gallery to use/paste in.


    Um... YEAH! Allen nailed it.

    What the heck is going on?

    I swear I spend more time trying to figure out Smugmug's interface improvements than I do actually working on my photos and captions.

    I really need to be able to see all of my captions/keywords on one page. Having to sort through 2500 images one-by-one in a gallery is a nightmare.
  • Traces of TexasTraces of Texas Registered Users Posts: 77 Big grins
    edited May 23, 2014
    Allen wrote: »
    I think you missed my point, which has nothing to with slamming a common caption on a bunch of photos.
    Almost every one of my photos gets a different caption.


    Mine, too, Allen.

    Every photo has a different title, different captions etc...

    I'm at my wit's end.
  • GaryBakkerGaryBakker Registered Users Posts: 266 Major grins
    edited May 23, 2014
    Allen wrote: »

    There is nothing that can be created that's better then seeing the captions/keywords for the whole
    gallery on one page. Cycling thru photos one at a time is really non-productive.

    I agree wholeheartedly with Allen (and others)!

    I have a different caption on every single one of my photos. The old approach allowed me to caption an entire gallery with a single page being open. Now I am forced to click on each photo individually and add a caption, then click on the next photo to add a caption, and so forth.

    The old way was quick and easy.
    The new way is slow and difficult..

    This step backwards in usability makes no sense to me.
    SmugMug site => The Bakker Chautauqua
    "The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits." (Einstein)
  • FergusonFerguson Registered Users Posts: 1,345 Major grins
    edited May 23, 2014
    Baldy wrote: »
    But the most common workflow is to upload to SmugMug and go straight to tools for organizing, captioning, keywording, watermarking, deleting, etc. The volume is really heavy.


    Thank kind of insight is very helpful, as my first reaction was "why are you doing this, does anyone really do that"?

    Personally I use lightroom to maintain everything and publish via its tools. I fall back to the SM tools only when I can't otherwise do it (e.g. organizing galleries within folders). I can't imagine why I would ever want to edit a photo ON smugmug for example -- that's not my original, why edit there?

    But knowing I'm in a minority is a perspective that helps.

    Understanding why people are using a web hosting site as a photo processor would be even better insight, but I suspect I'll never "get it" in that regard.
  • GaryBakkerGaryBakker Registered Users Posts: 266 Major grins
    edited May 23, 2014
    Ferguson wrote: »
    Thank kind of insight is very helpful, as my first reaction was "why are you doing this, does anyone really do that"?

    Personally I use lightroom to maintain everything and publish via its tools. I fall back to the SM tools only when I can't otherwise do it (e.g. organizing galleries within folders). I can't imagine why I would ever want to edit a photo ON smugmug for example -- that's not my original, why edit there?

    But knowing I'm in a minority is a perspective that helps.

    Understanding why people are using a web hosting site as a photo processor would be even better insight, but I suspect I'll never "get it" in that regard.

    Ferguson, I am as perplexed as you are. It is almost beyond my comprehension that people would do their primary photo editing on SM rather than on software that is dedicated to that purpose. Especially since most of the SM users (I think) are pro or semi-pro.

    Shrug. I guess it takes all kinds to make the world go round.

    Yet I would also prefer the limited resources available to SM to be dedicated to usability and speed rather than photo editing. I guess, surprisingly, we're in the minority.
    SmugMug site => The Bakker Chautauqua
    "The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits." (Einstein)
  • AllenAllen Registered Users Posts: 10,013 Major grins
    edited May 23, 2014
    GaryBakker wrote: »
    ... It is almost beyond my comprehension that people would do their primary photo editing on SM rather than on software that is dedicated to that purpose. ...
    I think the major reason for editing on Smug are photos from phones. It would be a PITA to have to load
    every photo from a phone into editing software, save and upload. Much quicker and easier to just
    upload from phone and edit later.
    Al - Just a volunteer here having fun
    My Website index | My Blog
  • Traces of TexasTraces of Texas Registered Users Posts: 77 Big grins
    edited May 23, 2014
    Allen wrote: »
    I think the major reason for editing on Smug are photos from phones. It would be a PITA to have to load
    every photo from a phone into editing software, save and upload. Much quicker and easier to just
    upload from phone and edit later.


    Who edits photos that they took with a phone? Are there photographers out there who are taking photos with a phone and then trying to sell them on Smugmug? Is there any serious photographer who doesn't use Photoshop or Lightroom to edit the photos that they take with their high dollar Nikons and Canons?

    Mystified.
  • GaryBakkerGaryBakker Registered Users Posts: 266 Major grins
    edited May 23, 2014
    Allen wrote: »
    I think the major reason for editing on Smug are photos from phones. It would be a PITA to have to load every photo from a phone into editing software, save and upload. Much quicker and easier to just upload from phone and edit later.

    That sounds like a reasonable explanation I guess. I never thought of that.

    (Though I suspect the creative editing capabilities on my iPhone app are greater than what is available on SM.)
    SmugMug site => The Bakker Chautauqua
    "The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits." (Einstein)
  • mbonocorembonocore Registered Users Posts: 2,299 Major grins
    edited May 23, 2014
    Ferguson wrote: »
    Thank kind of insight is very helpful, as my first reaction was "why are you doing this, does anyone really do that"?



    Personally I use lightroom to maintain everything and publish via its tools. I fall back to the SM tools only when I can't otherwise do it (e.g. organizing galleries within folders). I can't imagine why I would ever want to edit a photo ON smugmug for example -- that's not my original, why edit there?



    But knowing I'm in a minority is a perspective that helps.



    Understanding why people are using a web hosting site as a photo processor would be even better insight, but I suspect I'll never "get it" in that regard.


    Yeah, most of the DGrin community is a passionate bunch of pretty seasoned photographers who do all their keywording In Lightroom. But as we have seen, a lot of people upload photos with no keywords.

    I use Lightroom to keyword also, and usually do all the mass changes using the SmugMug plugin, so that way LR and SM always mirror each other as far as keywords, captions, etc.
  • dennismullendennismullen Registered Users Posts: 709 Major grins
    edited May 23, 2014
    mbonocore wrote: »
    Yeah, most of the DGrin community is a passionate bunch of pretty seasoned photographers who do all their keywording In Lightroom. But as we have seen, a lot of people upload photos with no keywords.

    I use Lightroom to keyword also, and usually do all the mass changes using the SmugMug plugin, so that way LR and SM always mirror each other as far as keywords, captions, etc.

    Thanks mbonocore, I use Adobe Bridge and it has a nice keyword section where I can have canned keywords for most of my purposes.
    I have to adjust my workflow a little but this will save me the trouble of messing with the smugmug keyword editor.

    Now if you would just re-enable the choice of having uploaded files added to the top of the gallery instead of the bottom when set to Sort Manually,
    I wouldn't have to go into Organize and drag the picture from the bottom to the top after every upload.
    It sure would be nice to upload a picture and know it was roughly in the right place and with its keywords without having to open Organize.

    Cheers,
    See my gallery at http://www.dennismullen.com
  • FergusonFerguson Registered Users Posts: 1,345 Major grins
    edited May 23, 2014
    mbonocore wrote: »
    Yeah, most of the DGrin community is a passionate bunch of pretty seasoned photographers...

    How would you characterize your most prevalent customer type though?

    Is that one of the reasons DGrin's community seems at odds with Smugmug now -- is your average customer the type who (perhaps) is using Smugmug AS their storage place, they upload here, they edit here -- not as display place for their archive or portfolio but as THE place?
  • Traces of TexasTraces of Texas Registered Users Posts: 77 Big grins
    edited May 23, 2014
    Ferguson wrote: »
    How would you characterize your most prevalent customer type though?

    Is that one of the reasons DGrin's community seems at odds with Smugmug now -- is your average customer the type who (perhaps) is using Smugmug AS their storage place, they upload here, they edit here -- not as display place for their archive or portfolio but as THE place?


    Yes, but doesn't Smugmug actually make money from the professionals who sell their images on Smugmug? Every time I sell a photo, Smugmug gets a cut. And why wouldn't casual Iphone users just use Flickr, where they get a terrabyte of free storage?
  • kimbomackimbomac Registered Users Posts: 99 Big grins
    edited May 23, 2014
    The keywords I put on my photos in Lightroom are for my own purposes to assist with sorting, searching and general cataloging. They are not necessarily the keywords I want to have exposed on my website, so although I do keyword at home, I do want to modify these substantially when I upload. In fact, my EXIF data is stripped from my files before I upload in a lot of cases, because I don't want much of it out there on the web. Having to do all this individual image viewing to see what keywords are on any one image is very time-consuming and not nearly as easy to use as before. The prior method of doing it was very easy, and all it needed was for the Image title to be added to that page. How easy would THAT have been??!

    As someone else pointed out with respect to image editing, I also do all my editing at home on my computer with software that is dedicated to the task and much better at it. If I upload something from my phone, I'd want to edit on my phone with an app first, as there are a lot more options out there than SM would have. Not to mention that if I AM such a phone user, I can't imagine doing significant editing from a phone, although it might be slightly easier from larger portable form factors.

    So, again I say that since I signed up and paid for Smugmug for web hosting and presentation capabilities, I am disappointed that true CSS styles still can't be cascaded through different sections of my site, which was at least possible with custom CSS in the old SM. But instead work is being done to provide functionality that seems to me to be somewhat off-track of the core purpose of the place.

    Of course, if there ARE heaps of people who do all this sort of thing online and online only, and the functionality is being heavily used, then I am very confused as to the state of the world.ne_nau.gif
    Kimbomac

    (FeaturePhotography.net)
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