At long last, my new Smug !!!
david-low
Registered Users Posts: 754 Major grins
After a delay for almost 2 yrs after its launch, here's finally my new smug after toiling for almost 2 mths.
I could not think of a better Home Page at this moment except to put in the Photographers’ Quotation, which personally I find it meaningful. In a way it serves as a good reminder for myself.
Let me know if you have any comments as I still trying to make the best out of the new SM design.
Kudos to SM and all the support heros, Denisegoldberg and others who have help me along. A big THANK YOU.
I could not think of a better Home Page at this moment except to put in the Photographers’ Quotation, which personally I find it meaningful. In a way it serves as a good reminder for myself.
Let me know if you have any comments as I still trying to make the best out of the new SM design.
Kudos to SM and all the support heros, Denisegoldberg and others who have help me along. A big THANK YOU.
My gallery: http://david-low.smugmug.com
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Comments
One item for criticism - you should seriously consider enabling larger images in your lightbox/slideshow, after an initial viewing on my phone, I was later disappointed to find them too small to appreciate on my big monitor. Are they actually smaller than the thumbnails?
Tks Erik, appreciate your comments and your observation of the size of photos.
Most of my galleries are Portrait style set to large in front page. Reason I chose this was it enable the viewer to read the full caption, and one just need to scroll in one fell scoop all the way down without flipping a page to see all the photos, unlike Smugmug view. This meant for "lazy" viewers which i believed is aplenty. I could be wrong.
I may consider to change the size display in lightbox from medium to large. At the moment I'm adament, or rather careful in putting up a bigger size pic for obvious reason but I will consider that.
Tks and cheers.
You certainly have a lot of content to display on your site and that is where I hope I can add some constructive feedback.
- as mentioned before, yes the lightbox preview is simply too small for those viewing on a larger monitor. The impact is lost with thumbnail sized images.
- the opening front page of your website is where you will lose half of your visitors immediately. You need to have something impactful that will convince people to stay and want to explore the rest of your site. I'm glad I didn't, but I almost closed down the window as soon as I saw all the photographers quotes. It gives me no real indication to what the websites purpose is. A much stronger pull for visitors would be to have a slideshow of your strongest images as the first thing they see, to convince them to want to see more and check out your portfolio.
- As you have a lot of galleries, you may wish to consider grouping some of these together. There is a lot of content scattered around on your site and I think it could benefit from a bit of housekeeping.
Best of luck with your new smugmug site David, and thanks for sharing your awesome photography!
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Tks Shinrya, for exploring my site and taking your time for the feedback. Now, where do I start.
Navbar
I was also being advised by one of SM hero that it has too many and appears too cluttered. The reason I layout into diff subject, instead of genre like “Action”, “People” or “Sport”, fact is there is a tendency that viewer may seldom click beyond the 2nd or 3rd levels in search for their type of subjects they are looking for. I know because sometimes I also wouldn't want to “waste” further time. But that's me. And in my opinion, it won't take long to have a glance at the menu and that gives viewer a broad idea what's on offer on the plate. As my spectrum of subjects are wide, I can't find any appropriate name I can group under. I have tested on a 11” lap top, the navbar are all contained within the height. Meanwhile I will stay put with that unless I get further adverse comment. Shall see how it goes.
The home page.
The quotations are something new that I produced. Accompanied with photos, I'd hv thought it adds interest. My circles of friends knew what I am, so I really didn't give it a serious thought abt such picture not giving an impact. However, you could be right. This is opening to the www and though I consider the quotations are seldom/never seen before, it counts little if people view it just a novelty, nothing impactful.
Using golf as an analogy, to play good golf, it has to go beyond the mechancis and technicalities of a swing. Its the mental aspect like: think of the present tense and not the pass, slow down your walk when stake are getting higher. Breath easy, visualised your shot before hitting etc. The mere chewing of these golfing quotes has simply improved my game alot. Likewise, most of the photo quotes are valid for photography progression instead of getting too technicals. Never dismissed it. Ok, that's how I progress. Nonetheless, my web should not serve as a tutorial. And rightly so you pointed out not many will get interested to read. You almost give it a miss. I certainly will give it a thought abt your suggestion to have some impactful photos to capitalise on the new smug design. Tks for the pointer. May consider replacing it.
The display size.
Most of my shots are not merely snap or candid. Anything up in cyberspace can subject to abuse. I can't prevent one from making a screen grab, enlarge in PS and use it. A few yrs back, I stumbled upon a French magazine in the web using one of my dragonfly pic. I wrote them to remove it but wonder do they understand English.
I know its odd for a pic appears to be a small little island on a big monitor. My setting was set to medium and display size are bet 650 to 800 pixel according to Smug data. That is abt the size of image in normal emails transmmision. And even with this small size, it can be printed to 4”x6” according to Smug data. Am I right on this? I stand to be corrected.
http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93359
Its a catch 22. I knew too small a print will deny one from appreciating leading to a lost sale (which is not that important to me), against protecting one's own image. Its a balancing act. If its a common snap shot, I'll no doubt enable it larger but my photos are not snap. I hv seen many of you have much larger display. Perhaps you trusted this world we lived in. Lol. At the moment, I'll stay put the display size unless someone can attest its pretty save in this cyberworld and the observation I made is errorneous abt the possible print size when someone pinched it. But my options are opened. Still only a few days into this new smug, hope more comments will come in, esp the display aspect.
Sorry for long reply. Its a free and easy lazy afternoon for me.
I like to hear more from you guys, any further comments would be most appreciated.
I don't think displaying small photos entices anyone to view your site. To me, a using medium as the largest display size is OK on a phone but not on larger device. That size photo does not pull me in to spend time viewing the site. Even a large as the largest size is too small (to me).
It's your choice, not the choice of your viewers. But it is the viewer's choice to spend time on your site and the display size of your photos may attract or push away viewers. I usually don't stay on a site very long if the site only shows small images.
In the event that you decide to increase the largest display size, you should be aware that right click protection does not stop anyone from grabbing your photos (for free). If the image is shown in a browser then it can easily be saved from the browser cache. Finding out how to do this takes no more than a quick search.
I saved one of your images to check if you had a copyright in the file (and I have deleted the image from my computer now, just saved it to look at the file characteristics). The screen shot below shows the properties of one of your files compared with one of mine. You don't currently have any copyright or author information embedded in the file; you might consider placing a copyright in your images in the future. My camera adds a copyright statement to my photos. If you don't have a camera that does that you can add a copyright to the .jpg using a program like Lightroom.
--- Denise
Musings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com
Denise,
Tks for your thoughtful advise and the checking of copy right data.
Its easily said to sue. Even if a few of my images are stolen, its not worth pursuing. And embedding owner name and copy right in the metedata is good, one which till date I have not done it. May consider embeding. However, bottom line still remain its not possible to prevent theft, it may deter. If one wish to pinch it, he will pinch it anyway. And having all these embedment comes into effect on the proviso if one take up the case !
By now you know I wasn't in the game of making profit fr selling picture until the new smug prompt me. But I can't with Power a/c.
Now your further advise is appreciated including others further input (if any). You reckon my picture can sell? A very honest question. I'm aware its tough making decent profit out there. There's one reason I limit my pic size cause I didn't see it that way of making money. Maybe I'm outdated. Maybe I already lose out for the 1st $100,000k. I don't know. Can you guys tell me you have make some good decent money? i know its sensitive question.
If only there is notification of sale of my pic, at least I can gauge the viability of selling option, or knowing where I stand. Than upsizing my pic is not a big issue.
Advise appreciated.
BTW, I have changed the home page (just tentative)
P/S. I know there are some crazy buyers out there. One could pay millions of dollar for two lines depicting the beach and sea horizon, the other a b/W grand canyon with waterfall heavily manipulated. You never know right?
Simply enabling purchasing does not drive sales. I would not expect the photos to sell just by making them available through your site. You must actively market your photos.
Add to that the fact that many people have cameras or phones and figure their snaps are good enough - especially when faced with a photo priced as art.
--- Denise
Musings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com
I have tried stock and has stopped a few yrs back contributing. Not a single sale. I can test water by upgrading my a/c but at this moment I'm not prepare to upgrade. I hv a full time job. My web site brought me a few business to hold photo talk locally without compromising my image size. That's probably good enough for me at the moment.
All of the issues that have been raised, you have dismissed with your already formed opinions.
Your photos are stunning, your website has issues but since you are happy with it, there is little point in stating any of them.
I wish you well in whatever you are trying to achieve.
www.acecootephotography.com
Mr. Ace,
Firstly, thank you for your compliment and well wishes.
I asked for opinion but doesn't mean I must take every advise on board, and I do appreciate what each of them mentioned thus far. There are areas where I feel I prefer a certain way, but there are also some pointers they raised which i did mentioned I'll give it a thought. I didn't dismissed it entirely.
Having said that, I already took Shinrya advise after a day or two thinking abt it. My home page now has changed, the navbar has lesser names. And it certainly looks neater.
Cheers
Because of that one entry, your navigation bar is probably twice as wide as it needs to be.
You already have the sub-menus showing on hover or (+) so visitors can quickly tell what that category is about.
The consequence of having a narrower nav bar is that your beautiful photos will be a little larger and have more impact.
I think you are also making your visitors work harder than they need to with your "centred" alignment of the menu categories.
Perhaps have a look at say "left aligned" and see if it is easier to scan down the list.
Your list is still very long and requires visitors to scroll just to see all the categories. I think it would benefit if you could group some more together under broader categories - I still think you should be able to organise them so they were not more than three levels deep.
Regards
www.acecootephotography.com
Ace and others,
I hv deliberated and taken your pts on board. Here's the final look (more or less).
One thing to consider might be drop down, sub-menu links in the "Galleries" menu bar.
This means that visitors could quickly find the category they are interested in ... and go directly to that one. No need to click on new pages.
This would also mean visitors have two ways in which to access galleries: via the drop down menu system or by selecting the folder/gallery thumbnails on the page.
www.acecootephotography.com
Also glad to see you have dropped the huge number of links on the home page. Grouping them all under one 'Galleries' entry makes more sense. I'm still of the opinion that you have too many sub-catagories under each gallery entry (e.g. clicking on the street gallery pops up with 6 further sub-catagories to choose from), but I'm sure that over time you will refine and fine tune this.
As hard as it can be, sometimes less is more and you want to ensure that your finest images are the ones that people will see when visiting your page.
Follow me on:
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I knew what you mean. Like I had it before when moused over a folder, it will display subnames of various galleries.
Now my "Gallery" in the menu is a mixture of Folders and Gallery. I went to Content and design>entire Site>menu. Can't find that command anymore. Or has to be something else?
http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/1222523
www.acecootephotography.com
Tks Ace, found it. Thought its greyed off.