Dgrin How To mission statement?

rutt

Well, I wrote one of these. To be more accurate, I converted my old Sharpening Tutorial to the Sharpening -- USM Theory & Practice 'tute.

Now I'm looking at some of my other old tutorial posts and thinking about some of the other stuff I'd like to teach and wondering how it fits into the mission of the 'tutes. But that makes me realize that I don't really know what the mission of these things is. David kept emphasizing that they need to be at a very basic level, really aimed at the beginners. If so, I wonder how much of my stuff is really appropriate. What about the LAB book chapter 1 summary? Personally, I think this is the best thing to teach 90% of the people who want to add "pop". But I just don't know what we are trying to accomplish here and I have some questions about the tools we are using to do it. So at the risk of being a drip, I made a list of issues and I hope we can discuss them a little without beating them to death. IMHO, the project can succeed better if we do this.

1. The 'tutes project represents a consolidation of some things we've learned together and taught each other over the two years of dgrin's existence. It's sort of a super "Hall of Wisdom", and just the act of reformatting these things forces us to clean them up and improve them.
2. The 'tutes project is sort of like a book we are writing together which will draw people to dgrin and serve to promote it's mission as a photographic community. It will help newcomers to get up to speed and join the community more quickly.
3. David claims that the How To's will be easier to find because they will eventually be organized via some sort of table of contents. That sounds good, but at the moment it's vapor ware. On the other hand, try googling "dgrin sharpening" right now.
4. The journal gallery is a more restrictive format than dgrin posts and far more restrictive than HTML. The good thing is that this makes all the 'tutes sort of look the same. The bad thing is that it restricts image size and placement. I think my sharpening tutorial works much better as a dgrin post if only because the images can be large enough to show what they need to show or small enough not to take up more room than they need to.
5. The 'tutes use images from dgrin galleries, which are presumably less ephemeral than other sources.
6. Access to the 'tutes galleries is restricted. Only some authors (moderators?) can edit their work without aid.

Have I got this about right? I was trying to be objective so far and just state the facts. Perhaps I've missed some issues.

OK, now I'll say what I think. 1. and 2. are very admirable, but will take not just effort now but also maintenance in the future. Let's score them in favor of the 'tutes. 3. will be nice when it's done, but we could also make a table of contents of great dgrin threads. Sore it a tie. I want to discuss 4 in a little more detail below. 5. is a clear win for the 'tutes. It's something that needed doing. Score strongly for the 'tutes. 6 is a big drag for those of us who author 'tutes and don't have write access to them. Score strongly in favor of dgrin threads. But, of course this could be fixed, it's just a matter of trusting the authors.

As to 4, we could actually get the best of all worlds if smugmug would be willing to host fairly simple html (as for it's own help pages). We could have a template to serve as as starting point: right backgrounds, header, footer, branding, fonts. This wouldn't exclude journal style 'tutes. Sometimes they are the right thing, just open up the option for greater flexibility for those willing to put in the effort. I don't know the details, but I'll bet it's also possilbe to have a vbtags based 'tute document with very little hassle on the part of the administrators, and again, we could have a template to serve as a common starting point for the sake of visual harmony. Allow html or vbtagged 'tutes and I'll score this one strongly in favor of 'tutes as well. Restricted to the gallery style, I have to score in favor of dgrin posts.

Opinions?

Andy

rutt wrote:

David kept emphasizing that they need to be at a very basic level, really aimed at the beginners.

I just got back from Munich - the movie - and haven't even read your entire post.

But I have to say that this is absolutely incorrect. There are and will be tutorials for all levels.

rutt

Andy wrote:

I just got back from Munich - the movie - and haven't even read your entire post.

But I have to say that this is absolutely incorrect. There are and will be tutorials for all levels.

My post evolved from this point as I wrote it and I didn't even consider it in my list. I agree with you, Andy, as you might have guessed. I don't think it's even possible to achieve point 1 and 2 on my list if we always assume the audience to be absolute beginners.

Belongs in the mission statement: Tutorials aimed at all skill levels.

Andy

In one of my mails to you I said, LAB, for sure - need a good, solid, Lab tutorial.

Can you give me a little slack on the "vapor ware?" Goodness - everything is keyworded, and there aren't 500 things to search thru yet even. I have a plan.

Image size *is not* restricted. Not in the least.

Images from dgrin galleries? Ephemeral? You've lost me totally

Access? It's ONLY accessible to me at this point. You write your tutorial, and I move it from your site or whereever. Illuminati, is writing one via email, and sending it to me, via email. One pic, one caption by email to my email address. What's the big deal?

We are not making any special HTML hosting or any of that. Everything will be done via the Journal style galleries - Captions, are fully HTML-able. This has to be easy for me to administer - and I can't think of an easier thing than making a gallery, typing in caption (in English even, some folks don't know HTML!) and me moving it and doing final edit, markup. This worked fine for 3 tutes Cletus gave us from his website, and the many, many that David put together already.

This is NOT a competition between the dgrin.smugmug.com site and dgrin posts. Make your tutorials on Dgrin - GREAT - they can be copied and put in the tutorial site if it makes sense. Not a competition -- rather they are complementary.

I hope this helps,

DavidTO

rutt wrote:

David kept emphasizing that they need to be at a very basic level, really aimed at the beginners.

Not exactly. I said that the "pop" tutes were aimed at beginners--people who do not yet understand what a colorspace or mode is, and especially for those who don't yet care what they are. And then I asked you to write a LAB tute. We're all in agreement here--tutes for all levels.

DavidTO

DavidTO wrote:

Not exactly. I said that the "pop" tutes were aimed at beginners--people who do not yet understand what a colorspace or mode is, and especially for those who don't yet care what they are. And then I asked you to write a LAB tute. We're all in agreement here--tutes for all levels.

I just read this, and I wanted to edify.

Tutes for all levels means that the beginner tutes need to be very clear, concise, and do not muddy the water with the next level. If we add anything beyond the basics they no longer serve their audience.

I'm with you rutt, that LAB is a more effective way to add pop to an image, and I hope that every person who reads my tute graduates to LAB. BUT: it requires the interest in learning what LAB is, heck it requires understanding what RGB is. The basic pop tute doesn't require any of that. It's a small step above auto levels. But it's a step up.

The last thing I want to say is that as you learned by moving your sharpening tute to the new format, it's a lot of work. You didn't write anything new, that I noticed, and it takes a while, doesn't it? I'm really excited about where this is going, and I'm right with you on 95% of what you're after. I guess the problem with the journal style is the only place where I differ. It's just too easy for too many people for us to move to a different method...

rutt

Andy wrote:

In one of my mails to you I said, LAB, for sure - need a good, solid, Lab tutorial.

This is a huge topic. Ask Dan Margulis. But a LAB pop recipe based on chapter 1 is in the works.

Andy wrote:

Can you give me a little slack on the "vapor ware?" Goodness - everything is keyworded, and there aren't 500 things to search thru yet even. I have a plan.

I scored it a tie. We could make a table of contents for our all time favorite dgrin threads.

Andy wrote:

Image size *is not* restricted. Not in the least.

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear or am just plain missing something. Read the original USM thread and then look at the tutorial. The thread just plain works better because I was able to choose between various sized for the inlined images. I don't know how to do this with the journal syle. Am I missing something? Can I make an image wide enough to span the page?

Andy wrote:

Images from dgrin galleries? Ephemeral? You've lost me totally

I scored this in favor of the tutorials. Suppose I were to cancel my smugmug account (or die?) The images from my smugmug accounts would eventually go off line and the tutorials I've posted which use them would be broken. Having the images for the tutorials hosted from the dgrin account removes that risk, which I think is important for the posts we like the best.
Clearer this time?

Andy wrote:

Access? It's ONLY accessible to me at this point. You write your tutorial, and I move it from your site or whereever. Illuminati, is writing one via email, and sending it to me, via email. One pic, one caption by email to my email address. What's the big deal?

Sorry, it bugs me. Can't help it. As an author, I see it as a disincentive for writing these. I'll get over it; I already have. But there it is.

Andy wrote:

We are not making any special HTML hosting or any of that. Everything will be done via the Journal style galleries - Captions, are fully HTML-able. This has to be easy for me to administer - and I can't think of an easier thing than making a gallery, typing in caption (in English even, some folks don't know HTML!) and me moving it and doing final edit, markup. This worked fine for 3 tutes Cletus gave us from his website, and the many, many that David put together already.

It's a decision that you made. Is it not subject to discussion and possible revision? Of course, a good anwer to the issue of inline image size in the journal style would make it moot for me. And I wan't proposing that all tutorials be writting in HTML, only that the option be open for the ambitious tutorial author.

Andy wrote:

This is NOT a competition between the dgrin.smugmug.com site and dgrin posts. Make your tutorials on Dgrin - GREAT - they can be copied and put in the tutorial site if it makes sense. Not a competition -- rather they are complementary.

Yes, I think that was the gist of the first two points on my list. In fact:

Tutorial Mission Statement: The tutorials are a way of consolidating our shared knowledge and making it more permenant and accessable, especially for newer members of the community.

Andy wrote:

I hope this helps,

This discussion is very helpful to me in understanding what it is I'm trying to accomplish by writing these things.

Andy

rutt wrote:

This is a huge topic. Ask Dan Margulis. But a LAB pop recipe based on chapter 1 is in the works.

I scored it a tie. We could make a table of contents for our all time favorite dgrin threads.

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear or am just plain missing something. Read the original USM thread and then look at the tutorial. The thread just plain works better because I was able to choose between various sized for the inlined images. I don't know how to do this with the journal syle. Am I missing something? Can I make an image wide enough to span the page?

I scored this in favor of the tutorials. Suppose I were to cancel my smugmug account (or die?) The images from my smugmug accounts would eventually go off line and the tutorials I've posted which use them would be broken. Having the images for the tutorials hosted from the dgrin account removes that risk, which I think is important for the posts we like the best.
Clearer this time?

Sorry, it bugs me. Can't help it. As an author, I see it as a disincentive for writing these. I'll get over it; I already have. But there it is.

It's a decision that you made. Is it not subject to discussion and possible revision? Of course, a good anwer to the issue of inline image size in the journal style would make it moot for me. And I wan't proposing that all tutorials be writting in HTML, only that the option be open for the ambitious tutorial author.

Yes, I think that was the gist of the first two points on my list. In fact:

Tutorial Mission Statement: The tutorials are a way of consolidating our shared knowledge and making it more permenant and accessable, especially for newer members of the community.

This discussion is very helpful to me in understanding what it is I'm trying to accomplish by writing these things.

All good stuff. At this point, I'd prefer not to have html-only pages - even for the adventurous - would prefer to stick with journal style for ease of maintenance. You can have images up to 800px wide for your crops and examples - when the viewer needs to see it bigger, direct him to do so by saying "click on the image to see this full-size."

rutt

Andy wrote:

You can have images up to 800px wide for your crops and examples - when the viewer needs to see it bigger, direct him to do so by saying "click on the image to see this full-size."

I don't seem to be able to get images larger than 400px wide. Am I doing something wrong?

Andy

rutt wrote:

I don't seem to be able to get images larger than 400px wide. Am I doing something wrong?

Yep you're mising out on the "click to make larger" bit - when you click on an image, you get single image mode:

rutt

Oh, I didn't understand what you were saying. 400px wide is the limit for images inline in the journal style. 800px wide is Large size and wha they get when they click on it. We agree about the facts. I still wish there were a way to make at least some of the inline images larger, particularly a before/after at the top of the 1st page. Getting it in the header is pretty simple with CSS. Are there enough CSS hooks to get this only on the first page?

rutt

Please. Pretty please. Can we try an experiment? Just for a few hours, maybe. I'd like to see it.

See: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=27013

Can we try the JS approach to make our journal photo size "Medium"?

I think it would be no problem to target to specific galleries (i.e., the sharpening tutorials.)

Andy

Down boy, down boy...

http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1134301

I do not like it always. We'll see.

rutt

Thanks, Andy. Looks pretty good many of them. I think it's probably easy to target to specific galleries. I can figure that out if you'll use it.

If there's any chance of a new standard SM style, we could just wait for it.

Might be doable as a theme?

Andy

rutt wrote:

Thanks, Andy. Looks pretty good many of them. I think it's probably easy to target to specific galleries. I can figure that out if you'll use it.

If there's any chance of a new standard SM style, we could just wait for it.

Might be doable as a theme?

It looks horrible on 800x600 and 1024x768, for these tutorials.

According to Google Analytics, 58% of our viewers are on 1024x768 or smaller...

rutt

Thanks, Andy. I got to see it. I'm satisfied. Revert if you like.

Andy

rutt wrote:

Thanks, Andy. I got to see it. I'm satisfied. Revert if you like.

I'm not against change. Stay on me on this issue - if it can be made to use not originals, and also gallery specific, shoot me a note. I need to keep that site EASY to maintain, yeah?

rutt

The JS hack doesn't need originals, unless I'm missing something. See:

http://rutt.smugmug.com/gallery/522903

Originals off, Medium sized images in Journal style.

rutt

Andy wrote:

I'm not against change. Stay on me on this issue - if it can be made to use not originals, and also gallery specific, shoot me a note. I need to keep that site EASY to maintain, yeah?

I think this thing has now atained all the desired features. See this post. Can we scrooch him now, Gidney?

Andy

rutt wrote:

I think this thing has now atained all the desired features. See this post. Can we scrooch him now, Gidney?

EXACTLY where does the script go, and how can I make it gallery dependant?

rutt

Andy wrote:

EXACTLY where does the script go, and how can I make it gallery dependant?

1. The script goes in the footer field of the Co-Branding page.
2. Create a new theme, "Journal Medium".
3. Put this in the CSS field of the "Journal Medium" theme:

   #JournalMediumRule {}
   

4. Now you can set the theme of a gallery to "Journal Medium".
5. Even finer control is also possible. Any particular image can be small, medium, or large, regardless of the theme of the gallery. This is controlled by putting one of these things in the caption:

   <span name="JournalSmallMediumRule"></span>
   <span name="JournalMediumRule"></span>
   <span name="JournalLargeRule"></span>
   

6. Captions can be forced to go under the images with this tag:

   <p class="spacer">
   

   although, both Mike and Lee think we should define a more "semantic" tag for this. No biggie here, I'd say.

[Edited to make it work in all known browsers.]

rutt

OK, it's even simpler for the editors now. Just install the script codeto the footer field. Add this to the CSS field:

.clear_paragraph {clear:both;}

That's it, as far as you're concerned.

Now the authors have control be adding:

<span name="JournalMediumRule"></span>

(or "Small" or "Large")

to either the gallery description or to individual image captions. Doing the former sets a gallery default. Doing the later overrides whatever the default as for that one single image.

Authors can also decide to break their text below the current image with:

<p class="clear_paragraph">

All the following text goes below the image. Any text before flows from besides the image to below once it's long enough.

Really, could this be any simpler?

[Edited to with a more correct form of the hidden journal rule construct.]

DavidTO

rutt wrote:

Really, could this be any ruttier?

Rutt, only you could call it simple....and I fixed your quote...

rutt

DavidTO wrote:

Rutt, only you could call it simple....and I fixed your quote...

Simple for the Tutorial maintainers. All you guys do is plop that stuff down in the footer and css sections.

Then if the authors want to choose the size of an image, they can. And really, that's easy too. All they have to do is plop some stuff down in the caption or description. What's the big deal?

How it works is pretty nerdly, but then that's also true of OS X, Smugmug, Photoshop, your car, and your cellphone. That doesn't make them hard to use, now, does it?

Andy

rutt wrote:

Simple for the Tutorial maintainers. All you guys do is plop that stuff down in the footer and css sections.

Then if the authors want to choose the size of an image, they can. And really, that's easy too. All they have to do is plop some stuff down in the caption or description. What's the big deal?

How it works is pretty nerdly, but then that's also true of OS X, Smugmug, Photoshop, your car, and your cellphone. That doesn't make them hard to use, now, does it?

I'm not doing anything until I see it in action for a week. Un-buggy.

rutt

Andy wrote:

I'm not doing anything until I see it in action for a week. Un-buggy.

That's fair enough. Are my galleries a good enough test?

You did say to bug you about it.

Andy

rutt wrote:

That's fair enough. Are my galleries a good enough test?

You did say to bug you about it.

Linkage, I need linkage

rutt

Andy wrote:

Linkage, I need linkage

Examples:

http://renfro.smugmug.com/gallery/1171110
http://photoscapedesign.smugmug.com/gallery/517129

The galleries here show a variety of different mixtures of sizes:

http://rutt.smugmug.com/Stories

The first one shows that the default is still small and will stay that way unless you change it. The others all show larger images. The last one mixes all three sizes. Oh, and there are crops and portrait and landscape orientations to show that works as well.

Anson

Rutt
as a beginner, I very much appreciate this USM post...Excellent! Thank You

and for all it is worth, I agree that any level (beginner thru advanced) with Photoshop, whether the tutorial is based on basic or sophisticated techniques....it as all great stuff and the individual readers will benefit based on their individual needs and current proficiency!


Over time, this post processing thread will develop into a fabulous (step by step) resource
...all the way from K thru 12!
this baby step by baby step aspect of this tutorial format, is where the true value is realized!

rutt

rutt wrote:

Try using just this:

<p class="spacer">

That's the "unsemantic" that Mike and Lee say no to use directly. But I used the clear_paragraph version here: http://rutt.smugmug.com/gallery/960741 and it's working.

Erik, I think this belongs in this thread. Move all the stuff starting with your hijack there, and it won't just be you and me figuring this out.

Oh, and don't move Anson's nice compliment.

DoctorIt

rutt wrote:

Oh, and don't move Anson's nice compliment.

done, thanks for the redirect there, I think