Maximum Display Size

System · December 13, 2016

This discussion was created from comments split from: Maximum Display Size.

denisegoldberg · December 13, 2016

This seems quite odd to me. I remember talk about larger display sizes a couple of years ago but that was never rolled out. Perhaps the roll out is happening now. Whatever is happening, the Maximum Display Size should remain at the setting I chose when I created the galleries.

I just checked several of my galleries - Maximum Display Size was set to X3Large when I created the galleries but it is now set to All But Original. I didn't change the max display size and I expected it to stay at the size I chose when I created the galleries. I suppose the good news is that the new larger sizes don't show in Lightbox yet.

I would like to see the existing galleries reset to the previously selected maximum display size.

If I don't see a change to the display sizes by sometime tomorrow I will go in and try bulk settings to switch the setting back - but this isn't something I should need to do.

moose135 · December 13, 2016

Strange...I just looked at three or four galleries, and they are all set to XLarge, which is how they were original set. I see the new size options, but the galleries I've checked so far, nothing has be changed.

Allen · December 13, 2016

I just checked some old galleries and I think all are reset to "all but original" back through 2013.
2012 and earlier look like might not have changed. BTW, I do set max size for every gallery created.
Edit: Earliest found so far Jan 2013. Looks like mixture in 2013. Some changed some not.
Edit: some changed in Jan 2012 also. So it looks like could be all over.

Allen · December 13, 2016

I created some galleries this evening and they are all what I set, X3Large. ... for now

leftquark · December 13, 2016

We are slowly rolling out the new display sizes: X4, X5, 4k, and 5k, and the settings behind them. Galleries set to a max-display size smaller than Original should stay at what they were, as far as I'm aware. I'd love a few examples of galleries where that's not the case, so we can dig further.

denisegoldberg · December 13, 2016

@leftquark said:
We are slowly rolling out the new display sizes: X4, X5, 4k, and 5k, and the settings behind them. Galleries set to a max-display size smaller than Original should stay at what they were, as far as I'm aware. I'd love a few examples of galleries where that's not the case, so we can dig further.

All of the galleries on my site that I've looked at so far (from recent to those created many years ago) that were previously set to X3Large are now set to "All But Original". I have already reset galleries in the Fragments category to X3Large but I haven't touched the other categories yet.

So far I have found only 1 gallery on my site that retained the X3Large setting. That gallery was set to a style of "thumbnail". Most of my galleries are set to collage landscape but there are also a few set to Journal or SmugMug styles.

Here are a couple of examples -
http://www.denisegoldberg.com/Travel/Acadia-October-2016/Autumn-Acadia/
http://www.denisegoldberg.com/Outdoor-beauty/Wells-Reserve-2013/
http://www.denisegoldberg.com/Wandering-near-home/Summer-2016/
*** note that the above gallery settings have now been corrected (12/13/2016 1:41 PM) ***

I have every intention of fixing these galleries soon; for now you can see the erroneous settings.

Allen · December 13, 2016

@leftquark said:
We are slowly rolling out the new display sizes: X4, X5, 4k, and 5k, and the settings behind them. Galleries set to a max-display size smaller than Original should stay at what they were, as far as I'm aware. I'd love a few examples of galleries where that's not the case, so we can dig further.

First question. I want the size I set, not anything larger. How do I get those to stick in existing galleries and not auto change?
I have different sizes set so bulk changing would not work 100%.
See my 1st comment above, 100's of galleries as examples.

leftquark · December 13, 2016

[Edit: Updated this response to reflect the current state of affairs]

Galleries where watermarks were enabled, and previously set to X3, were temporarily bumped up to the new "All but Originals" since your photos are protected by the watermark, and it appears that you set it this way because you wanted the largest non-original size to be displayable. All other galleries will remain at the Max Display Size they were previously. [Update: We've reversed this change and all galleries previously set to X3 are still set to X3]

For example:

If Max Display Size was X3 and Watermarks were ON, the Max Display Size is now "All but Originals"
If Max Display Size was X3 and Watermarks were OFF, the Max Display Size is still X3
If Max Display Size Was M, L, XL, X2 and Watermarks was either ON or OFF, the Max Display Size is still what it was.

I'm curious, if you had Max Display Size to X3 and Watermarks ON, were you trying to specifically limit your images to 1600px max, or were you just trying to ensure you only displayed watermarked non-originals, displayed at the largest and greatest size for peoples monitors?

denisegoldberg · December 13, 2016

@leftquark said:

I'm curious, if you had Max Display Size to X3 and Watermarks ON, were you trying to specifically limit your images to 1600px max, or were you just trying to ensure you only displayed watermarked non-originals, displayed at the largest and greatest size for peoples monitors?

Given that I was comfortable with X3, both at the time. But - when the initial discussion about larger sizes cropped up a couple of years ago I considered the larger sizes but I decided not to use them. SmugMug's decision to assume I am comfortable with displaying the larger sizes was incorrect. When I assign gallery settings I expected them to stay in place unless and until I change them.

In addition to your example criteria, you might have added whether the galleries had the right click message on or off. My galleries are currently set with the right click message off. I do not want viewers to be able to save the new larger sizes.

I will reset my galleries to my selected X3 largest size now. I think I'm lucky that I only used one max size so it will be easy to use bulk settings to reset the max display size.

Please do not change any gallery setting on my site automatically.

Allen · December 13, 2016

You forget how "fill" will work with large monitors. It's my choice if I don't want huge photos showing that the
watermark can be easiely cut off and the photo stolen. I have a right to show whatever size I want.

leftquark · December 13, 2016

@Allen said:
You forget how "fill" will work with large monitors. It's my choice if I don't want huge photos showing that the
watermark can be easiely cut off and the photo stolen. I have a right to show whatever size I want.

I don't follow this. Why would you watermark be cut off?

Allen · December 13, 2016

@leftquark said:
I don't follow this. Why would you watermark be cut off?

I add my WM in the bottom right corner and the photo can be cropped to remove it. I want to limit
how many pixels one gets from the cropped photo. Sizes above X3 are just too many pixels.

Allen · December 13, 2016

So does this mean if "All But Original" is enabled that the photo link in the browser can be edited and
anyone can steal the very largest size under Original?

leftquark · December 13, 2016

@denisegoldberg said:

Given that I was comfortable with X3, both at the time. But - when the initial discussion about larger sizes cropped up a couple of years ago I considered the larger sizes but I decided not to use them. SmugMug's decision to assume I am comfortable with displaying the larger sizes was incorrect. When I assign gallery settings I expected them to stay in place unless and until I change them.

This one is a tricky one, and something we're still discussing across the team at this very moment. Unfortunately we never had the "All but Originals" setting before, or we wouldn't be in this situation. Part of the reason why everyone loves SmugMug is because your photos look really great here, and a large factor of that is having photos that fill the screen. As screen size / resolutions grow, we need to keep up with that. For Portfolio/Business Accounts, X3 was the default option and many customers never touched this -- they just wanted the largest option that wasn't originals. Up until this new option, we didn't have a way to know if people wanted it to always fill. Some customers who have their Max Display size set to X3 want it specifically limited to X3, and many customers who have it set to X3, want it to just be whatever is largest and fills the screen.

If you had your photos at X3 and protected via a Watermark, we decided to make sure your photos look their best, as large as possible, while still being safe behind the watermark. We're still discussing this, but you can always use the Bulk Gallery Settings to explicitly set your galleries to X3 now.

@denisegoldberg said:

Please do not change any gallery setting on my site automatically.

Generally we try to follow this; in this case, it was a little tricky, because it's unclear if you just had a default setting, or if you explicitly wanted it that way. We'll continue to do our best to leave settings as you had them. As we continue to ensure your sites look beautiful, we may make changes to the way your site is designed, but we do want to leave your settings as you had them.

[Update: All galleries previously set to X3 will remain at X3. You can manually increase the Maximum Display Size to take advantage of the new sizes]

leftquark · December 13, 2016

We've made a small change to the Max Display Size menu so that it now displays usage context along with the sizes:

Allen · December 13, 2016

I would think most would also see the landscape width like 1600 which actually
means something you can visualize.

leftquark · December 13, 2016

We debated using largest dimension pixel counts, but felt that the majority of customers would not understand how the pixel #'s relate. For example, can you, off the top of your head rattle off how many pixels your monitor is? I know I have a "27 inch thunderbolt display set to its native resolution" but I have no idea how many pixels that is, and seeing than image is "1600px", doesn't really tell me how large it will display on my screen. But people do know how many megapixels their camera is, so they'll be able to relate how much smaller from the original each of the sizes are. Additionally, they often know they need a certain # of megapixels to print well, so seeing how many megapixels each display size is, will help them protect against people downloading/printing photos.

Jtring · December 13, 2016

@leftquark said:
We debated using largest dimension pixel counts, but felt that the majority of customers would not understand how the pixel #'s relate. For example, can you, off the top of your head rattle off how many pixels your monitor is? I know I have a "27 inch thunderbolt display set to its native resolution" but I have no idea how many pixels that is, and seeing than image is "1600px", doesn't really tell me how large it will display on my screen. But people do know how many megapixels their camera is, so they'll be able to relate how much smaller from the original each of the sizes are. Additionally, they often know they need a certain # of megapixels to print well, so seeing how many megapixels each display size is, will help them protect against people downloading/printing photos.

But what are the new X4's and X5's? You need to update the "display-sizes" help page ASAP. Once upon a time, a long time ago, Baldy identified the sizes as follows: X4s up to 2048x1536 and X5s up to 2560x1920. Is that still the definition? And what is the aspect ratio for your 4K? 4:3 like the others or 16:9?

(As an aside, I'm pretty sure the more serious photo post-processing folks using SmugMug -- many of the enthusiasts and probably almost all the pros -- do know their screen resolution. And they are the ones most concerned about limiting display sizes.)

leftquark · December 14, 2016

X4: Up to 2048 x 2048
X5: Up to 2560 x 2560
4k: Up to 3840 x 3840
5k: Up to 5120 x 5120

We'll have the help page updated tomorrow and all the new sizes can be square (S through X3 aren't square but we've left those alone).

Jtring · December 14, 2016

Hope you meant 4K was 3840 x 3840.

leftquark · December 14, 2016

@Jtring said:
Hope you meant 4K was 3840 x 3840.

Yup! Sorry for the typo. I've updated my previous post

David_S85 · December 14, 2016

Not sure I'm comfortable that SM decided to reset all my X3 image display sizes past X4, X5, 4K and up now to 5K. I understand they aren't displaying Originals (meaning no WM) but still, I think the decision to reset my settings for me was rather unexpected. My images are all watermarked.

I appreciate the availability of those sizes. I just wish it was the gallery owner's decision to reset/keep them that way.

EDIT:
And what is odd is that when, now at "All But Original," the pics are not even shown to the edge of my monitor. Slideshow behaves similarly. There's black space around many even though the pics are larger than 1920 x 1200 (my monitor res.).

EDIT2:
When viewing individual photos in the lightbox, the resize icon doesn't offer sizes larger than X3, at least for me. It allows me to choose "Fill" but that doesn't change the size to larger than what I thought X3 was. So even though all my galleries seem to be reset to the "All But Original" with that size now checked, are they actually still somehow stuck at X3, or should they be displaying at the much much larger display size, because I don't see them as larger than X3 on my monitor? Is this expected behavior or could this still be an ongoing migration thing?

Jtring · December 14, 2016

@leftquark said:
X4: Up to 2048 x 2048
X5: Up to 2560 x 2560
4k: Up to 3840 x 3840
5k: Up to 5120 x 5120

We'll have the help page updated tomorrow and all the new sizes can be square (S through X3 aren't square but we've left those alone).

I appreciate your keeping the S's through X3's as they are. The X3 display copies fit my 1920 x 1200 monitor perfectly in full screen mode without any browser scaling. As I and others have noted, browser scaling can soften the image a little in Chrome, although it depends on the image, the monitor, and who knows what else. In any case, having a display copy exactly matching the monitor is great. Going to 1920 x 1920 would have broken that. Please don't tidy things up in the future.

leftquark · December 14, 2016

@Jtring said:

@leftquark said:
X4: Up to 2048 x 2048
X5: Up to 2560 x 2560
4k: Up to 3840 x 3840
5k: Up to 5120 x 5120

We'll have the help page updated tomorrow and all the new sizes can be square (S through X3 aren't square but we've left those alone).

I appreciate your keeping the S's through X3's as they are. The X3 display copies fit my 1920 x 1200 monitor perfectly in full screen mode without any browser scaling. As I and others have noted, browser scaling can soften the image a little in Chrome, although it depends on the image, the monitor, and who knows what else. In any case, having a display copy exactly matching the monitor is great. Going to 1920 x 1920 would have broken that. Please don't tidy things up in the future.

Sorry, I didn't mean to add confusion -- we're not actually making the images square, it's just that the maximum edge on either side is now the same. For S's through XL's, the maximum side for a portrait orientation image was always smaller than a landscape orientation one.

For example:

X3 portrait = 812 x 1200; X3 landscape = 1600 x 1068
X4 portrait = 1367 x 2048; X4 landscape = 2048 x 1367

denisegoldberg · December 14, 2016

@leftquark said:
X4: Up to 2048 x 2048
X5: Up to 2560 x 2560
4k: Up to 3840 x 3840
5k: Up to 5120 x 5120

We'll have the help page updated tomorrow and all the new sizes can be square (S through X3 aren't square but we've left those alone).

Can you "fix" the S through X3 images? I've always hated that the portrait images are smaller than landscape images. I've used custom sizes in my blog to adjust this but I'd love to see the portrait and landscape images match in size.

--- Denise

Ferguson · December 14, 2016

I use original so don't care personally, but as an interested observer a couple of comments:

"All but original", given that Smugmug resizes on the fly to resolutions other than those on the list, is pretty darn ambiguous.

I actually find it rather insulting (I do not care if true) to your customers that you just assume people who had something coded with a default had no clue what the default meant, and you are doing this "for their own benefit". Telling someone "You are not smart enough or attentive enough so we are taking over control" is generally only well received when pulling a rip cord just before the ground, not in business.

And by the way, same comment to dumbing down display sizes "felt that the majority of customers would not understand how the pixel #'s relate". OK, feel free to think that, but saying it to a bunch of photographers is right in line with "too stupid to know why your default was set".

Seriously guys, do you think so little of your customer base? (Hint: If the answer is "yes" it would be best not to say it out loud).

denisegoldberg · December 14, 2016

@leftquark said:

@denisegoldberg said:

Please do not change any gallery setting on my site automatically.

Generally we try to follow this; in this case, it was a little tricky, because it's unclear if you just had a default setting, or if you explicitly wanted it that way. We'll continue to do our best to leave settings as you had them. As we continue to ensure your sites look beautiful, we may make changes to the way your site is designed, but we do want to leave your settings as you had them.

I don't understand why you didn't honor my X3Large settings. I decided on using that setting - if that hadn't been what I wanted when I created the gallery I would have changed it myself. The point of allowing your users to select the settings that match their needs was just swept away by your deciding that if I had X3 + a watermark selected that of course I would want the larger sizes. In my case (and I suspect others) that just isn't true.

I'd like to see you do more than "continue to do our best to leave your settings as you had them". I have no problem with changes to the default settings on creating a gallery (since I can easily override them by changing my quick settings), but changes to my existing site should be my decision.

Jtring · December 14, 2016

@leftquark said:

@Jtring said:

@leftquark said:
We'll have the help page updated tomorrow and all the new sizes can be square (S through X3 aren't square but we've left those alone).

I appreciate your keeping the S's through X3's as they are. The X3 display copies fit my 1920 x 1200 monitor perfectly in full screen mode without any browser scaling. As I and others have noted, browser scaling can soften the image a little in Chrome, although it depends on the image, the monitor, and who knows what else. In any case, having a display copy exactly matching the monitor is great. Going to 1920 x 1920 would have broken that. Please don't tidy things up in the future.

Sorry, I didn't mean to add confusion -- we're not actually making the images square, it's just that the maximum edge on either side is now the same. For S's through XL's, the maximum side for a portrait orientation image was always smaller than a landscape orientation one.

For example:

X3 portrait = 812 x 1200; X3 landscape = 1600 x 1068

X4 portrait = 1367 x 2048; X4 landscape = 2048 x 1367

Now I'm really confused.

Is the above just an example for a 3:2 aspect original or a change in the X3 definition? If I have a 4:3 aspect ratio image and am using the X3 size on a large enough monitor, will it show as 1600 x 1200 (as it does now), or will it try to fit into 1600 x 1068 and, because of the 4:3 aspect ratio, come out as 1424 x 1068?

Added note: I didn't interpret what you wrote to suggest the display copies themselves would be made square. I understand it's a question of the constraining box into which they are being fit to determine actual display copy dimensions.

leftquark · December 14, 2016

Just an example, with a 3:2 photo of mine

leftquark · December 14, 2016

@denisegoldberg said:
Can you "fix" the S through X3 images? I've always hated that the portrait images are smaller than landscape images. I've used custom sizes in my blog to adjust this but I'd love to see the portrait and landscape images match in size.

I'm not a huge fan of that either, but we won't be going back and reprocessing older images to do this.

@Ferguson said:
"All but original", given that Smugmug resizes on the fly to resolutions other than those on the list, is pretty darn ambiguous.

We've been tossing around and testing other wording besides "All but Original" and we may have some updates on this. It's meant to mean "whatever large size will fill the screen, without giving away my originals", but finding a short way to say that isn't trivial. We have smart people on it

@Ferguson said:
I actually find it rather insulting (I do not care if true) to your customers that you just assume people who had something coded with a default had no clue what the default meant, and you are doing this "for their own benefit". Telling someone "You are not smart enough or attentive enough so we are taking over control" is generally only well received when pulling a rip cord just before the ground, not in business.

There's a big leap to go from "not knowing" to "too stupid" and one that I certainly didn't make. When a family members calls and asks a question on how to use their computer, they're not asking because they're "not smart enough" to understand, they're asking because they're looking to be educated. Not all of our customers are as technically knowledgeable as those of you here on DGrin -- you are a smaller group of very intelligent, knowledgable customers that have skills beyond the vast majority of our other very intelligent but less computer knowledgable customers. We also have a great team of Product Managers, Designers, UI Experts and Engineers that put a lot of thought into these decisions. We test various wording, phrasing, and options with a broad range of our customer base and settle on the items that are comfortable to the majority of our customers.

My point with the defaults here is that some people left the setting at X3 because:

they wanted the largest non-original size to be displayed,
they specifically wanted to limit it to a lower resolution size,
they just never took the time to change the setting, or lastly,
the setting was never surfaced to them (via Upload > New Gallery)

We have no idea of knowing which one of the 4 people fall into. I wish we did, because this decision would be a whole lot easier to make on how to go forward.

@Ferguson said:
And by the way, same comment to dumbing down display sizes "felt that the majority of customers would not understand how the pixel #'s relate". Seriously guys, do you think so little of your customer base? (Hint: If the answer is "yes" it would be best not to say it out loud).

Again, I was not calling into account anyones intelligence level, but rather the knowledge of the terms that the majority of our customers have. You have to step back for a moment and ask yourself what is this setting used for: Max Display Size is used because you want to prevent high resolution photos from being viewed, downloaded or printing. We're talking about resolution here and the most common term used to describe the differences in resolution is megapixels. When you ask how large can you print a photo, it's also most often referred to using the megapixels of the image. People most often know the megapixels of their camera, but not the actual pixel dimensions of their photo (especially if the photo is then cropped). We tested Megapixels versus pixel dimensions and Megapixels was a clear winner.

@denisegoldberg said:
I don't understand why you didn't honor my X3Large settings. I decided on using that setting - if that hadn't been what I wanted when I created the gallery I would have changed it myself. The point of allowing your users to select the settings that match their needs was just swept away by your deciding that if I had X3 + a watermark selected that of course I would want the larger sizes. In my case (and I suspect others) that just isn't true.

I'd like to see you do more than "continue to do our best to leave your settings as you had them". I have no problem with changes to the default settings on creating a gallery (since I can easily override them by changing my quick settings), but changes to my existing site should be my decision.

I'm still discussing with the team on how to handle this and I'll report back to you when we make our final decision. I don't enjoy changing settings on customers but I also understand why it was implemented the way it was (your photos look best when they fill the screen, and that's exactly the reason why I came to SmugMug in the first place, 9 years ago). For the record, I'm in your boat: I specifically set my photos to X3 and wasn't thrilled that I had to reset them back to X3 after this update (I mention this so you know where my personal stance lies).

[Update: Galleries previously set at X3 will remain set at X3. Anything that was temporarily moved to All but Original has been moved back to X3]

Maximum Display Size

Comments