Users have a choice to either use EZ Prints or Mpix labs. You can also choose both & let the customer decide because I think Mpix has things that EZ Prints doesn't, like Metallic paper & True Digital B&W paper.
Add some photos to the shopping cart & check that out too.
I just finished a pretty big order. Looking forward to getting my prints, to check it out!
I fiddled around with it too, though i didnt order prints. A few things i noticed..
1) I really like their fly over. It is so much less obtrusive and much much more intuitive than even the beta flyover.
2) I can read their exif info, as it is presented as jfriend (i think) suggested with horizontal lines and such.
3) Their prints (on ezprints at least) are significantly cheaper!
4) The layout on the shopping cart is much more user friendly (Small, Medium, Large, and Square Prints) vs (Standard, Nonstandard). And their cart just looks nicer (but BigWebGuy is working on that I've heard so i have high hopes).
But lastly, they have alot of work to do before I'd even consider switching, especially as you cant select the paper type in their initial cart menu and they give no indication on the difference in price between lustre and matte/glossy. Andy, do let us know how the mpix prints turn out, and if smugmug will be considering allowing using that service. I'm interested in the digital black and white prints if anyone has any comments on those.
Also, requiring an account for orders (a free one at least) isnt a big deal to me, it is required at just about any other place you order things (amazon, etc).
Anyway, smugmug always seems to be improving things, so from past experience, im sure this release will increase the team's desire to keep on the front of things.
I just finished a pretty big order. Looking forward to getting my prints, to check it out!
Its not a huge deal for people to register I guess, but the first registration page was WAY messed up & confusing. It looked like people were signing up for a paid account. See screencaps I made here & here. I emailed their CS & they were quick to jump on it, so it should be better very soon.
Yeah, im gonna order prints too. Im wanting to see how those Metallic prints turn out. I heard they look pretty good.
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BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
Andy, do let us know how the mpix prints turn out, and if smugmug will be considering allowing using that service.
Mpix is a respected printer and I've ordered many times from them over the years. Our comparisons give the edge to EZ Prints in quality for more prints than not (when you order 40 prints from two labs, you usually see one lab do better with some prints, equal quality on the majority, and the other lab do better on the rest).
Our concern is how to offer great support from multiple sources. Our support heroes would have to master different color points, relationships, systems, packaging, shipping points of origin -- and cope with split orders. It will be interesting to see if any company can offer white glove support and do that too. Most people would say Photoreflect's support took a dive when they tried that.
Mpix is a respected printer and I've ordered many times from them over the years. Our comparisons give the edge to EZ Prints in quality for more prints than not (when you order 40 prints from two labs, you usually see one lab do better with some prints, equal quality on the majority, and the other lab do better on the rest).
Our concern is how to offer great support from multiple sources. Our support heroes would have to master different color points, relationships, systems, packaging, shipping points of origin -- and cope with split orders. It will be interesting to see if any company can offer white glove support and do that too. Most people would say Photoreflect's support took a dive when they tried that.
Fair enough, I wouldnt want anything to cause smugmug's order support level to drop, it must be hard enough keeping it at the excellent level that it is. Instead, maybe smugmug can leverage ez prints to get some similar types of prints?
Does anyone know if Zenfolio supports embedded profiles? This is the one feature that totally turns me off Smugmug since having an embedded profile is the *only* way that my photos have any hope of looking any good on a Mac (and only then if the user is using Safari). I know the main concern was bandwidth, but I can't see the disadvantage to leaving the profile for large versions of images and stripping it from thumbnails. I should at least be given the option.
Constructive criticism always welcome!
"Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius
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BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
Does anyone know if Zenfolio supports embedded profiles? This is the one feature that totally turns me off Smugmug since having an embedded profile is the *only* way that my photos have any hope of looking any good on a Mac (and only then if the user is using Safari). I know the main concern was bandwidth, but I can't see the disadvantage to leaving the profile for large versions of images and stripping it from thumbnails. I should at least be given the option.
Hi El Kiwi,
It wouldn't be a hard change for us to enable sRGB profiles in display images. Probably the right way is to only do it for images that come to us with an sRGB profile already attached. That way, people who care/know about the issue don't have to get the profiles if they don't want them.
One problem I'd like to get comfortable with, however, is what to do about the color shift between thumbs and medium images. I suspect there will be lots of customers who, depending on how their Macs are configured, will wonder why their small images look washed compared to larger ones. It wouldn't be hard to construct some screen shots for people to see what they think.
The other issue is, are we clear how Safari 3.0 (Webkit) handles sRGB images without profiles? We looked at this briefly last month and what we thought we saw was:
1. That the color shift between an sRGB image with and without profile was minor in Webkit but major in current implementations of Safari.
2. Not every user liked the look of images rendered by Safari with the profile attached. They felt they were too saturated.
Apple has been under pressure for good reason to render unprofiled images as sRGB, because that's the Internet standard. They explained why they haven't done it to date, but it doesn't feel like their argument is sticking.
I can mess with Webkit more tomorrow, but in the meantime if anyone already knows how it treats unprofiled jpgs, I'd love to know.
Checkd out Zenfolio
Looked at someone's Zenfolio site from above post.
1) Dead slow.
2) My customer would have to 'Login' or create a 'Free Account'
This is a big deal breaker and is ridiculous and very 'non-business-like' .
I am using energy to get the customer to deal with me and they have to login with someone else???
If Smugmug suddenly required this I would leave as soon as I found out about it.
For my money and my customer's satisfaction, Smugmug is the BEST.
Looked at someone's Zenfolio site from above post.
1) Dead slow.
2) My customer would have to 'Login' or create a 'Free Account'
This is a big deal breaker and is ridiculous and very 'non-business-like' .
I am using energy to get the customer to deal with me and they have to login with someone else???
If Smugmug suddenly required this I would leave as soon as I found out about it.
For my money and my customer's satisfaction, Smugmug is the BEST.
From someone who knows, Nicholas
thanks Nick, thanks! No Worries! We won't require login to purchase photos.
thanks Nick, thanks! No Worries! We won't require login to purchase photos.
GOOD!! Thats a huge drawback!! The reason I left many other photo sites. I mean really, why make someone login to buy photos? Hmmm. Thanks smugmug for keeping everyone happy!
It wouldn't be a hard change for us to enable sRGB profiles in display images. Probably the right way is to only do it for images that come to us with an sRGB profile already attached. That way, people who care/know about the issue don't have to get the profiles if they don't want them.
One problem I'd like to get comfortable with, however, is what to do about the color shift between thumbs and medium images. I suspect there will be lots of customers who, depending on how their Macs are configured, will wonder why their small images look washed compared to larger ones.
Well, I wouldn't think that the thumbnail issue is that great, I'd be surprised if many people noticed. The "correct" fix is to have profiles on the thumbnails as well, but it seems this may not be possible for bandwidth reasons. Although I don't really see how big a problem this can be, a profile is, what, 2.5k? I realise that this makes a difference for you guys with a site the size of SmugMug, but for an individual user we're talking an extra 50k on the first download on a page of 20 thumbnails. This seems like very little to me, it's not like it requires an extra request for the profile and it should be cached alongside the image.
The other issue is, are we clear how Safari 3.0 (Webkit) handles sRGB images without profiles?
Well, no, that's totally random, which is the point. Safari is the *only* browser that gives me any way at all to display images correctly (with a profile). Anything else will give totally unpredictable results on the Mac.
Obviously trying to show the same colours to all users is a losing battle, since Aunty Mavis doesn't calibrate her monitor. sRGB is by far the best option for the widest array of users. However, I have a small group of people who I'd like to see my images well, they calibrate their monitors etc etc, and a lot of them are on Macs. By removing my profile, you're essentially removing my one possibility of showing my images to them as they're meant to be seen, and that's not acceptable to me in a paying service.
That the color shift between an sRGB image with and without profile was minor in Webkit but major in current implementations of Safari.
The point is not so much whether the change is minor or major, just that it can't be controlled for at all except by using an embedded profile, since without it Safari will do some random thing, probably based on the monitor profile (the "roll the dice" profile).
Not every user liked the look of images rendered by Safari with the profile attached. They felt they were too saturated.
In my experience, Safari will render images with a profile *exactly* as they appear in Photoshop if served off Apache either on my local machine or on my Dreamhost space. Maybe the users are just used to seeing the colours washed out in other browsers? Or is SmugMug converting the pixel data to sRGB and still applying the profile (which might cause oversaturation)?
Apple has been under pressure for good reason to render unprofiled images as sRGB, because that's the Internet standard. They explained why they haven't done it to date, but it doesn't feel like their argument is sticking.
That's because their argument is totally brain-damaged. Seriously, I'm not defending their decision, but there is no better option on the Mac currently.
I can mess with Webkit more tomorrow, but in the meantime if anyone already knows how it treats unprofiled jpgs, I'd love to know.
To be honest, the only option for me if I was going to spend money would be to know that SmugMug honours the profiles I send. Anything else comes down to: "In our experience it (kind of/sort of/doesn't) work for (most/some/none) of our users (most/some/none) of the time" . In a paying service, that's not good enough IMO. I'd rather host myself.
Cheers,
Colin
Constructive criticism always welcome!
"Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius
Impressive, But Not Pro
To be fair, I only gave it a brief once-over. It is fast, but so is SmugMug! And there are some impressive promises and a few very interesting features. But it just doesn't strike me as a pro service provider. They seem to be trying to please everyone, without any real focus. Even the customer service appears to be thrown into the labs' laps. And all the most notable features appear to be direct rip-offs from SmugMug!
Competition is cool, but a fresh approach would be appreciated. Looks like my money's on SmugMug!
X www.thepicturetaker.ca
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BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
Well, I wouldn't think that the thumbnail issue is that great, I'd be surprised if many people noticed. The "correct" fix is to have profiles on the thumbnails as well, but it seems this may not be possible for bandwidth reasons. Although I don't really see how big a problem this can be, a profile is, what, 2.5k? I realise that this makes a difference for you guys with a site the size of SmugMug, but for an individual user we're talking an extra 50k on the first download on a page of 20 thumbnails. This seems like very little to me...
We're actually not at all concerned about the extra bandwidth used. We just upgraded all accounts to get unlimited bandwidth 'cus we have some very fat pipes now.
What we are conerned about is the perception of speed. For many users, 50k is a lot. They share their photos with people on AOL and various slow connections. Our perceived speed gets judged by every user every time they click, many millions of times/day.
But as you say we may not need the profiles on thumbs because no one may notice.
Does anyone understand what Safari is doing with sRGB images when a profile is attached versus not? The conventional wisdom that Apple tells us and most color experts repeat on the forums is that when no profile is present, Safari assumes the monitor profile. However, if you look at this test page I made,
it doesn't matter what profile you set your Mac for, including sRGB, the image with profile attached looks more saturated than the one without. If the monitor profile is set to sRGB, they should look the same.
(You can mouse over the upper left image to get it to flip back and forth between profile attached and not.)
One dilemma is some people feel the one with profile attached is the broken one because it looks too saturated to them. Others feel the opposite, making this decision a pain—worse than "do you prefer the pull-out window or the links" issue that divides some of our customers.
What we are conerned about is the perception of speed. For many users, 50k is a lot. They share their photos with people on AOL and various slow connections. Our perceived speed gets judged by every user every time they click, many millions of times/day.
Fair enough - I still have trouble reminding myself that people still use dialup :-)
But as you say we may not need the profiles on thumbs because no one may notice.
Right, and especially if you leave the profiles on the large images but convert the thumbs to sRGB (which will give them the treatment they currently have, i.e. right for 95% of the people).
Does anyone understand what Safari is doing with sRGB images when a profile is attached versus not?
<snip>
However, if you look at this test page I made,
it doesn't matter what profile you set your Mac for, including sRGB, the image with profile attached looks more saturated than the one without. If the monitor profile is set to sRGB, they should look the same.
Nice test! I must confess I have absolutely no idea what Safari is doing to the image there... Update: I just got on the #webkit channel and chatted to a couple of the developers there, they confirmed that for images with no profile, the pixels are just drawn straight on the screen. This happens *after* any system profile takes place, it's basically sent straight to the video card. This is also what Firefox does. So this means that:
1. Firefox and Safari should show the image with no profile the same (this seems to be true, on my machine at least).
2. Safari should show all the images with profiles accurately (this is also true).
3. The unprofiled data should not change in appearance when you change the monitor profile. This is not true, which implies that the colour correction happens after the pixels are drawn. Even more weirdly, changing the monitor profile also changes the images with profiles, which it in theory should not. I don't understand exactly how OSX is using the monitor profile there.
One dilemma is some people feel the one with profile attached is the broken one because it looks too saturated to them. Others feel the opposite.
Well, for me the only real test is if the images with profiles look the same as they do in Photoshop, which on my system they do. That test image is extremely saturated to begin with, but assuming it looks like that in PS, that's how I want it to look on the web too.
Interesting stuff, but more than a little frustrating
Constructive criticism always welcome!
"Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius
Looked at someone's Zenfolio site from above post.
1) Dead slow.
Really?? I have NEVER heard someone say that about Zenfolio. In fact, I have always found it lightning fast. If you check back in this thread, im not the only one. They prefetch the images, which helps a lot. Perhaps your internet connection was on the fritz or maybe the site was having some kind of hiccup. But, its definitely the fastest photo site I have seen hands down.
2) My customer would have to 'Login' or create a 'Free Account'
This is a big deal breaker and is ridiculous and very 'non-business-like' .
I am using energy to get the customer to deal with me and they have to login with someone else???
If Smugmug suddenly required this I would leave as soon as I found out about it.
You're not looking at the big picture. Its basically a free account that allows you to do lots of things that paid users do besides upload your own photos. It gives you your own web address with them, allows you to make your own albums & add photos to them from other paid users (like your friends, family members, favorite photographers, anyone). The feature is called Collections (which I have disabled btw).
I think the free Visitor account is a pretty neat feature & allows people to experience much of the site without having to pay or be on a trial account (they have that too btw).
Yeah, its kind of a bummer for just normal people who may want to just order a couple photos & thats it. Hopefully, they will allow those people to do that too in the future. But, I seriously cant think of many sites that you can just order from without making an account first, so its not a huge deal to most people.
Using Zenfolio
I just tried using Zenfolio, and in less than a day, I think I've made the decision to switch from Smugmug (which I've been using for a year and a half). Smugmug is definitely still great, but for me, I prefer some of the aspects and features of Zenfolio. Here are some of my thoughts:
Advantages:
1) Overall image viewing and aesthetics are better; everything looks and feels more slick and polished, and there are some great looking themes. Smugmug pages tend to have a distracting lines (white against black), at least with the default theme (I understand there are other themes, but not many nice, elegant, black background ones)
2) Smoother/faster image browsing - Zenfolio prefetching and AJAX helps, and pages load up right away (while thumbnails load as they come in). The recent Smugmug update, while intended to make viewing faster, actually seems to make loading of the Smugmug-style page slower (you wait for half a second or so while nothing shows up - a bug I'm told which will get fixed). Also with Smugmug, when changing images or image sizes, you get brief delays in between where nothing is shown, producing a sort of "flicker" effect. To be fair, Smugmug server bandwidth probably can't be beaten.
3) Layout of galleries - galleries are laid out across the page, making good use of space. The layout is also changed dynamically based on the size of the browser. I guess I was never the biggest fan of Smugmug's "two column" arrangement, which seemed to waste horizontal space and results in a lot of scrolling down (although you can fit more gallery caption data).
4) Zenfolio's analog of the "Smugmug style" view gives a larger default view of the image. There's a nice tab for Photo Info (Exit data) you can pull up on the right. The thumbnails are smaller and square, which look nicer, but also make it a bit harder to find a specific photo. I'm not a fan of Smugmug's new "Photo Bar", where you have to wait for the animation before it appears. With Zenfolio you can do what you want right away.
There are also some other nice photo viewing styles, and I like that you can choose the one your viewer can see (I feel like a lot of casual Smugmug visitors never realize there are other view styles anyway). I never did understand Smugmug's clunky Filmstrip style, which moves in the opposite direction you expect...
5) Groups/collections - Zenfolio allows you greater flexibility in creating groups and nested groups. It's also easier to apply some batch settings to galleries, because you can just set them in the parent group. I also like the "Collection" feature - basically it's like a gallery, except with links to other pictures on your site (or other sites).
Disadvantages
1) Groups (Zenfolio's version of Smugmug categories) currently don't have cover photos - but I was told this feature would be added in an upcoming update
2) Lack of search - You don't seem to be able to search your own photos, only a public Zenfolio search.
3) Smugmug has more cool features (RSS feeds, Google maps, etc) - although I haven't really found myself using too many of them.
4) Not as easy to choose a specific image size (S,M,L) as with Smugmug. On the other hand, everything resizes based on the browser window size, and you also get a Very Large (1100 x 850) image size.
To sum it up, while Smugmug has a lot of features that Zenfolio doesn't, the most important thing is really the viewing experience, and Zenfolio just does a better job at that. Hopefully the Smugmug developers can learn a thing or two from the competition (and I'm sure they will).
(I understand there are other themes, but not many nice, elegant, black background ones)
We just made another new one, released yesterday, Gradient Grey. And more elegant, black ones, to come.
3) Layout of galleries - galleries are laid out across the page, making good use of space. The layout is also changed dynamically based on the size of the browser. I guess I was never the biggest fan of Smugmug's "two column" arrangement, which seemed to waste horizontal space and results in a lot of scrolling down (although you can fit more gallery caption data).
We hope to have a wider / bigger style in the not too distant future, based on a lot of great customer feedback we've been getting here.
I never did understand Smugmug's clunky Filmstrip style, which moves in the opposite direction you expect...
we have hard data that shows you are in the 50% who feel that way
Have been hearing a lot about Zenfolio and wanted to compare and see if Zenfolio fit my needs. After a testing for a few days am happy that I made the right decision about sticking with Smugmug. Even got a friend to sign up after the testing
The one thing I was really looking forward at Zenfolio was Collections. But after trying it out it just does not work for me. I really wish when/if Smugmug implements virtual gallery they do a complete job and treat it like a gallery but with links.
An example of how I would like to use virtual gallery:
1) Add all photos of my family vacation to a new gallery - password protected.
2) Create a virtual gallery with some photos that I want to make public (no password)
3) Create another virtual gallery with some photos that I want to share with friends - password protected but different from the original gallery
This way I can create different gallery for different groups of people.
Right now to do this in Smugmug I have to create different gallery and upload the photos again :cry
Zenfolio does it better by making it easy to add the photos into collection but the user needs to enter the original gallery password after entering the collection password Adding password to individual photos only complicates thing some more. I have to enter three passwords.
Better of going the Smugmug way for now.
Yes I know about share groups and use them currently but I want to group gallerys with different passwords into one virtual gallery so my friends, family and other only need to remeber one password given to them.
Next I took a look at the slideshow. Love the Smugmug slideshow, it uses every bit of space within the browser window. Small control bar compared to Zenfolio. Zenfolio does not use up the entire space available, leaves thick border around the images and a has background color control that is really irritating. An really useful that Zenfolio have is the thumbnail that pops from the control bar that can be used to quickly preview and skip photos in slideshow mode. But for me using maximum screen space was important.
Smugmug has many features that Zenfolio lacks like download entire album thanks to open API and tools provided by many users on this forum, a great forum, community, etc. Am happy with all the changes that keep happening at Smugmug.
Am going to stick with Smugmug. I just wish someone treats virtual gallery like regular gallery but with links.
Am going to stick with Smugmug. I just wish someone treats virtual gallery like regular gallery but with links.
Thanks a lot to everyone at Smugmug.
WELCOME to Dgrin and thanks for posting. This is great input, we thank you very much. Our SmugSorcerers are thinking a lot about virtual galleries, smart galleries, and more. Stay tuned
Have u tried making a 2nd copy and moving it to a new gallery ?
That might be quicker bandwidth-wise then uploading again.
You tried this devbobo? Make 2nd copy only works on a single photo..there is no bulk setting. So if you want to copy say 10 photos to another gallery, it is just painful to click on a photo, make 2nd copy, wait for it to update, do this 10 times. THEN you have to find those 10 photos again, which you can do with Move (expert), so at least there is something there.
Takes like 5 seconds to drag those 10 photos in the upload tool from Windows.
Hey its your storage and bandwidth, but seems odd to have several copies of each photo. Seems like only one Original would do...but what do I know?
WELCOME to Dgrin and thanks for posting. This is great input, we thank you very much. Our SmugSorcerers are thinking a lot about virtual galleries, smart galleries, and more. Stay tuned
Thanks Andy. Its good to hear that you guys are working on it. Have been lurking around the forum since I signed up a year ago and found no reason to say anything as I was extremely happy with the service. But I had to say something now as I have tried Zenfolio and felt like they had not done a great job at implementing collections. Just wanted to help Smugmug get it right by contributing my experience and expectations of virtual gallery.
devboo, I find it easier to upload again. It is quiet slow on at 256 kbps connection but still easier than making copies, finding the copies and moving it.
Have u tried making a 2nd copy and moving it to a new gallery ?
That might be quicker bandwidth-wise then uploading again.
I tried this once, but since the copy is indistinguishable from the original (atleast with filenames off) I moved and later deleted the original, which killed a link.
The one thing I was really looking forward at Zenfolio was Collections. But after trying it out it just does not work for me. I really wish when/if Smugmug implements virtual gallery they do a complete job and treat it like a gallery but with links.
An example of how I would like to use virtual gallery:
1) Add all photos of my family vacation to a new gallery - password protected.
2) Create a virtual gallery with some photos that I want to make public (no password)
3) Create another virtual gallery with some photos that I want to share with friends - password protected but different from the original gallery
This way I can create different gallery for different groups of people.
Right now to do this in Smugmug I have to create different gallery and upload the photos again :cry
Zenfolio does it better by making it easy to add the photos into collection but the user needs to enter the original gallery password after entering the collection password Adding password to individual photos only complicates thing some more. I have to enter three passwords.
Better of going the Smugmug way for now.
Yes I know about share groups and use them currently but I want to group gallerys with different passwords into one virtual gallery so my friends, family and other only need to remeber one password given to them.
You can do at least some "virtual gallery" manipulation in smugmug via keywords, and use a "gallery redirect" in order to make the keyword "virtual gallery" appear in the relevant Category. This doesn't solve the public vs password-protected issue, but will allow the same photo to appear in multiple "galleries". (Or equally, for the same gallery to appear in multiple Categories)
You can do at least some "virtual gallery" manipulation in smugmug via keywords, and use a "gallery redirect" in order to make the keyword "virtual gallery" appear in the relevant Category. This doesn't solve the public vs password-protected issue, but will allow the same photo to appear in multiple "galleries". (Or equally, for the same gallery to appear in multiple Categories)
See what ya did there? You explain how to jump through hoops with SmugMug to try and do what Zenfolio simply allows everyone to do without manipulating anything.
I am currently using both services. I love the awesome help, community and customization that SmugMug allows. To be honest though, Zenfolio is still cleaner looking and easier to navigate. The recent SmugMug gallery updates are a great step in the right direction but still do not work as smoothly as Zenfolio. I'll be keeping both for a while longer though. Still can't quit Smug yet.
My Pictures : My Gear
I Reject Your Reality And Substitute My Own - Adam Savage
This doesn't solve the public vs password-protected issue, but will allow the same photo to appear in multiple "galleries". (Or equally, for the same gallery to appear in multiple Categories)
I am mainly interested in getting a fix on the public vs password-protected issue. Zenfolio does not solve that for me. In all other aspects my preference is Smugmug.
See what ya did there? You explain how to jump through hoops with SmugMug to try and do what Zenfolio simply allows everyone to do without manipulating anything.
True. But, for now this is a kind of an alternate solution available, it is a bit complicated and not as easy as in Zenfolio. Anyway Andy has hinted that they are working on it.
yeah i was thinking that very thing as I was replying
For a long time I have been thinking about writing some bulk tools similar to the BZT, but there have been some limitations. When I get a chance I will dig a bit deeper into the new ajax functionality and see if anything new is exposed which might make this a realistic option.
Comments
Users have a choice to either use EZ Prints or Mpix labs. You can also choose both & let the customer decide because I think Mpix has things that EZ Prints doesn't, like Metallic paper & True Digital B&W paper.
Add some photos to the shopping cart & check that out too.
I just finished a pretty big order. Looking forward to getting my prints, to check it out!
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
1) I really like their fly over. It is so much less obtrusive and much much more intuitive than even the beta flyover.
2) I can read their exif info, as it is presented as jfriend (i think) suggested with horizontal lines and such.
3) Their prints (on ezprints at least) are significantly cheaper!
4) The layout on the shopping cart is much more user friendly (Small, Medium, Large, and Square Prints) vs (Standard, Nonstandard). And their cart just looks nicer (but BigWebGuy is working on that I've heard so i have high hopes).
But lastly, they have alot of work to do before I'd even consider switching, especially as you cant select the paper type in their initial cart menu and they give no indication on the difference in price between lustre and matte/glossy. Andy, do let us know how the mpix prints turn out, and if smugmug will be considering allowing using that service. I'm interested in the digital black and white prints if anyone has any comments on those.
Also, requiring an account for orders (a free one at least) isnt a big deal to me, it is required at just about any other place you order things (amazon, etc).
Anyway, smugmug always seems to be improving things, so from past experience, im sure this release will increase the team's desire to keep on the front of things.
-russ
Yeah, im gonna order prints too. Im wanting to see how those Metallic prints turn out. I heard they look pretty good.
Our concern is how to offer great support from multiple sources. Our support heroes would have to master different color points, relationships, systems, packaging, shipping points of origin -- and cope with split orders. It will be interesting to see if any company can offer white glove support and do that too. Most people would say Photoreflect's support took a dive when they tried that.
Fair enough, I wouldnt want anything to cause smugmug's order support level to drop, it must be hard enough keeping it at the excellent level that it is. Instead, maybe smugmug can leverage ez prints to get some similar types of prints?
Indeed. Smugmug = :rambo
Swim for Them | WellmanHouse.net | AlbumFetcher | SmugShowBuilder
"Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius
It wouldn't be a hard change for us to enable sRGB profiles in display images. Probably the right way is to only do it for images that come to us with an sRGB profile already attached. That way, people who care/know about the issue don't have to get the profiles if they don't want them.
One problem I'd like to get comfortable with, however, is what to do about the color shift between thumbs and medium images. I suspect there will be lots of customers who, depending on how their Macs are configured, will wonder why their small images look washed compared to larger ones. It wouldn't be hard to construct some screen shots for people to see what they think.
The other issue is, are we clear how Safari 3.0 (Webkit) handles sRGB images without profiles? We looked at this briefly last month and what we thought we saw was:
1. That the color shift between an sRGB image with and without profile was minor in Webkit but major in current implementations of Safari.
2. Not every user liked the look of images rendered by Safari with the profile attached. They felt they were too saturated.
Apple has been under pressure for good reason to render unprofiled images as sRGB, because that's the Internet standard. They explained why they haven't done it to date, but it doesn't feel like their argument is sticking.
I can mess with Webkit more tomorrow, but in the meantime if anyone already knows how it treats unprofiled jpgs, I'd love to know.
Thanks,
Baldy
Looked at someone's Zenfolio site from above post.
1) Dead slow.
2) My customer would have to 'Login' or create a 'Free Account'
This is a big deal breaker and is ridiculous and very 'non-business-like' .
I am using energy to get the customer to deal with me and they have to login with someone else???
If Smugmug suddenly required this I would leave as soon as I found out about it.
For my money and my customer's satisfaction, Smugmug is the BEST.
From someone who knows, Nicholas
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
GOOD!! Thats a huge drawback!! The reason I left many other photo sites. I mean really, why make someone login to buy photos? Hmmm. Thanks smugmug for keeping everyone happy!
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Atlanta, GA
This sounds reasonable.
Well, I wouldn't think that the thumbnail issue is that great, I'd be surprised if many people noticed. The "correct" fix is to have profiles on the thumbnails as well, but it seems this may not be possible for bandwidth reasons. Although I don't really see how big a problem this can be, a profile is, what, 2.5k? I realise that this makes a difference for you guys with a site the size of SmugMug, but for an individual user we're talking an extra 50k on the first download on a page of 20 thumbnails. This seems like very little to me, it's not like it requires an extra request for the profile and it should be cached alongside the image.
Well, no, that's totally random, which is the point. Safari is the *only* browser that gives me any way at all to display images correctly (with a profile). Anything else will give totally unpredictable results on the Mac.
Obviously trying to show the same colours to all users is a losing battle, since Aunty Mavis doesn't calibrate her monitor. sRGB is by far the best option for the widest array of users. However, I have a small group of people who I'd like to see my images well, they calibrate their monitors etc etc, and a lot of them are on Macs. By removing my profile, you're essentially removing my one possibility of showing my images to them as they're meant to be seen, and that's not acceptable to me in a paying service.
The point is not so much whether the change is minor or major, just that it can't be controlled for at all except by using an embedded profile, since without it Safari will do some random thing, probably based on the monitor profile (the "roll the dice" profile).
In my experience, Safari will render images with a profile *exactly* as they appear in Photoshop if served off Apache either on my local machine or on my Dreamhost space. Maybe the users are just used to seeing the colours washed out in other browsers? Or is SmugMug converting the pixel data to sRGB and still applying the profile (which might cause oversaturation)?
That's because their argument is totally brain-damaged. Seriously, I'm not defending their decision, but there is no better option on the Mac currently.
To be honest, the only option for me if I was going to spend money would be to know that SmugMug honours the profiles I send. Anything else comes down to: "In our experience it (kind of/sort of/doesn't) work for (most/some/none) of our users (most/some/none) of the time"
Cheers,
Colin
"Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius
To be fair, I only gave it a brief once-over. It is fast, but so is SmugMug! And there are some impressive promises and a few very interesting features. But it just doesn't strike me as a pro service provider. They seem to be trying to please everyone, without any real focus. Even the customer service appears to be thrown into the labs' laps. And all the most notable features appear to be direct rip-offs from SmugMug!
Competition is cool, but a fresh approach would be appreciated. Looks like my money's on SmugMug!
What we are conerned about is the perception of speed. For many users, 50k is a lot. They share their photos with people on AOL and various slow connections. Our perceived speed gets judged by every user every time they click, many millions of times/day.
But as you say we may not need the profiles on thumbs because no one may notice.
Does anyone understand what Safari is doing with sRGB images when a profile is attached versus not? The conventional wisdom that Apple tells us and most color experts repeat on the forums is that when no profile is present, Safari assumes the monitor profile. However, if you look at this test page I made,
http://www.dgrin.com/test
it doesn't matter what profile you set your Mac for, including sRGB, the image with profile attached looks more saturated than the one without. If the monitor profile is set to sRGB, they should look the same.
(You can mouse over the upper left image to get it to flip back and forth between profile attached and not.)
One dilemma is some people feel the one with profile attached is the broken one because it looks too saturated to them. Others feel the opposite, making this decision a pain—worse than "do you prefer the pull-out window or the links" issue that divides some of our customers.
Your thoughts.
Fair enough - I still have trouble reminding myself that people still use dialup :-)
Right, and especially if you leave the profiles on the large images but convert the thumbs to sRGB (which will give them the treatment they currently have, i.e. right for 95% of the people).
Nice test! I must confess I have absolutely no idea what Safari is doing to the image there... Update: I just got on the #webkit channel and chatted to a couple of the developers there, they confirmed that for images with no profile, the pixels are just drawn straight on the screen. This happens *after* any system profile takes place, it's basically sent straight to the video card. This is also what Firefox does. So this means that:
1. Firefox and Safari should show the image with no profile the same (this seems to be true, on my machine at least).
2. Safari should show all the images with profiles accurately (this is also true).
3. The unprofiled data should not change in appearance when you change the monitor profile. This is not true, which implies that the colour correction happens after the pixels are drawn. Even more weirdly, changing the monitor profile also changes the images with profiles, which it in theory should not. I don't understand exactly how OSX is using the monitor profile there.
Well, for me the only real test is if the images with profiles look the same as they do in Photoshop, which on my system they do. That test image is extremely saturated to begin with, but assuming it looks like that in PS, that's how I want it to look on the web too.
Interesting stuff, but more than a little frustrating
"Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius
You're not looking at the big picture. Its basically a free account that allows you to do lots of things that paid users do besides upload your own photos. It gives you your own web address with them, allows you to make your own albums & add photos to them from other paid users (like your friends, family members, favorite photographers, anyone). The feature is called Collections (which I have disabled btw).
I think the free Visitor account is a pretty neat feature & allows people to experience much of the site without having to pay or be on a trial account (they have that too btw).
Yeah, its kind of a bummer for just normal people who may want to just order a couple photos & thats it. Hopefully, they will allow those people to do that too in the future. But, I seriously cant think of many sites that you can just order from without making an account first, so its not a huge deal to most people.
I just tried using Zenfolio, and in less than a day, I think I've made the decision to switch from Smugmug (which I've been using for a year and a half). Smugmug is definitely still great, but for me, I prefer some of the aspects and features of Zenfolio. Here are some of my thoughts:
Advantages:
1) Overall image viewing and aesthetics are better; everything looks and feels more slick and polished, and there are some great looking themes. Smugmug pages tend to have a distracting lines (white against black), at least with the default theme (I understand there are other themes, but not many nice, elegant, black background ones)
2) Smoother/faster image browsing - Zenfolio prefetching and AJAX helps, and pages load up right away (while thumbnails load as they come in). The recent Smugmug update, while intended to make viewing faster, actually seems to make loading of the Smugmug-style page slower (you wait for half a second or so while nothing shows up - a bug I'm told which will get fixed). Also with Smugmug, when changing images or image sizes, you get brief delays in between where nothing is shown, producing a sort of "flicker" effect. To be fair, Smugmug server bandwidth probably can't be beaten.
3) Layout of galleries - galleries are laid out across the page, making good use of space. The layout is also changed dynamically based on the size of the browser. I guess I was never the biggest fan of Smugmug's "two column" arrangement, which seemed to waste horizontal space and results in a lot of scrolling down (although you can fit more gallery caption data).
4) Zenfolio's analog of the "Smugmug style" view gives a larger default view of the image. There's a nice tab for Photo Info (Exit data) you can pull up on the right. The thumbnails are smaller and square, which look nicer, but also make it a bit harder to find a specific photo. I'm not a fan of Smugmug's new "Photo Bar", where you have to wait for the animation before it appears. With Zenfolio you can do what you want right away.
There are also some other nice photo viewing styles, and I like that you can choose the one your viewer can see (I feel like a lot of casual Smugmug visitors never realize there are other view styles anyway). I never did understand Smugmug's clunky Filmstrip style, which moves in the opposite direction you expect...
5) Groups/collections - Zenfolio allows you greater flexibility in creating groups and nested groups. It's also easier to apply some batch settings to galleries, because you can just set them in the parent group. I also like the "Collection" feature - basically it's like a gallery, except with links to other pictures on your site (or other sites).
Disadvantages
1) Groups (Zenfolio's version of Smugmug categories) currently don't have cover photos - but I was told this feature would be added in an upcoming update
2) Lack of search - You don't seem to be able to search your own photos, only a public Zenfolio search.
3) Smugmug has more cool features (RSS feeds, Google maps, etc) - although I haven't really found myself using too many of them.
4) Not as easy to choose a specific image size (S,M,L) as with Smugmug. On the other hand, everything resizes based on the browser window size, and you also get a Very Large (1100 x 850) image size.
To sum it up, while Smugmug has a lot of features that Zenfolio doesn't, the most important thing is really the viewing experience, and Zenfolio just does a better job at that. Hopefully the Smugmug developers can learn a thing or two from the competition (and I'm sure they will).
We just made another new one, released yesterday, Gradient Grey. And more elegant, black ones, to come. We hope to have a wider / bigger style in the not too distant future, based on a lot of great customer feedback we've been getting here. we have hard data that shows you are in the 50% who feel that way
Thanks again!
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
The one thing I was really looking forward at Zenfolio was Collections. But after trying it out it just does not work for me. I really wish when/if Smugmug implements virtual gallery they do a complete job and treat it like a gallery but with links.
An example of how I would like to use virtual gallery:
1) Add all photos of my family vacation to a new gallery - password protected.
2) Create a virtual gallery with some photos that I want to make public (no password)
3) Create another virtual gallery with some photos that I want to share with friends - password protected but different from the original gallery
This way I can create different gallery for different groups of people.
Right now to do this in Smugmug I have to create different gallery and upload the photos again :cry
Zenfolio does it better by making it easy to add the photos into collection but the user needs to enter the original gallery password after entering the collection password
Better of going the Smugmug way for now.
Yes I know about share groups and use them currently but I want to group gallerys with different passwords into one virtual gallery so my friends, family and other only need to remeber one password given to them.
Next I took a look at the slideshow. Love the Smugmug slideshow, it uses every bit of space within the browser window. Small control bar compared to Zenfolio. Zenfolio does not use up the entire space available, leaves thick border around the images and a has background color control that is really irritating. An really useful that Zenfolio have is the thumbnail that pops from the control bar that can be used to quickly preview and skip photos in slideshow mode. But for me using maximum screen space was important.
Smugmug has many features that Zenfolio lacks like download entire album thanks to open API and tools provided by many users on this forum, a great forum, community, etc. Am happy with all the changes that keep happening at Smugmug.
Am going to stick with Smugmug. I just wish someone treats virtual gallery like regular gallery but with links.
Thanks a lot to everyone at Smugmug.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
That might be quicker bandwidth-wise then uploading again.
SmugMug API Developer
My Photos
You tried this devbobo? Make 2nd copy only works on a single photo..there is no bulk setting. So if you want to copy say 10 photos to another gallery, it is just painful to click on a photo, make 2nd copy, wait for it to update, do this 10 times. THEN you have to find those 10 photos again, which you can do with Move (expert), so at least there is something there.
Takes like 5 seconds to drag those 10 photos in the upload tool from Windows.
Hey its your storage and bandwidth, but seems odd to have several copies of each photo. Seems like only one Original would do...but what do I know?
devboo, I find it easier to upload again. It is quiet slow on at 256 kbps connection but still easier than making copies, finding the copies and moving it.
I tried this once, but since the copy is indistinguishable from the original (atleast with filenames off) I moved and later deleted the original, which killed a link.
Malte
See what ya did there? You explain how to jump through hoops with SmugMug to try and do what Zenfolio simply allows everyone to do without manipulating anything.
I am currently using both services. I love the awesome help, community and customization that SmugMug allows. To be honest though, Zenfolio is still cleaner looking and easier to navigate. The recent SmugMug gallery updates are a great step in the right direction but still do not work as smoothly as Zenfolio. I'll be keeping both for a while longer though. Still can't quit Smug yet.
I Reject Your Reality And Substitute My Own - Adam Savage
True. But, for now this is a kind of an alternate solution available, it is a bit complicated and not as easy as in Zenfolio. Anyway Andy has hinted that they are working on it.
For a long time I have been thinking about writing some bulk tools similar to the BZT, but there have been some limitations. When I get a chance I will dig a bit deeper into the new ajax functionality and see if anything new is exposed which might make this a realistic option.
Cheers,
David
SmugMug API Developer
My Photos