Feature request: "best fit" when printing

Nikolai

If selected print format does not exactly match the image one (D-image with 2:3 print, or vice versa, or any non-square image and square print, etc) the current mechanism fits the smallest dimension and crops whatever comes over the edges.
My request is to provide an option to fit the biggest dimension, so no image data is lost, even though some part of the print will be blank.

Simple example: I just love 10x15. It's cheap enough (cost about $6/ea) and delivers great output, my customers love it a lot. But for any D-images I'd lose the edges - and if an image already has a custom border - man, it looks ugly:-(

Personally, I can't think of the reason at all why would I like to have my image cropped, but since "crop" was there already for quite some time, can we at least have an option to use "best fit" in addition to it?
Please?:bow

{JT}

We do actually pick the best fit for the "smallest" size available; be it 4x6 or 4xD. We "could" go on up the line of sizes - but that would create far more confusion and problems than it would solve.

Nikolai wrote:

If selected print format does not exactly match the image one (D-image with 2:3 print, or vice versa, or any non-square image and square print, etc) the current mechanism fits the smallest dimension and crops whatever comes over the edges.
My request is to provide an option to fit the biggest dimension, so no image data is lost, even though some part of the print will be blank.

Simple example: I just love 10x15. It's cheap enough (cost about $6/ea) and delivers great output, my customers love it a lot. But for any D-images I'd lose the edges - and if an image already has a custom border - man, it looks ugly:-(

Personally, I can't think of the reason at all why would I like to have my image cropped, but since "crop" was there already for quite some time, can we at least have an option to use "best fit" in addition to it?
Please?

Nikolai

If you don't mind my asking

{JT} wrote:

We do actually pick the best fit for the "smallest" size available; be it 4x6 or 4xD. We "could" go on up the line of sizes - but that would create far more confusion and problems than it would solve.

What sort of "confusion and problems"? It's either "crop" or "fit", how confusing can it be? Am I missing something?
And, again, why does a user (me, for instance:-) have to lose edges on a big print over such a simple issue as the way of scaling? Here I'm definitely confused..

Thanks!

onethumb

Nikolai wrote:

What sort of "confusion and problems"? It's either "crop" or "fit", how confusing can it be? Am I missing something?
And, again, why does a user (me, for instance:-) have to lose edges on a big print over such a simple issue as the way of scaling? Here I'm definitely confused..

Thanks!

Cropping is the single most complicated issue in the photo printing business. Far more difficult even than color reproduction and the like.

99.9% of our customers (and we have a large enough base to be fairly accurate about this globally, I think) have no idea what the word 'crop' means, let alone the fact that the same image cannot print on a 4x6 or 8x10 without losing some of the photo or losing some of the paper.

Further, they're then shocked and dismayed when they chose 'fit' and received images with white borders on the edges of their prints, because of course, the aspect ratio didn't exactly fit the paper size. They didn't know what 'crop' meant, weren't willing to read anything to educate them, and 'fit' sounded perfect. Too bad it wasn't.

We've eliminated 'fit' entirely (unless, of course, the ratio matches perfectly, in which case it's always 'fit') and customer satisfaction has shot through the roof. Cropping is almost a non-issue for us anymore and our customers are thrilled. Better than that, the customers of our pro photographers are thrilled.

I even sense confusion in your post. How would you print a 2048x1536 image on 4x6 paper (remember, this is what everyone's photo albums and frames at home use) without any huge white borders on two edges (which they're allergic to)? Or that same image on an 8x10 for that matter? Just do the math, the size doesn't fit. No amount of scaling, sort of seriously distorting the image, will fix the fact that the ratios just don't match.

Cropping is the only answer, only people don't understand cropping. So we have to do it for them and make it easy to preview. Not an easy task...

Don

marlinspike

I knew you guys used to have fit! I thought I was imagining things. Glad to know I'm still sane. I think the problem is you guys need someone who just doesn't give a damn. You all care to much. You need someone who will pick up the phone and say

"There are white borders, eh? Well, looks to me like yous picked fit. You don't know what fit means? Well you deserve your stupidity you moron!" and then he would angryly hang up the phone. While customer satisfaction would plummit, my satisfaction in knowing it's going on would sky rocket.
Richard

Nikolai

Don,

onethumb wrote:

Cropping is the single most complicated issue in the photo printing business. Far more difficult even than color reproduction and the like.

99.9% of our customers (and we have a large enough base to be fairly accurate about this globally, I think) have no idea what the word 'crop' means, let alone the fact that the same image cannot print on a 4x6 or 8x10 without losing some of the photo or losing some of the paper.

Further, they're then shocked and dismayed when they chose 'fit' and received images with white borders on the edges of their prints, because of course, the aspect ratio didn't exactly fit the paper size. They didn't know what 'crop' meant, weren't willing to read anything to educate them, and 'fit' sounded perfect. Too bad it wasn't.

We've eliminated 'fit' entirely (unless, of course, the ratio matches perfectly, in which case it's always 'fit') and customer satisfaction has shot through the roof. Cropping is almost a non-issue for us anymore and our customers are thrilled. Better than that, the customers of our pro photographers are thrilled.

I even sense confusion in your post. How would you print a 2048x1536 image on 4x6 paper (remember, this is what everyone's photo albums and frames at home use) without any huge white borders on two edges (which they're allergic to)? Or that same image on an 8x10 for that matter? Just do the math, the size doesn't fit. No amount of scaling, sort of seriously distorting the image, will fix the fact that the ratios just don't match.

Cropping is the only answer, only people don't understand cropping. So we have to do it for them and make it easy to preview. Not an easy task...

Don

Thank you very much for the detailed answer. I see you guys have been giving it a lot of thoughts and trials.

However, I hope you can also see my point, too. Until I got 828 I was not able to shoot 2:3. And even wth 828 I quite often shoot in D-format (live histogram, and such), so a vast number of my pictures are D-shaped.
Now - I want to print a D-shaped picture as 10x15. What do I get? A cropped image. And I happened to be a "frame it right from the start" kind of guy, so in many cases I don't have any edge pixels to spare. But I, again, would not mind in this case to have little extra blank space - it still gonna be better that going with (somewhat limited number of) D-formats.

So, all I'm asking is to provide this option.
You can call it any name you want, you can hide it deeper than the earth core, provide it for the owners only or for the pros only - but PLEASE, can we have it availalble?

onethumb

Nikolai wrote:

Thank you very much for the detailed answer. I see you guys have been giving it a lot of thoughts and trials.

However, I hope you can also see my point, too. Until I got 828 I was not able to shoot 2:3. And even wth 828 I quite often shoot in D-format (live histogram, and such), so a vast number of my pictures are D-shaped.
Now - I want to print a D-shaped picture as 10x15. What do I get? A cropped image. And I happend to be a "frame it right from the start" kind of guy, so in many cases I don't have any edge pixels to spare. But I, again, would not mind in this case to have little extra blank space - it' still gonna be better that going with (somewhat limited nomber of) D-formats.

So, all I'm asking is to provide this option.
You can call it any name you want, you can hide it deeper than the earth core, providie it for owners only or for the pros only - but PLEASE, can we have it availalble?

This is a heated debate right now at smugmug HQ. I expect we'll have a "final" answer soon, since it's been on-going for awhile.

My personal opinion is that we've never had such happy customers regarding cropping/sizing as we do currently. Adding another confusing option may very well put us back at stage one, where no-one was happy.

But my word isn't law, we'll see what the team says... Without our customers' input on this, it wouldn't even be up for debate. Thanks for being passionate about smugmug and its features.

Don

Nikolai

Don,

onethumb wrote:

This is a heated debate right now at smugmug HQ. I expect we'll have a "final" answer soon, since it's been on-going for awhile.

My personal opinion is that we've never had such happy customers regarding cropping/sizing as we do currently. Adding another confusing option may very well put us back at stage one, where no-one was happy.

But my word isn't law, we'll see what the team says... Without our customers' input on this, it wouldn't even be up for debate. Thanks for being passionate about smugmug and its features.

Don

Let me tell you once again, I really appreciate your feedback and openness.
I do understand that you (personally and as a team member) have to deal with a huge customer base, and every decision that might even remotely affect the business should not be taken lightly. I can also understand opinions differences and, being a married man for 17+ years, can take "No" as an answer:-).
But I honestly do think that this option, being properly named and positioned (I don't mind, for instance, to have it buried in my pro account settings, explained in details and disabled by default), would actually improve that very customer's satisfaction. Those who can't tell "crop" from "fit" would not even know about it. Those who do - would be happier. What to lose?

Thank you for your time!

Baldy

I'll tell you a secret Onethumb didn't: we've had a no-crop checkbox version of the shopping cart for months, but we've been debating rolling it out. It actually shows the two white strips you'll get and puts up a warning dialog the first time you check it to explain the white strips.

The reason we haven't rolled it out is we have a very small number of requests for no-crop. Like you, however, I like it and would use it. When I ordered Snappies prints for the challenge she won, I needed it.

One thing we're pretty certain of, the word "fit" doesn't work. The customer envisions stretching the photo to get it to fit without white borders.

I think the key to its success is whether you believe the customer will notice the white strips in the preview and understand their significance.

Nikolai

Man...
It's not fair to tease a poor customer so close to Christmas:D

I have absolutely ZERO problems with the name. Call them "standard" (for crop) and "special" (for fit). Or regular and advanced. Or normal and geeky:-) Just kidding:-)

Here are some serious naming options:

For the current one (crop):

• standard
• regular
• normal
• typical

For the new "secret" one (fit with white stripes):

• special
• advanced
• resized
• margined (not marginal:-)
• non-cropped (they who do not understand would not use!)

Any one you like?

Thanks!

marlinspike

This may be too long a name but how about original aspect ratio? With the whole 16:9 and 4:3 TV's nowadays I think a lot more people understand the term aspect ratio compared to 5 years ago.
Richard

Nikolai

That's fine, too!

marlinspike wrote:

This may be too long a name but how about original aspect ratio? With the whole 16:9 and 4:3 TV's nowadays I think a lot more people understand the term aspect ratio compared to 5 years ago.
Richard

Good suggestion, Richard!
[x] Keep aspect ratio (some portions of the print may be left blank)

Baldy, Don?
What do you think?
Is this clear enough for the blessed Joe Averageuser?;-)

lynnesite

Nikolai wrote:

Good suggestion, Richard!
[x] Keep aspect ratio (some portions of the print may be left blank)

Baldy, Don?
What do you think?
Is this clear enough for the blessed Joe Averageuser?;-)

I like that one.

But I've gotta say, Don, the improved cart/crop thing has simplified things GREATLY for my customers. VERY happy with that.

About the only thing they're occasionally having trouble with is noticing the pulldown "as a pulldown" for standard prints, digital prints, etc. They don't notice that there are gift items, too. Maybe a wee bit of text explaining that it IS a menu.

Baldy

It would be nice if we could come up with something really short. It's a check box and to have a complete sentence beside it asks the reader to read more. Their eyes glaze if they can't take it in quickly.

The thing is we're really only going after the .1% here. 99.9% of orders are with cropping on and the customer's happy.

The way we currently have it is with just the word "crop" by the checkbox, which is checked by default. If they uncheck it, a dialog comes up explaining the two white strips and two white strips are shown. That just might do it.

But if a word like "trim" worked better, which has the advantage of being the word Ofoto uses, I'm open to it.

Nikolai

Baldy

Baldy wrote:

It would be nice if we could come up with something really short. It's a check box and to have a complete sentence beside it asks the reader to read more. Their eyes glaze if they can't take it in quickly.

The thing is we're really only going after the .1% here. 99.9% of orders are with cropping on and the customer's happy.

The way we currently have it is with just the word "crop" by the checkbox, which is checked by default. If they uncheck it, a dialog comes up explaining the two white strips and two white strips are shown. That just might do it.

But if a word like "trim" worked better, which has the advantage of being the word Ofoto uses, I'm open to it.

OK, if you want shorter and checked by default:

• trim
• crop
• regular
• traditional

You can also add a hint (as you alsready have in different places) which would popup before the dialog.

Once again: I'm fine with long, short, checkbox, combobox - as long as the functionality is there...

Can we have it for Xmas?
Cheers!

Baldy

Nikolai wrote:

Can we have it for Xmas?
Cheers!

We actually feature-froze the site after shipping the new sort option and a few small fixes for The Final Battle. It gets INSANE in the week or two before Christmas, trying to keep up with the print volume.


I had to make an odd-sized print, however, so I felt your pain. I just added teh white strips myself with Photoshop and sent it through.


All the best,
Baldy

Nikolai

I understand "freeze"

Baldy wrote:

We actually feature-froze the site after shipping the new sort option and a few small fixes for The Final Battle. It gets INSANE in the week or two before Christmas, trying to keep up with the print volume.


I had to make an odd-sized print, however, so I felt your pain. I just added teh white strips myself with Photoshop and sent it through.


All the best,
Baldy

But do I read it correctly, that once holiday's rush's gone, we can hope to have it available, say, mid-January?

Baldy

Man, you are the deal closer.

Let's just say we're having heated internal debate with me for it and onethumb expressing the very valid conern that cropping works for such a high percentage of customers now it would be a shame to spoil a good thing.

He's taking a well-earned break at the moment and we'll resume our debate when he returns.:duel

ian408

Baldy wrote:

Man, you are the deal closer.

Let's just say we're having heated internal debate with me for it and onethumb expressing the very valid conern that cropping works for such a high percentage of customers now it would be a shame to spoil a good thing.

He's taking a well-earned break at the moment and we'll resume our debate when he returns.:duel

Maybe you could ditch the new features under an "advanced" button?
That leaves the screen free and clear of "Keep Aspect Ratio ..." for regular
users.

"Fit to media" is what the printer folks use. What about that?

Ian

Nikolai

Just wanted to know...

Baldy wrote:

Man, you are the deal closer.

If I were, I'd becaome used cars salesman. Unfortunately, I'm not..

Baldy wrote:

Let's just say we're having heated internal debate with me for it and onethumb expressing the very valid conern that cropping works for such a high percentage of customers now it would be a shame to spoil a good thing.

And what I was saying..? Make it non-default abd difficult to chose. Choose any words in the word to warn the usert image would be smaller and some media left balnk. You have hints, you have static texts, you have dialogs - it's only a matter of warnings..

Baldy wrote:

He's taking a well-earned break at the moment and we'll resume our debate when he returns.:duel

I hope you'll have some rest, too, becuase when Don comes back and you guys resume your duel, you gotta be ready - and you gotta WIN
Cheers!

Nikolai

Very nice suggestions, Ian!

ian408 wrote:

Maybe you could ditch the new features under an "advanced" button?
That leaves the screen free and clear of "Keep Aspect Ratio ..." for regular
users.

"Fit to media" is what the printer folks use. What about that?

Ian

I like "Fit to media". The problem is, as onethumb expressed it, most of the buyers are not "printer folks", of "photo folks". They "just wanna buy a pitcha".
But I agree, that "Advanved" should shoo them away...
Cheers!

ian408

Nikolai wrote:

I like "Fit to media". The problem is, as onethumb expressed it, most of the buyers are not "printer folks", of "photo folks". They "just wanna buy a pitcha".
But I agree, that "Advanved" should shoo them away...
Cheers!

I think they quickly learn the value of "Fit to Media" the first time they
print an 8x10 on 4x6 paper or a 4x6 on 8x10 paper

Ian

marlinspike

So, did we ever get this feature?
Richard