New! Picasa Uploader

Andy

UPDATED NEW VERSION!

NEW HELP PAGE http://www.smugmug.com/help/picasa-smugmug-uploader


The new SmugMug version is now live. You can install the new button [URL="picasa://importbutton/?url=http://www.smugmug.com/photos/picasa/picasa2smugmug.pbz"]here[/URL]. It's free, and it works great. We've pre-tested it at SmugMug this week, and it's looking really good. Please give it a try :deal

Install the uploader, then launch Picasa and start uploading

Here's a screen shot, just select your photo(s), then click the SmugMug button. After that, it's really easy and intuitive.

Please report any feedback, requests, and of course bugs, right here. We'll will be watching!

:clap :clap

devbobo

Nice work Richard

Sewerman

Very Cool!! Thanks!!

Bountyphotographer

Picassa?????????????????????????
What happened? Last time I was on DGRIN I asked about Picassa and people didn't think much of it, since most true photographer were using the latest photoshop CS3?? I believe. I kind of felt really bad since I am using Picassa.

Philippe

Andy

Bountyphotographer wrote:

What happened? Last time I was on DGRIN I asked about Picassa and people didn't think much of it, since most true photographer were using the latest photoshop CS3?? I believe. I kind of felt really bad since I am using Picassa.

Philippe

Well, it's certainly no CS3, but I have to tell you, I was fairly impressed using Picasa this past week. It's a fine tool for the price

Bountyphotographer

Yesssssssssssssssssssssss
yes, and I thought I would never make it to the big world.......................wait a minute who said that I would make it, ha,ha,ha.
I agree with you on that topic nothing else seems to be better than CS3, but there are other ways of editing photos without going with the long process of learning how to use the great CS3

I am glad to be back

BP

SUKA

THANKS!! for the new Picasa SmugMug loader!!!! I have been looking for that for some time now!!! One suggestion though...would it be possible to add something similar to the google one where you can choose the size of the photo that is uploaded (google offers 3 choices...medium, large, and original). I know you can use the export function in Picasa to reduce the size, but having it all integrated would streamline the upload process and make the tool simply FANTASTIC!!

clap

RichardJohn

SUKA wrote:

THANKS!! for the new Picasa SmugMug loader!!!! I have been looking for that for some time now!!! One suggestion though...would it be possible to add something similar to the google one where you can choose the size of the photo that is uploaded (google offers 3 choices...medium, large, and original). I know you can use the export function in Picasa to reduce the size, but having it all integrated would streamline the upload process and make the tool simply FANTASTIC!!

clap

I'll start working on this

RichardJohn

Ok, if images are too large in filesize for your SmugMug account, they are now resized to 3264 pixels wide. The option of exporting and compressing is still there if you don't like resizing.

I'm still unsure about how I'd implement a small/medium/large selection, but I'll think about it some more!

darryl

Oops -- can't upload video
For kicks, and because it showed up in Picasa, I tried uploading a 30MB AVI file from my Canon S3.

The Picasa Uploader thought it was just an oversized photo, and said it would crop it. Heh.

So, you probably want to include some logic in there about a video having to be the lame-o MPEG-1 format until SmugMug someday supports other formats. (And converts them to high-quality Flash videos. Ah well, a boy can dream, can't he?) Oh, and you should probably check to make sure they've got a Power or Pro account, and watch the file size limit accordingly: it's under 8MB for Power and 16MB for Pro.

But otherwise, THANK YOU SO MUCH! So I don't use Picasa much, but OMG, I love it for browsing years worth of photos so much more than iPhoto. Ok, so except for my wife's new MacBookPro, all of our Macs are > 2 years and more like 3 years old (1GHz 12" G4 Powerbook, 512MHz G4 tower, G3 dual-usb iBook), so I am loathe to wait for iPhoto to import all my photos.

Picasa has always seemed so *darned* fast on the import, and this was when iPhoto still forced you to copy every photo into *their* directory structure.

I use a simple ~/photos/2007/2007.09.01-NewSwimClass directory structure that works well for me. But because I don't tag, being able to zoom through months and years of photos with a quick drag is really really nice in Picasa.

I just plug in my external drive to my fast PC at work, and zoom, I'm off. (Although I need to get a full version of Macdrive 7 so I can mount the HFS+ disk there.)

I'm sure iPhoto is much less sucky nowadays, but I have a love/hate relationship with Macs.

And yeah, I'm waaaaaaay too lazy to do any post-processing whatsoever, so Photoshop would be a complete waste of money for me. Especially just for managing photos.

RichardJohn

darryl wrote:

For kicks, and because it showed up in Picasa, I tried uploading a 30MB AVI file from my Canon S3.

The Picasa Uploader thought it was just an oversized photo, and said it would crop it. Heh.

So, you probably want to include some logic in there about a video having to be the lame-o MPEG-1 format until SmugMug someday supports other formats. (And converts them to high-quality Flash videos. Ah well, a boy can dream, can't he?)

I wasn't aware Picasa handled video! I'll sort something out later .

darryl wrote:

Oh, and you should probably check to make sure they've got a Power or Pro account, and watch the file size limit accordingly: it's under 8MB for Power and 16MB for Pro.

It already does

devbobo

darryl wrote:

Picasa has always seemed so *damned* fast on the import, and this was when iPhoto still forced you to copy every goddamned photo into *their* directory structure.

Hi Darryl,

I don't want to hijack Richard's thread, but iPhoto does have an option that stops it from importing photos into it's own directory structure (Preferences->Advanced->Copy Items to the iPhoto Library).

Cheers,

David

darryl

devbobo wrote:

Hi Darryl,

I don't want to hijack Richard's thread, but iPhoto does have an option that stops it from importing photos into it's own directory structure (Preferences->Advanced->Copy Items to the iPhoto Library).

Cheers,

David

Yeah, I know -- I was talking about early versions of iPhoto. But from the beginning Picasa has not needed to copy the files. Then again, most photo organizers don't. I actually end up using Graphic Converter on the Mac just to see thumbs of all the photos in a folder. I hate that, but that's more of an OS X shortcoming. (I mean c'mon, Windows XP has this. :P)

tonyp126

Richard, great utility! I love it! Thanks!

darryl

Quicksettings?
Hi Richard:

I know you could go nuts trying to replicate all of the various Gallery settings SmugMug offers.

Instead, how about offering the QuickSettings drop-down?

Apparently this *is* accessible via the API. Discussion about it here:

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=574498#post574498

Thanks!

darryl

Timeout Setting? Error notification?
AUGH. Due to [thread=71501]recent connectivity issues[/thread] with SmugMug, it looks like the Picasa uploader timed out maybe 1/5 of the way through my last upload of 132 photos. :-{

Actually, I think it got to the "Waiting for results..." stage, so I thought it was done, but when I went to the gallery, there were only 32 photos uploaded.

I don't expect you to do anything about fixing the bandwidth problems (although maybe a timeout increase would be nice), but when the connection does timeout or there is any kind of error back from SmugMug, it'd be nice to see a notification about that.

Thanks!

--Darryl

RichardJohn

Hmm, did you get the status page?

darryl

RichardJohn wrote:

Hmm, did you get the status page?

Hope, eventually the Picasa progress window went away and I was back to the main Picasa window.

Oh, another minor thing:

When I uploaded with Picasa, the filenames didn't come through. Not a big deal for me, but others might use that information for sorting, etc.

Thanks again!

RichardJohn

Filenames should now be preserved.

dmerrill

incomplete upload should provide warning info

darryl wrote:

AUGH. Due to [thread=71501]recent connectivity issues[/thread] with SmugMug, it looks like the Picasa uploader timed out maybe 1/5 of the way through my last upload of 132 photos. :-{
...
--Darryl

I'm seeing the same problem as Darryl. Could be due to tracert delays, but I'll echo that it would be nice to know (1) that not all the files made it, (2) how many made it, and (3) which one was the last one to make it. Then I can continue cleanly from the next one.
Thanks,
Dave

RichardJohn

With the uploader, you're never directly conencted to SmugMug, so the only thing that can explain it is that you lost contact with my server. If this was SmugMug's problem, everyone using the uploader would see it. This rules out the link betwene my server and SmugMug, and therfore only leaves the connection between you and my server. If you're also having conenctivity problems with SmugMug, I would contact your ISP, as there are obviously problems. I can't give a status if this happens, because if you're not connected, I can't relay any information!

darryl

RichardJohn wrote:

With the uploader, you're never directly conencted to SmugMug, so the only thing that can explain it is that you lost contact with my server. If this was SmugMug's problem, everyone using the uploader would see it. This rules out the link betwene my server and SmugMug, and therfore only leaves the connection between you and my server. If you're also having conenctivity problems with SmugMug, I would contact your ISP, as there are obviously problems. I can't give a status if this happens, because if you're not connected, I can't relay any information!

Weird. So I just re-uploaded 132 photos, and the first 122 went fine (but I never got the Upload Status from your server). Then I selected and uploaded the last 10 photos, and I *did* get the status this time.

I really shouldn't have these kinds of problems from my work. We've got a DS3, and it's pretty solid.

RichardJohn

Ok, you found a bug! There was a limitation in Picasa which meant it wasn't showing the status for large numbers of images. I've now worked around it, so you should see the status no matter how many images you upload.

pilotdave

The Picasa Uploader is great. Really saves me time, especially when I just want to add a pic really quickly to a gallery. Just a few comments for improvements I'd like to see...

SubCategories for new galleries. (unless I just missed it... only created one gallery so far with it)

Sort order of existing galleries. Takes me forever to find the gallery I'm looking for. I'd prefer them sorted by date created, but alphabetical would work for me too.

Still having trouble with large uploads. Attempted to upload 204 pictures yesterday. It stopped after 84. No error message, no status screen. So I deselected those 84 (thank goodness it uploads them in order), and started the rest. Same thing. Got up to about 120 (including the 84 from earlier), and stopped uploading. Selected the rest, and it uploaded them. The status page loaded, but was mostly blank. Just had the link to the gallery at the top and no more information below. But the uploader has worked great for small batches.

Thanks!

Dave

RichardJohn

You just caught me on my way out, but I'll have a look at these issues in detail as soon as I get back.

RichardJohn

pilotdave wrote:

SubCategories for new galleries. (unless I just missed it... only created one gallery so far with it)

I'll add these tomorrow.

Sort order of existing galleries. Takes me forever to find the gallery I'm looking for. I'd prefer them sorted by date created, but alphabetical would work for me too.

The gallery selection has gone through many different different sorts... every time I change it someone complains! The one at the moment was suggested by SmugMug, but if users decided it will be better another way, it can be changed again.

Still having trouble with large uploads. Attempted to upload 204 pictures yesterday. It stopped after 84. No error message, no status screen. So I deselected those 84 (thank goodness it uploads them in order), and started the rest. Same thing. Got up to about 120 (including the 84 from earlier), and stopped uploading. Selected the rest, and it uploaded them. The status page loaded, but was mostly blank. Just had the link to the gallery at the top and no more information below. But the uploader has worked great for small batches.

Right, I've changed the only thing I can think of that would be causing this error. I've also implemented a more advanced logging system so I can see if any errors have ocurred, and what errors they were. I've also simplified the status page, as the list of files was pretty useless.

If you have any errors with uploading large batches, please send me a PM telling me what happened, and the date and time you tried.

Best wishes,
Richard John

pilotdave

RichardJohn wrote:

I'll add these tomorrow.

The gallery selection has gone through many different different sorts... every time I change it someone complains! The one at the moment was suggested by SmugMug, but if users decided it will be better another way, it can be changed again.


Right, I've changed the only thing I can think of that would be causing this error. I've also implemented a more advanced logging system so I can see if any errors have ocurred, and what errors they were. I've also simplified the status page, as the list of files was pretty useless.

If you have any errors with uploading large batches, please send me a PM telling me what happened, and the date and time you tried.

Best wishes,
Richard John

Good service!

Out of curiosity, what is the sorting of the existing galleries? I can see that they are first sorted by category, which is good. But is there a second "level" of sorting? Haven't been able to figure out what is it.

My galleries are almost all named "Weekend Pics MM/DD/YY," so they all look very similar at quick glance. Really have to search to find the gallery I want, and they aren't in any obvious order.

But still saves all kinds of time! Thanks!

Dave

RichardJohn

pilotdave wrote:

Good service!

Out of curiosity, what is the sorting of the existing galleries? I can see that they are first sorted by category, which is good. But is there a second "level" of sorting? Haven't been able to figure out what is it.

My galleries are almost all named "Weekend Pics MM/DD/YY," so they all look very similar at quick glance. Really have to search to find the gallery I want, and they aren't in any obvious order.

But still saves all kinds of time! Thanks!

Dave

They're sorted by ID, which should mean they're in order of creation.

rageear

First off, THANKS SO MUCH! I am by no means a professional photographer or even a pro-amateur, so Picasa is my photo organizer of choice. I've been waiting for a SmugMug upload feature and this is a Godsend.

pilotdave wrote:

Still having trouble with large uploads. Attempted to upload 204 pictures yesterday. It stopped after 84. No error message, no status screen. So I deselected those 84 (thank goodness it uploads them in order), and started the rest. Same thing. Got up to about 120 (including the 84 from earlier), and stopped uploading. Selected the rest, and it uploaded them. The status page loaded, but was mostly blank. Just had the link to the gallery at the top and no more information below. But the uploader has worked great for small batches.

Like pilotdave, I also have had problems uploading large amount of pictures to SmugMug. My photos are all at 1600x1200 and the most I tried to upload was in the range of 150 photos at a time. I found that the uploader would complete about 45 pictures successfully. In this situation, the uploader would appear to hang at the "Waiting for reply..." status in Picasa, but would never return the success web page. Much like pilotdave, I would have to select the photos that weren't uploaded and try again.

Still, besides this one gotcha, I'm loving the new feature you've added to Picasa and hope you continue to improve it!

Thanks!

RichardJohn

When did this happen?
If it's within the last week, could you give a date and approximate time?

Thanks!

bdearlove

Thank you very much for this program. I was getting frustrated with smugmugs uploading apps until now, this does exactly what I need!