How to make a best of show

Zanotti · December 26, 2007

I would like to go through my shots of 2007 and create a best of catagory or show. My thought would be to do this each year and then havea best of collection.

I can get my site to sort by year by using the photo timeline feature. Problem is I have almost 5000 photos there. No problem, I'll go through them, but how can I tag the best 100 or so, then copy those top 100 into a best of gallery?

I can go through all of them and key word, then what? I dont wan to move them, simply make another copy in a new gallery.

Ideas?

Z

denisegoldberg · December 26, 2007

Zanotti wrote:

I would like to go through my shots of 2007 and create a best of catagory or show. My thought would be to do this each year and then havea best of collection.

I can get my site to sort by year by using the photo timeline feature. Problem is I have almost 5000 photos there. No problem, I'll go through them, but how can I tag the best 100 or so, then copy those top 100 into a best of gallery?

I can go through all of them and key word, then what? I dont wan to move them, simply make another copy in a new gallery.

Ideas?

Z

You could make a copy of the photos you want in your "best of" collection by using Make 2nd copy in photo tools (from your gallery). Then you can move the copy to a new gallery.

But - have you considered using a keyword instead? That way you can tag your selected photos as "best of 2007", they can be pulled up by that keyword, or you could use the new Shizam slideshow specifying a keyword instead of a gallery.

--- Denise

Allen · December 26, 2007

Zanotti wrote:

I would like to go through my shots of 2007 and create a best of catagory or show. My thought would be to do this each year and then havea best of collection.

I can get my site to sort by year by using the photo timeline feature. Problem is I have almost 5000 photos there. No problem, I'll go through them, but how can I tag the best 100 or so, then copy those top 100 into a best of gallery?

I can go through all of them and key word, then what? I dont wan to move them, simply make another copy in a new gallery.

Ideas?

Z

Keyword the ones you want and use this link to the gallery. Below is
assuming the keywood is 2007best.

<a href="/keyword/2007best">Best of 2007</a>

papajay · December 26, 2007

Fits the "Virtual Gallery" feature request theme...doesn't it?

Allen wrote:

Keyword the ones you want and use this link to the gallery. Below is
assuming the keywood is 2007best.

<a href="/keyword/2007best">Best of 2007</a>

I've sat (more or less quietly) on the sidelines for a while waiting for another "virtual gallery"-type request to come up again....and I'm still confident that the SM folks will eventually (I'm hoping 2008 is the year) come up with a "to-die-for" virtual gallery capability that will knock our socks off!

The ability to create a SmugMug slide show as described above is a good start, I think, but I don't yet see (maybe it's there I just haven't figured out how) how to duplicate the slideshow onto my local drive so I can burn a disc and take it to a venue that doesn't have a computer and/or access to the Internet.

There are several variations on a theme, I'm sure, of what users would like to see. My personal preference would be to
a)use keyword search as an "initial filter" (e.g. pull up all the 2007 photos that have been tagged "Favorite", or all my images of "Uncle Bob"as a starting point)...then
b)Form this "all" group, select just the "Best of the Favorites" (or the "Best of Uncle Bob") using CNTRL+CLICK functionality, for example, to get a subset of images.
c)Then I'd like to Create a Virtual Gallery of the subset, including SmugMug slideshow, journal style, All thumbs, etc. style choices.
d)Allow me to DOWNLOAD a copy of the Virtual Gallery (just the selected subset of images from above) to my local drive, so I can...
e)Burn a CD or DVD using just the images thus selected.

Let me ask it another way...how can one quickly prepare a 5 minute DVD of selected images from a large SmugMug collection (perhaps comprising hundreds of galleries and thousands of images) for a "memorial service" (or a birthday party, or a graduation ceremony, or a bridal shower, bachelor party, etc) scheduled, let's say, for TOMORROW?

If there's already a way to do that easily, quickly, seamlessly, on SmugMug, I haven't found it....and would LOVE TO. I don't really care what it's called (someone suggested Virtual Galleries long ago, and it sounds good to me). It's the functionality I described above (or something similar) that I would like to see.

denisegoldberg · December 26, 2007

papajay wrote:

Let me ask it another way...how can one quickly prepare a 5 minute DVD of selected images from a large SmugMug collection (perhaps comprising hundreds of galleries and thousands of images) for a "memorial service" (or a birthday party, or a graduation ceremony, or a bridal shower, bachelor party, etc) scheduled, let's say, for TOMORROW?

If there's already a way to do that easily, quickly, seamlessly, on SmugMug, I haven't found it....and would LOVE TO. I don't really care what it's called (someone suggested Virtual Galleries long ago, and it sounds good to me). It's the functionality I described above (or something similar) that I would like to see.

This doesn't fully answer your request, but I think it could be a starting point (although I have to admit I haven't downloaded hundreds of galleries this way - I think the most I've done at once was 5, with several hundred photos in total. It was pretty quick...).

Have you tried AlbumFetcher? It's in SmugMug APIs, Hacks & Tricks at
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=47160

It allows you to select multiple galleries to download at once. Then you could view the photos using whatever tools you have on your local machine. I've used it to pull albums down when I'm heading to visit my folks who do not have Internet connectivity. That way all of the photos I want to share are on my local drive.

This doesn't answer your request to pull only pieces of galleries, but maybe it will help as a starting point.

--- Denise

Zanotti · December 26, 2007

papajay wrote:

I've sat (more or less quietly) on the sidelines for a while waiting for another "virtual gallery"-type request to come up again....and I'm still confident that the SM folks will eventually (I'm hoping 2008 is the year) come up with a "to-die-for" virtual gallery capability that will knock our socks off!

The ability to create a SmugMug slide show as described above is a good start, I think, but I don't yet see (maybe it's there I just haven't figured out how) how to duplicate the slideshow onto my local drive so I can burn a disc and take it to a venue that doesn't have a computer and/or access to the Internet.

There are several variations on a theme, I'm sure, of what users would like to see. My personal preference would be to
a)use keyword search as an "initial filter" (e.g. pull up all the 2007 photos that have been tagged "Favorite", or all my images of "Uncle Bob"as a starting point)...then
b)Form this "all" group, select just the "Best of the Favorites" (or the "Best of Uncle Bob") using CNTRL+CLICK functionality, for example, to get a subset of images.
c)Then I'd like to Create a Virtual Gallery of the subset, including SmugMug slideshow, journal style, All thumbs, etc. style choices.
d)Allow me to DOWNLOAD a copy of the Virtual Gallery (just the selected subset of images from above) to my local drive, so I can...
e)Burn a CD or DVD using just the images thus selected.

Let me ask it another way...how can one quickly prepare a 5 minute DVD of selected images from a large SmugMug collection (perhaps comprising hundreds of galleries and thousands of images) for a "memorial service" (or a birthday party, or a graduation ceremony, or a bridal shower, bachelor party, etc) scheduled, let's say, for TOMORROW?

If there's already a way to do that easily, quickly, seamlessly, on SmugMug, I haven't found it....and would LOVE TO. I don't really care what it's called (someone suggested Virtual Galleries long ago, and it sounds good to me). It's the functionality I described above (or something similar) that I would like to see.

This would be great. Especailly for anybody who shoots events. If I could just come back from a football shoot and pull out the top 25 shots, keyword them, and burn them, it would save tons of time!

Feature request?

Z

denisegoldberg · December 26, 2007

Zanotti wrote:

This would be great. Especailly for anybody who shoots events. If I could just come back from a football shoot and pull out the top 25 shots, keyword them, and burn them, it would save tons of time!

Feature request?

Z

I would suggest adding this as a request to the features request thread (sticky at the top of this forum) to ensure that it is seen.

--- Denise

papajay · December 26, 2007

denisegoldberg wrote:

This doesn't fully answer your request, but I think it could be a starting point (although I have to admit I haven't downloaded hundreds of galleries this way - I think the most I've done at once was 5, with several hundred photos in total. It was pretty quick...).

Have you tried AlbumFetcher? It's in SmugMug APIs, Hacks & Tricks at
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=47160

It allows you to select multiple galleries to download at once. Then you could view the photos using whatever tools you have on your local machine. I've used it to pull albums down when I'm heading to visit my folks who do not have Internet connectivity. That way all of the photos I want to share are on my local drive.

This doesn't answer your request to pull only pieces of galleries, but maybe it will help as a starting point.

--- Denise

Thanks Denise

I've used both AF and FS on several occasions, and like both of them...for downloading galleries.

While a download from Album Fetcher is, indeed, quick (so, by the way is FriendSync....blazing fast, in fact), but there's no practical way to just download a few "selected" images from across many galleries.

I keyword all my images after upload to SmugMug (I know I could do it before uploading, but I happen to like the way SmugMug's bulk keyword editor works). Consequently I don't have my "original" images tagged on my local drive.

Downloading entire galleries, and THEN selecting the precious few from the overwhelming many sorta defeats the benefit of useing keyword search when the whole thing could be done in SmugMug first.

As Zanotti noted, being able to come back from a shoot, upload several hundred photos all at once, keyword the entire batch for posterity, but then be able to quickly select a few "winners" to make a DVD for an offline (local drive) "production" would be a really nice capability.

I agree this should be added to the feature request threads...(actually, it's been in there for quite some time now....I was just sorta hoping someone else would add fuel to the fire to ask for it...again.)

Zanotti · December 27, 2007

Any other ideas? None of these are practical.

Z

papajay · January 9, 2008

Another birthday party...maybe a photobook or DVD???

papajay wrote:

I've sat (more or less quietly) on the sidelines for a while waiting for another "virtual gallery"-type request to come up again....and I'm still confident that the SM folks will eventually (I'm hoping 2008 is the year) come up with a "to-die-for" virtual gallery capability that will knock our socks off!

The ability to create a SmugMug slide show as described above is a good start, I think, but I don't yet see (maybe it's there I just haven't figured out how) how to duplicate the slideshow onto my local drive so I can burn a disc and take it to a venue that doesn't have a computer and/or access to the Internet.

There are several variations on a theme, I'm sure, of what users would like to see. My personal preference would be to
a)use keyword search as an "initial filter" (e.g. pull up all the 2007 photos that have been tagged "Favorite", or all my images of "Uncle Bob"as a starting point)...then
b)Form this "all" group, select just the "Best of the Favorites" (or the "Best of Uncle Bob") using CNTRL+CLICK functionality, for example, to get a subset of images.
c)Then I'd like to Create a Virtual Gallery of the subset, including SmugMug slideshow, journal style, All thumbs, etc. style choices.
d)Allow me to DOWNLOAD a copy of the Virtual Gallery (just the selected subset of images from above) to my local drive, so I can...
e)Burn a CD or DVD using just the images thus selected.

Let me ask it another way...how can one quickly prepare a 5 minute DVD of selected images from a large SmugMug collection (perhaps comprising hundreds of galleries and thousands of images) for a "memorial service" (or a birthday party, or a graduation ceremony, or a bridal shower, bachelor party, etc) scheduled, let's say, for TOMORROW?

If there's already a way to do that easily, quickly, seamlessly, on SmugMug, I haven't found it....and would LOVE TO. I don't really care what it's called (someone suggested Virtual Galleries long ago, and it sounds good to me). It's the functionality I described above (or something similar) that I would like to see.

It's more than just a "wish-list item" for me. My grandaughter's 4th birhtday is sneaking up on me fast! I have about 300 photos I've taken of her since her last birthday in several SmugMug galleries (vacations, outings, holidays, etc.).

So my plan is to produce a photo-book (Blurb-style) and/or a DVD/SlideShow with 40, 50, 60 or so of the "best" of my 300 photos as a birthday present.

I can easily get the 300 using keywords...and that's where I get stuck in my tracks. Selecting the 40, 50, 60 best could be done by keywording, but it means opening each gallery (most of mine are Journal style) and scrolling though or bulk keyword editing the gallery's thumbnails again.

A user-friendly "Select from Group" (the 300) capability to get a Virtual (or even a temporary) Gallery of the 50 best, which could be uploaded directly to Blurb, added to a SmugMug Shopping Cart, or downloaded back to my hard-drive so I can burn a DVD would be SO COOL!

Birthdays, Family Reunions, Retirement Parties, Graduation Parties, Funerals, Anniversaries (...the list of potential occasions seems endless) where this could be applied.

I'd be happy for a "Soon, Yes" or even a "Someday Maybe" from the SmugDesign Team...one can always dream!

I know that THIS time around, I'll get it done clumsily enough on my own.

Thanks for hearing me out.

PBolchover · January 9, 2008

The way I would do it would be to open those 300 photos in Firefox, then centre-click on each of the "best" photos, to open them in a new tab. Every now and again, I would go through all of the open tabs, and add a keyword to them.

If you then wish to download all of these photos for a local slideshow (based from your hard disk), I would open the "best" keyword, and change to "all thumbs theme". Then select file/save, ensure that the "html only" option is selected (so the thumbs remain on smugmug). Open the html file in notepad, and bulk-replace the -Ti with -O. Open the file again in firefox/IE, and select file/save once more, this time ensuring that the "complete" option is selected. Choose a different filename, and all of your originals will be downloaded to a directory on your local drive.

Once you have all of these photos in a single directory, you can use the slide-show software of your choice to display them.

Allen · January 9, 2008

papajay wrote:

It's more than just a "wish-list item" for me. My grandaughter's 4th birhtday is sneaking up on me fast! I have about 300 photos I've taken of her since her last birthday in several SmugMug galleries (vacations, outings, holidays, etc.).

So my plan is to produce a photo-book (Blurb-style) and/or a DVD/SlideShow with 40, 50, 60 or so of the "best" of my 300 photos as a birthday present.

I can easily get the 300 using keywords...and that's where I get stuck in my tracks. Selecting the 40, 50, 60 best could be done by keywording, but it means opening each gallery (most of mine are Journal style) and scrolling though or bulk keyword editing the gallery's thumbnails again.

A user-friendly "Select from Group" (the 300) capability to get a Virtual (or even a temporary) Gallery of the 50 best, which could be uploaded directly to Blurb, added to a SmugMug Shopping Cart, or downloaded back to my hard-drive so I can burn a DVD would be SO COOL!

Birthdays, Family Reunions, Retirement Parties, Graduation Parties, Funerals, Anniversaries (...the list of potential occasions seems endless) where this could be applied.

I'd be happy for a "Soon, Yes" or even a "Someday Maybe" from the SmugDesign Team...one can always dream!

I know that THIS time around, I'll get it done clumsily enough on my own.

Thanks for hearing me out.

Go to your 300 photo keyword page. Under each photo you select add
another keyword like "this one". Don't have to go to any other gallery.

Allen · January 9, 2008

PBolchover wrote:

The way I would do it would be to open those 300 photos in Firefox, then centre-click on each of the "best" photos, to open them in a new tab. Every now and again, I would go through all of the open tabs, and add a keyword to them.

If you then wish to download all of these photos for a local slideshow (based from your hard disk), I would open the "best" keyword, and change to "all thumbs theme". Then select file/save, ensure that the "html only" option is selected (so the thumbs remain on smugmug). Open the html file in notepad, and bulk-replace the -Ti with -O. Open the file again in firefox/IE, and select file/save once more, this time ensuring that the "complete" option is selected. Choose a different filename, and all of your originals will be downloaded to a directory on your local drive.

Once you have all of these photos in a single directory, you can use the
slide-show software of your choice to display them.

Wow, thanks. Works great.

But, right click protection has to be off or you don't get any of the photos.
And because it's a keyword gallery the photos are spread all over the place.
This is where SmugBrowser comes in handy to do many galleries. You toggle
right-click off anywhere on the tree or your whole site, save page and turn
it on again.

This probably doesn't apply for his case because it's family and wouldn't
think right-click would be enabled on the family galleries.

papajay · January 9, 2008

Allen wrote:

Go to your 300 photo keyword page. Under each photo you select add
another keyword like "this one". Don't have to go to any other gallery.

Thanks Allen...Your suggestion would work, I think, but it doesn't work in my situation (I think you must be assuming I use the I select the keyword from the the Keyword Cloud)...

First, I hide my keywords via CSS, so even when I'm logged-in the keywords don't show below the picture, and therefore can't be editted simply. Your suggestion looks like it would work if I "unhide" my keywords.

Even so, the "related keywords" list doesn't always show ALL the related keywords, so the second or third keyword I might choose could be "off the page" for selection.

I start out at my home page, enter a keyword combo in the search box (like GrandaughterName 2007)....that gets me the 300 thumbnails. Clicking on one of the thumbnails takes me directly to the gallery page where that image resides rather than allowing me to simply add a keyword on the search results page.

Assuming I did as you suggest, and get my 50 or so Favorites, how do I then get them into a "virtual gallery" or whatever to download the group and burn a DVD? (I can see now how I might get them into the Shopping Cart, but that's not really what I want to do in this case).

papajay · January 9, 2008

Allen wrote:

Wow, thanks. Works great.

But, right click protection has to be off or you don't get any of the photos.
And because it's a keyword gallery the photos are spread all over the place.
This is where SmugBrowser comes in handy to do many galleries. You toggle
right-click off anywhere on the tree or your whole site, save page and turn
it on again.

This probably doesn't apply for his case because it's family and wouldn't
think right-click would be enabled on the family galleries.

Thanks....I just loaded FireFox yesterday, so I'll have to see if I can do this later this evening. I'm encouraged!

Allen · January 9, 2008

papajay wrote:

Thanks Allen...Your suggestion would work, I think, but it doesn't work in my situation (I think you must be assuming I use the I select the keyword from the the Keyword Cloud)...

First, I hide my keywords via CSS, so even when I'm logged-in the keywords don't show below the picture, and therefore can't be editted simply. Your suggestion looks like it would work if I "unhide" my keywords.

Even so, the "related keywords" list doesn't always show ALL the related keywords, so the second or third keyword I might choose could be "off the page" for selection.

I start out at my home page, enter a keyword combo in the search box (like GrandaughterName 2007)....that gets me the 300 thumbnails. Clicking on one of the thumbnails takes me directly to the gallery page where that image resides rather than allowing me to simply add a keyword on the search results page.

Assuming I did as you suggest, and get my 50 or so Favorites, how do I then get them into a "virtual gallery" or whatever to download the group and burn a DVD? (I can see now how I might get them into the Shopping Cart, but that's not really what I want to do in this case).

Why not add CSS to display keywords when logged in? Remember this thread?
Then under each photo you could add the new one and not have to go to each gallery.

Then you'd just go to /keyword/selected and save the page in allthumbs style.

papajay · January 9, 2008

Allen wrote:

Why not add CSS to display keywords when logged in? Then under each
photo you could add the new one and not have to go to each gallery.

Then you'd just go to /keyword/selected and save the page in allthumbs style.

Just 'cuz I said I used CSS to hide keywords doesn't mean I understand the first thing about CSS

. Do you know of a CSS line that does what you've suggested....keep my keywords hidden except when I'm logged in??
That would be great! Thanks Allen, for the suggestion. There may be hope for me yet.

Allen · January 9, 2008

papajay wrote:

Just 'cuz I said I used CSS to hide keywords doesn't mean I understand the first thing about CSS . Do you know of a CSS line that does what you've suggested....keep my keywords hidden except when I'm logged in??
That would be great! Thanks Allen, for the suggestion. There may be hope for me yet.

I tried to find your site to look at your CSS and see how you have them turned off, no luck.

But if you noticed in that thread Rich has this.

#photoKeywords {display: none;} /* hide keywords */

.loggedIn #photoKeywords {display: block;} /* keywords visible when logged in */

papajay · January 10, 2008

Allen wrote:

I tried to find your site to look at your CSS and see how you have them turned off, no luck.

But if you noticed in that thread Rich has this.

#photoKeywords {display: none;} /* hide keywords */

.loggedIn #photoKeywords {display: block;} /* keywords visible when logged in */

Thanks Allen...(for pointing back to the earlier thread on hiding keywords except when logged-in)...I can't recall why I "undid" that, but have reset the CSS code now. It appears to work. While adding "Keep-this-one" keyords for this birthday project I'm working on, I had to refresh the screen fairly often to get the keywords to continue showing up while logged in (they'd be there for a while, then all of a sudden stop displaying until I refreshed...just odd, not a big deal).

I've had to go back and touch most of my galleries anyway (to allow Originals, and to Bulk SmugMungous them while I'm at it).

So I'm about to try PBolchover's Firefox select and download procedure.

papajay · January 10, 2008

PBolchover wrote:

The way I would do it would be to open those 300 photos in Firefox, then centre-click on each of the "best" photos, to open them in a new tab. Every now and again, I would go through all of the open tabs, and add a keyword to them.

If you then wish to download all of these photos for a local slideshow (based from your hard disk), I would open the "best" keyword, and change to "all thumbs theme". Then select file/save, ensure that the "html only" option is selected (so the thumbs remain on smugmug). Open the html file in notepad, and bulk-replace the -Ti with -O. Open the file again in firefox/IE, and select file/save once more, this time ensuring that the "complete" option is selected. Choose a different filename, and all of your originals will be downloaded to a directory on your local drive.

Once you have all of these photos in a single directory, you can use the slide-show software of your choice to display them.

THANK YOU PBolchover!!!!

You're a genius (in my 'book')!!

:ivar

The 'process' you outlined worked like a charm the very first time! Now I can proceed to get my grandaughter's Best of Year (since her last Birthday) photobook produced.
I also discovered something on my own...while it's not the "Virtual Gallery" that so many have asked for on numerous occasions, I can now get a "real" gallery from key-word galleries by adding one step to the end of the process you described. Just create a NEW gallery on SmugMug and UPLOAD the directory back to Smug into the new gallery. (Yes, I know I could do the same thing by making 2nd copies of each of the "Best" photos, and MOVE them...individually...to a new gallery, etc....but that is a real PITA, for sure).

I hope the SMDevelopment Team takes note of the working "prototype" you were able describe in a couple sentences. I'll admit I was nervous to try it, but it wasn't at all difficult to follow...and it WORKED!

Thank You SOOOOO MUCH!!!!

How to make a best of show

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