Watermarking problem tonight

aerialphotoaerialphoto Registered Users Posts: 299 Major grins
edited January 26, 2008 in SmugMug Pro Sales Support
I'm having problems that are centered around watermarking... I uploaded an image tonight and it was automatically watermarked with the "stock" watermark for my gallery. When I tried to change it to another watermark it wouldn't change. I decided to try and REMOVE the watermark and start over - but after several hours the original watermark was still there.

Here's another strange problem: when I go to the "watermarking" page all my thumbnails are still stuck on "processing image", even though my regular thumbnails and images are OK. On older galleries the thumbnails do exist in the watermarking menu.

There's nothing odd about the images, they're all typical scanned or digital images that are large enough to be watermarked. Even on older galleries that I've messed with before I can't do anything with the watermarks.

Here's what I've tried:

(1)Created a couple of new watermarks to see if the old ones were corrupt - did nothing
(2)Uploaded an image that had previously been watermarked successfully (typical image from a digital camera) - did nothing
(3)Created a fresh gallery - no change
(4)Turned watermarking off, then on again - no change
(5)Tried a different browser with a clean cache - no change

The problem seems to have cropped up after the problems from yesterday. The test gallery I set up is located at http://aerialphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/4189466

Any ideas?

PS: If any of the support heros get into the site, I do have a lot of watermarks. My next idea was to purge all the watermarks and start over - I need to reorganize them anyway - but adding a fresh one didn't seem to make a difference.

Comments

  • aerialphotoaerialphoto Registered Users Posts: 299 Major grins
    edited January 19, 2008
    Update:

    I don't know whether anyone was working on this problem or not, but... overnight the watermarks on the test images were removed (which I initiated last night). The thumbnails for those images showed up in the watermarking menu/page again. So, I went to apply a watermark to one of the images to see what would happen; its been about 90 minutes with nothing showing up - and the thumbnail for that image disappeared from the watermarking menu.
  • rainforest1155rainforest1155 Registered Users Posts: 4,566 Major grins
    edited January 19, 2008
    Scott,

    I'm very sorry for the delay you have seen in watermarking. Our watermarking queue had been raging high for a long time as it seemed that lots of Pros tried watermarking huge amounts of photos. Don, our CEO and Chief Geek, is all ready working on fixing the problem and he managed to bring the queue down a whole lot within the last hour. We appreciate your patience and understanding. We should be back to normal soon on the watermarking and photo tools processing front.

    Sebastian
    Sebastian
    SmugMug Support Hero
  • aerialphotoaerialphoto Registered Users Posts: 299 Major grins
    edited January 19, 2008
    I kind of figured that might be the case. No biggie, I was more concerned that there was something I could do on my end.

    A work-around I've found for right now is to create a gallery with the watermark I need already selected, upload to that gallery, then move the images to my permanent gallery.
  • rainforest1155rainforest1155 Registered Users Posts: 4,566 Major grins
    edited January 19, 2008
    I kind of figured that might be the case. No biggie, I was more concerned that there was something I could do on my end.

    A work-around I've found for right now is to create a gallery with the watermark I need already selected, upload to that gallery, then move the images to my permanent gallery.
    We should be back to normal. :)

    Thanks for your understanding.

    Sebastian
    Sebastian
    SmugMug Support Hero
  • papaglockpapaglock Registered Users Posts: 14 Big grins
    edited January 20, 2008
    Watermarking??
    Does it normally take a while to add/remove watermarks? I just started shooting some new things and need to be able to put up the pictures very quickly. It makes me a little nervous when I cant go and see that the watermarks are there.

    Any ideas? If it's a normal situation, then I know it's not something I am doing.

    Thanks
  • BarbBarb Administrators Posts: 3,352 SmugMug Employee
    edited January 20, 2008
    papaglock wrote:
    Does it normally take a while to add/remove watermarks? I just started shooting some new things and need to be able to put up the pictures very quickly. It makes me a little nervous when I cant go and see that the watermarks are there.

    Any ideas? If it's a normal situation, then I know it's not something I am doing.

    Thanks

    Hi :)

    It can take awhile for the watermarking to occur, but it should not take too long. How long has it been? Can you give us a link to the gallery where they are not appearing? We would be happy to take a look :)
    Barb
    Smug since 2006
    SmugMug Help
    PhotoscapeDesign
  • aerialphotoaerialphoto Registered Users Posts: 299 Major grins
    edited January 21, 2008
    papaglock wrote:
    Does it normally take a while to add/remove watermarks? I just started shooting some new things and need to be able to put up the pictures very quickly. It makes me a little nervous when I cant go and see that the watermarks are there.

    Any ideas? If it's a normal situation, then I know it's not something I am doing.


    From my experience it can take anywhere from a minute or two for the first changes to show up, to 15-30 minutes. Most of the time it's 5-minutes or less.

    FYI - if you're dealing with a big gallery you want to be watermarked ASAP it is quicker to set up watermarking before you start uploading the gallery. Create your new gallery, go to customize, turn watermarking on and select the watermark you want to use, make any other adjustments you want, save - then upload your images. You'll find everything is ready and watermarked after the last image hits your site.
  • stefrussellstefrussell Registered Users Posts: 74 Big grins
    edited January 26, 2008
    can you only watermark on the pro accounts? I am trying to do it on the power account and I don't see the "make into watermark" under the photo tools button. I got the info. from the tutorial!
  • aerialphotoaerialphoto Registered Users Posts: 299 Major grins
    edited January 26, 2008
    can you only watermark on the pro accounts? I am trying to do it on the power account and I don't see the "make into watermark" under the photo tools button. I got the info. from the tutorial!

    I think it's for pro-accounts only.

    I'll give SM a good plug for this one: I used to put my own signature/watermark on my images with photoshop actions, then made my own galleries on my own website - or I'd host them on my own site to link on forums, etc. Worked great and for me wasn't a big deal. But now with smugmug I've got a variety of watermarks with signatures and just use my pro account. It's fast, easy, looks great, works great, etc. You can change the watermarks any time you want, without having to re-upload the images.

    While I'm on a roll, most folks seem to want to use the watermarking function to just add big transparent anti-theft marks. I do that too, but it does a great job adding opaque signature line, like this:
    229955507-M-2.jpg

    With a little work being creative making the original watermark file in photoshop you can have both opaque and transparent elements, all added by smugmug:
    234064735-M-2.jpg
  • stefrussellstefrussell Registered Users Posts: 74 Big grins
    edited January 26, 2008
    Thanks for your help!
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