new smugmug features - March 18th, 2005

onethumb

Hey gang,

A few new things just got rolled out.

- Keywords layout has been simplified and enhanced. Should be even easier to read now.

- Print orders "Order Complete" page has been made a little more clear.

- Added the new "control panel" to move some of the busy stuff off your homepage. Non-gallery related things (pro sales, referrals, smugmug news, etc) have been moved there.

- New 'statistics' section on your control panel gives you a quick glance at your photos, disk usage, bandwidth, renewal date, account type, etc. There are a few more interesting things coming here, too, in the future.

- New 'organize & customize' section on your control panel replaces the following buttons your homepage: categories, subcategories, cobranding, sharegroups.

- buttons are new bigger and easier to read. Oh, yeah, and they're blue.

- Blue on "white" style-color has been adjusted to be easier to read.

- Fixed a bunch of API isssues.

- New accounts are now presented with a friendlier screen when they hit their homepage. Dramatically less cluttered and easier to navigate and use.

If I think of more, I'll post them.

Don

JamesJWeg

I find some of these new items rather nice, however, PLEASE for GOD's sake let us know ahead of time.

James.

P.S. BTW, the whole "control panel" idea rocks, I'm loving have that stuff off the front.

onethumb

JamesJWeg wrote:

I find some of these new items rather nice, however, PLEASE for GOD's sake let us know ahead of time.

James.

How would you recommend I do that? Spam you with our new features every time? How early in advance would you like to know? Why do you want to know in advance so badly?

We roll out new features at least once a week, often more frequently, so I'm not terribly sure how I can keep everyone apprised of all changes all the time.

Don

JamesJWeg

onethumb wrote:

How would you recommend I do that? Spam you with our new features every time? How early in advance would you like to know? Why do you want to know in advance so badly?

We roll out new features at least once a week, often more frequently, so I'm not terribly sure how I can keep everyone apprised of all changes all the time.

Don

A 24 hour lead time would be nice, obviously not needed for fixing a bug etc, but feature changes would be really nice. The way it has been latly leaves you feeling lost when you come in to do something and can't find it, yeah it only takes a few min to figure out what happened but it feels kinda bad in the mean time. Over all I give this set of changes two thumbs up.

James.

patch29

onethumb wrote:

How would you recommend I do that? Spam you with our new features every time? How early in advance would you like to know?

How about adding it as an email preference for those that want to be in the know?

JamesJWeg

I have another feature request that might be a pain to implement, I don't know. I am co-branded, when I login the address changes over to www.smugmug.com from my domain. The problem is that if I want to copy/paste a link to one of my pics but want it to reflect my domain I have to ether logout OR open another browser window and access the photo from the co-branded site without loging in, OR manually change the link I copied. It's not deathly important, but would be nice to have fixed.


James.

JamesJWeg

patch29 wrote:

How about adding it as an email preference for those that want to be in the know?

Good idea.

James.

JamesJWeg

I see you fixed another bug that came in the the new changes. It was adding refferal money in with sales. Laughing because it took me a few min to figure out why the discepancy.


James.

Andy

uh hey, don ...
something about bandwidth, too, eh what?

Matthew Saville

Personally, I love opening my smugmug and being surprised with a change. It's like, I feel rewarded or given a spontaneous gift or something. I'm really happy, thinking that you guys are constantly at work enhancing the site. I know that just sounded cheezy. But I just wanted to come into this forum and say "Woohoo! Thanks smugmug for the new change..."

As it stands now, I'll be staying with smugmug indefinitely. Good work you guys on offering BY FAR the best image hosting site.

-matthew saville-

Allen

andy wrote:

something about bandwidth, too, eh what?

I noticed that also. Am I just dreaming or has it been upped?

JamesJWeg

Allen wrote:

I noticed that also. Am I just dreaming or has it been upped?

I was just writing that off as not remembering what it had been. Not that I was getting anywhere near it, but it is nice to have that kind of room.

James.

onethumb

andy wrote:

something about bandwidth, too, eh what?

?

Don

onethumb

Allen wrote:

I noticed that also. Am I just dreaming or has it been upped?

Awhile ago. Not new this release.

Don

Andy

onethumb wrote:

Awhile ago. Not new this release.

Don

the bandwidth limits increase were done a while ago? i can't keep up!

onethumb

andy wrote:

the bandwidth limits increase were done a while ago? i can't keep up!

Also in the "I can't keep up category", maximum uploaded pixels was increased to 48Mpix awhile back. Betcha didn't know that, either.

Don

JamesJWeg

onethumb wrote:

Also in the "I can't keep up category", maximum uploaded pixels was increased to 48Mpix awhile back. Betcha didn't know that, either.

Don

I noticed that my scaned slides would upload without reducing them first, but I didn't realize why. While we are talking features am I the only one who would rather just have a blank box with a arrow showing rotation direction instead of that girl, that throws me off some times.

James.

Andy

onethumb wrote:

Also in the "I can't keep up category", maximum uploaded pixels was increased to 48Mpix awhile back. Betcha didn't know that, either.

Don

sure. you do that *after* i get rid of the 1Ds Mark II

Baldy

Yeah, bandwidth doubled for all accounts last week sometime but I don't think we announced it at the time.

winnjewett

onethumb wrote:

Also in the "I can't keep up category", maximum uploaded pixels was increased to 48Mpix awhile back. Betcha didn't know that, either.

Don

Hmm...I didn't know there were any megapixel restrictions. It seems odd that you offer a 24x36 print (which at 300dpi is ~78 Mpix), but impose a 48 Mpix restriction. It would be nice to be able to print my landscape photographs at full resolution. Tell me, is this restriction a technical one, or an administrative one?

Thanks,
Winn

onethumb

winnjewett wrote:

Hmm...I didn't know there were any megapixel restrictions. It seems odd that you offer a 24x36 print (which at 300dpi is ~78 Mpix), but impose a 48 Mpix restriction. It would be nice to be able to print my landscape photographs at full resolution. Tell me, is this restriction a technical one, or an administrative one?

Thanks,
Winn

Actually, prints above 30" on a side are printed at 200dpi, or roughly 34Mpix. So 48Mpix is well above what's required, and you'll actually see downsampling to get to 200dpi.

more info

The limitation is both functional (you don't need more than 48Mpix) and technical (48Mpix images take a massive amount of RAM when processing them).

Hope that helps!

Don

Baldy

winnjewett wrote:

Hmm...I didn't know there were any megapixel restrictions. It seems odd that you offer a 24x36 print (which at 300dpi is ~78 Mpix), but impose a 48 Mpix restriction. It would be nice to be able to print my landscape photographs at full resolution. Tell me, is this restriction a technical one, or an administrative one?

Thanks,
Winn

Hi Winn,

Since the need for dpi counterintuitively goes down with increasing print size, few large-format printers run at 300 dpi. The Durst Lambda's our printer uses, for example, that produce the stunning 24x36 prints run at a maximum dpi of 200.

I produced a 30x40 over Christmas on one at 100 dpi. Since it was a montage, the viewing distance was much less (people got closer) than they would on a print with a single image, and yet everyone gasped at the quality.

I know it seems counterintuitive, but I see every print order complaint and in many hundreds of thousands of prints shipped, I can't recall ever hearing of a problem with resolution. 99% of all problems are with skin tones and the remaining problems come from contrast, noise, or unsharp mask settings.

I hope this helps.

Thanks,
Baldy

winnjewett

Baldy, I don't understand why prints that are large require less resolution than prints that are small. If you start with a print of any size where the native resolution is 300 dpi, and you reduce it to 200dpi, you will see a decrease in detail. I think you would have a hard time arguing against that. As for large prints, if the original photo is 6 to 8 megapixels, then I agree with you 100%. There is no difference between upsampeling it to 300 and upsampeling to 200. But if the original photo is in the hundreds of megapixels, downsampeling it to 200 will decrease the quality of the print. Do you agree?

-Winn

Baldy wrote:

Hi Winn,

Since the need for dpi counterintuitively goes down with increasing print size, few large-format printers run at 300 dpi. The Durst Lambda's our printer uses, for example, that produce the stunning 24x36 prints run at a maximum dpi of 200.

I produced a 30x40 over Christmas on one at 100 dpi. Since it was a montage, the viewing distance was much less (people got closer) than they would on a print with a single image, and yet everyone gasped at the quality.

I know it seems counterintuitive, but I see every print order complaint and in many hundreds of thousands of prints shipped, I can't recall ever hearing of a problem with resolution. 99% of all problems are with skin tones and the remaining problems come from contrast, noise, or unsharp mask settings.

I hope this helps.

Thanks,
Baldy

onethumb

winnjewett wrote:

Baldy, I don't understand why prints that are large require less resolution than prints that are small. If you start with a print of any size where the native resolution is 300 dpi, and you reduce it to 200dpi, you will see a decrease in detail. I think you would have a hard time arguing against that. As for large prints, if the original photo is 6 to 8 megapixels, then I agree with you 100%. There is no difference between upsampeling it to 300 and upsampeling to 200. But if the original photo is in the hundreds of megapixels, downsampeling it to 200 will decrease the quality of the print. Do you agree?

-Winn

First of all, the printers used for large format printing through our print lab (and many of the other print labs) only do 200dpi. So extra detail will be lost, regardless of whether smugmug lets you upload it or not. Those printers simply do not print at anything above 300dpi.

Secondly, it seems (to me, anyway) to be a perception issue. People hold 4x6s much closer to their eyes, relative to their size, than they do 24x36s which typically hang on the wall. At a given (relative) distance, details are lost anyway. Typically large format prints (whether we're talking poster-sized or an ad on the side of a building) are viewed at a greater relative distance.

The brain and the eye-brain interface are fascinating and the subject of entire PhD programs, so I don't pretend to understand it. It seems counter-intuitive, but I've seen it with my own eyes. Low DPI 4x6 prints look worse than the same low DPI posters.

Don

DavidTO

onethumb wrote:

Low DPI 4x6 prints look worse than the same low DPI posters.

Don

Makes sense to me.

It's dots per INCH, so at 4x6 there's fewer dots to display the same image.

Nikolai

Thanks for the update!
Just noticed it. Friday was kinda crazy, so was Saturday morning, hence my delay :-)

onethumb wrote:

Hey gang,
- Fixed a bunch of API isssues.
Don

If it possible to publish at least the list of the API which had been "touched", if not individual fixes? Going through the full list and test all possible combinations of parameters for each call AGAIN does not seem like a great weekend idea...

Thanks!

winnjewett

I guess that for the majority of large format printing (which is who you cater to), lower resolution prints can do an adequate job. However, for many fine art photographers, this is not the case.

For example, Max Lyons debuted his first gigapixel image a year ago, which was printed 12 ft x 8 ft at 300 ppi by Oce on one of their Lightjet 500XL printers. There are many of us who use the same techniques Max uses to obtain images whose native resolution is easily 20x30 at 300dpi.

The beauty of high resolution printing is that it can be enjoyed at any distance, including with your nose right up against the print. When enjoying a painting, it is best to view it from all different distances. I believe the same holds true for fine art photography.

I don't know sort of logistics you guys go through to make the prints happen, but I bet you could charge more for "fine art" high resolution large prints.

I would love to be able to sell some of my larger work through smugmug, but until the quality of those prints is improved, I'm afraid I'll have to sell them via a different avenue.

-Winn

onethumb wrote:

First of all, the printers used for large format printing through our print lab (and many of the other print labs) only do 200dpi. So extra detail will be lost, regardless of whether smugmug lets you upload it or not. Those printers simply do not print at anything above 300dpi.

Secondly, it seems (to me, anyway) to be a perception issue. People hold 4x6s much closer to their eyes, relative to their size, than they do 24x36s which typically hang on the wall. At a given (relative) distance, details are lost anyway. Typically large format prints (whether we're talking poster-sized or an ad on the side of a building) are viewed at a greater relative distance.

The brain and the eye-brain interface are fascinating and the subject of entire PhD programs, so I don't pretend to understand it. It seems counter-intuitive, but I've seen it with my own eyes. Low DPI 4x6 prints look worse than the same low DPI posters.

Don

onethumb

winnjewett wrote:

I would love to be able to sell some of my larger work through smugmug, but until the quality of those prints is improved, I'm afraid I'll have to sell them via a different avenue.

Oh, you've ordered one of our prints @ 200dpi already?

Yours would be the first negative feedback we've had about it, and we'd love to hear it. Please email your findings to smugmug's customer service, and we'll take a close look and discuss it with our printing partner.

In fact, if you're not satisfied with one of your large prints, we'd really like to see it in person ourselves. Can you forward it to smugmug's address and reference the order #? We'll give you a refund.

Don

Baldy

winnjewett wrote:

But if the original photo is in the hundreds of megapixels, downsampeling it to 200 will decrease the quality of the print. Do you agree?

-Winn

Hi Winn,

In the case of an inkjet printer where dithering is involved, yes I absolutely agree.

In the case of a continuous-tone printer, like a Lightjet, theoretically 305 should look better than 200, 406 better than 305, etc. In practice, most people feel the 200 dpi mode of the Lightjet produces an apparent resolution of 4000 dpi.

We see many thousands of prints bound for shows and museums at 200 dpi and I honestly can't remember a case where we heard a comment about it.

I have a lot of respect for choice and preference, however, so if you feel you need the 305 dpi mode of the Lightjet I can certainly respect that.

All the best,
Baldy

winnjewett

Well, I guess the only way to find out the true answer to this question is to do a comparison. In the words of someone much wiser than I am, "One test is worth 1,000 expert opinions. I'll be sure to report back my findings.

Baldy and Don, thank you both very much for your honest and timely responses. Service is what makes smugmug truely unique. And for all the bitching I do, I really am a satisfied customer. I just hope that together we all can work to make smugmug truely great.

Thanks again,
Winn

Matthew Saville

winnjewett wrote:

Well, I guess the only way to find out the true answer to this question is to do a comparison. In the words of someone much wiser than I am, "One test is worth 1,000 expert opinions. I'll be sure to report back my findings.

Baldy and Don, thank you both very much for your honest and timely responses. Service is what makes smugmug truely unique. And for all the bitching I do, I really am a satisfied customer. I just hope that together we all can work to make smugmug truely great.

Thanks again,
Winn

I consistently print 180 ppi prints and in all seriousness, you really can't tell the difference at all if you use the right unsharp mask. And yes I have twenty-twenty vision, lol.

I think to make smugmug truely great we need to find somewhere to get light jet panorama prints, and TRUE Black and White prints. That would be complete euphoria...

-matt-