SM print service - Do you use it and for what?

Mitch · April 13, 2005

Simple question. Do you use the printing service offered by SM and if so what do you use it for?

Now the reason I am asking. I recently read the thread started by "andy" "Satisfaction guarantee". In the post from Baldy, he states "[font=&quot]I regularly look at the list of top-selling pros and it's amazing how strong the correlation is between top sellers and how few returns they generate (zero, actually, for most of the ones near the top).[/font]" Then I noticed that andy does not offer the service on his site. (Not picking on you andy

. ) Nor did a number of the other sites I looked at. mostly doing art prints.

I may be wrong, but the feature that kind of worries me about the printing service is giving up control of the finished product to the customer. Do I want the customer being able to crop the picture, or choose the color saturation? These features are great for family and friends prints, but are they right for the photographer selling his wares?

After using up this bandwidth watch someone reply that with the pro account you can choose crop and color saturation for the customer.

Thanks all

Mitch

System · April 13, 2005

Mitch wrote:

Do I want the customer being able to crop the picture, or choose the color saturation? These features are great for family and friends prints, but are they right for the photographer selling his wares?

Mitch

I will address this part of your statement: NO

I made a request to eliminate or disable the cropping and the color correction feature on pro accounts in the feature request thread about week or so ago. I sure hope this can get done in the future.

Cheers

-don

onethumb · April 13, 2005

minoltaman wrote:

I will address this part of your statement: NO

I made a request to eliminate or disable the cropping and the color correction feature on pro accounts in the feature request thread about week or so ago. I sure hope this can get done in the future.

Cheers

-don

Pros can effectively disable cropping now by simply allowing only proper print sizes on a given smugmug photo. Having no other size options that wouldn't fit, there's no point in cropping.

I don't see how we could possibly remove cropping as an option, though, for items which have multiple print sizes that are of different ratios - it's just not fair the consumer of the prints. So we leave that in the hands of the Pros to use the custom pricing options to make this happen, should they want it.

The color correction thing is something we've always wrestled with, and I think we have a solution. There are long threads on the subject here at dgrin, feel free to read them for more information, but the bottom line is this:

- Almost all Pros take gorgeous shots but have poor post-processing skills, and thus, the color correction is way off.

- Their customers then order some prints with no auto-color correction and are upset. They assume it's the printer's (ours) fault, and complain to us.

- We look at the photos, gag at how bad the color correction is, and contact the Pro to show them how to properly color correct their shots, then order re-prints.

- Their customer gets new prints and is thrilled. The Pro now knows how to color correct, so their future orders come out looking great.

Our dilemma is clear: Since we have no way of telling whether a Pro is good at color correcting their photos or not (poor color correction is something like 99% of returns and reprints), we can't just remove the "Auto Correct" type color options for all Pros - it would result in way too much pain and anguish for their customers and my customer service department.

The possible solution we're working on now is to have an approval process whereby a Pro "proves" that not only has he/she read our color correction docs, but that he/she has their photos properly color calibrated. Once that approval process is complete, they gain the ability to "ColorLock" their items to force "True Color" to always be on.

No promises as to if, when, or how this will work, but that's the current thinking around smugmug HQ. Constructive feedback is definitely welcome.

Don

Andy · April 13, 2005

onethumb wrote:

.

The possible solution we're working on now is to have an approval process whereby a Pro "proves" that not only has he/she read our color correction docs, but that he/she has their photos properly color calibrated. Once that approval process is complete, they gain the ability to "ColorLock" their items to force "True Color" to always be on.

No promises as to if, when, or how this will work, but that's the current thinking around smugmug HQ. Constructive feedback is definitely welcome.

Don

this would be marvy. i'd add that you should allow pros to disable cropping as well...

Mitch · April 13, 2005

onethumb wrote:

The possible solution we're working on now is to have an approval process whereby a Pro "proves" that not only has he/she read our color correction docs, but that he/she has their photos properly color calibrated. Once that approval process is complete, they gain the ability to "ColorLock" their items to force "True Color" to always be on.

No promises as to if, when, or how this will work, but that's the current thinking around smugmug HQ. Constructive feedback is definitely welcome.

Don

I think that is a great idea.

It also wouldn't hurt for the photographer to order a print to make sure what he/she is selling is what they thought was uploaded. I just placed an order for some of my pictures just because.

Mitch

Mitch · April 13, 2005

onethumb wrote:

Pros can effectively disable cropping now by simply allowing only proper print sizes on a given smugmug photo. Having no other size options that wouldn't fit, there's no point in cropping.

Don

Don,

I just re-read your post, then went to my smugmug account. Yes, having no other size options would make it so there's no point in cropping, but that doesn't mean that if the button is there that I won't click on it. Once clicked I can crop as I please.

Mitch

System · April 13, 2005

Mitch wrote:

Don,

I just re-read your post, then went to my smugmug account. Yes, having no other size options would make it so there's no point in cropping, but that doesn't mean that if the button is there that I won't click on it. Once clicked I can crop as I please.

Mitch

That, and the fact that you can not offer all products that are available, as I mentioned above with Don's solution. If server side cropping were to be put in our hands, and not the customers, that would be the best option and it still allow all products to be sold on each image, irregardless of image dimensions or size or product. And the best thing is the customers would never be needlesly mucking a crop up.

-don

flyingpylon · April 13, 2005

Hi, I'm one of the morons that has a Pro account but doesn't know a heck of a lot about color correction. I have a Pro account for a variety of reasons and I haven't started selling prints yet so maybe none of this matters to me just yet BUT...

If you didn't take the photo yourself and/or are not intimately familiar with the location/environment/lighting/etc. how can you look at someone else's photos and know that they have poor color correction skills?

System · April 13, 2005

flyingpylon wrote:

Hi, I'm one of the morons that has a Pro account but doesn't know a heck of a lot about color correction. I have a Pro account for a variety of reasons and I haven't started selling prints yet so maybe none of this matters to me just yet BUT...

If you didn't take the photo yourself and/or are not intimately familiar with the location/environment/lighting/etc. how can you look at someone else's photos and know that they have poor color correction skills?

You can download the photo and open it in an editor. Check to make sure the image is in gamut using a correct soft proofing profile and then make sure the image is in the correct colorspace to be uploaded and printed in. If the image you download is out of gamut, or in the wrong profile, or has any other noticeable color problem, that photo is in trouble when it hits the printer. Unless you are pretty dang good you usually can not just look at a photo and tell, unless the thing glows in deep bright saturated colors like it is nuclear. If you see an image like that, it will probably be tough to print. Otherwise you pretty much need to look at the image in an editor or be an image editor.

I will say that after a while a good image editor can tell what is wrong with many images just by looking at them, but this is not to say that this is skill everyone has or has the time to acquire. I imagine Baldy has a good feel for a few types of problem images just by looking at them. Once you have seen one sort of problem you always are on the lookout for those same preliminary problematic symptoms.

-don

Nikolai · April 13, 2005

Hear, hear!

andy wrote:

this would be marvy. i'd add that you should allow pros to disable cropping as well...

Where is the line to become SM-certified?;-)

I'm not Scott Kelby or Kevin Ames, but I've become pretty fiendly with PS last year (thanks to Andy and his foggy horsie!)

I definitely don't want certain shots to be cropped/corrected.

i also have and idea to add to a common pool (if this feature ever comes to life): if the cropping is locked automatically hide/discard nonmatching formats.

Cheers!

cambler · April 13, 2005

onethumb wrote:

The possible solution we're working on now is to have an approval process whereby a Pro "proves" that not only has he/she read our color correction docs, but that he/she has their photos properly color calibrated. Once that approval process is complete, they gain the ability to "ColorLock" their items to force "True Color" to always be on.

Sounds like a familiar suggestion

mercphoto · April 13, 2005

onethumb wrote:

Pros can effectively disable cropping now by simply allowing only proper print sizes on a given smugmug photo. Having no other size options that wouldn't fit, there's no point in cropping.

I don't see how we could possibly remove cropping as an option, though, for items which have multiple print sizes that are of different ratios - it's just not fair the consumer of the prints. So we leave that in the hands of the Pros to use the custom pricing options to make this happen, should they want it.

I actually agree with this approach, and its very simple really. If the pros don't want consumers to crop, then don't offer a 3:2 ratio image in an 8x10 print.

But I do see one change that SM could make to the crop tool: don't let the user crop in BOTH directions, only in one. In other words, they can't grab the 10% out of the middle, order a 16x20, then be upset with the results.

cambler · April 13, 2005

I'll see that suggestion and raise you a simple fix:

If a picture has only one size available, do not show cropping options.

This is a simple boolean check to bypass the dialog. A single size available, by definition, should never need cropping.

System · April 13, 2005

mercphoto wrote:

I actually agree with this approach, and its very simple really. If the pros don't want consumers to crop, then don't offer a 3:2 ratio image in an 8x10 print.

>>>>This solution is simple but not the best as it eliminates too many potential products from a photographers line-up on any given image as I have mentioned before. This would be eliminating to many potential sources of revenue to the photographer. If the server-side cropping option were available to us and not them, we could still offer all the other odd sized prints and gifts we wanted to and the customer would not muck up the crop, it would be our responsibility to crop the image on the server after upload.

But I do see one change that SM could make to the crop tool: don't let the user crop in BOTH directions, only in one. In other words, they can't grab the 10% out of the middle, order a 16x20, then be upset with the results.

Sorry, I do not care for this second idea at all.

If this would be too complex of a change or too much work, I would settle for my original request to dump the color and crop tools, or at least have the option to dump both. Either way makes butter for me...if I have to, I can always make some extra crops and do some extra uploads from the house.

-don

onethumb · April 14, 2005

flyingpylon wrote:

Hi, I'm one of the morons that has a Pro account but doesn't know a heck of a lot about color correction. I have a Pro account for a variety of reasons and I haven't started selling prints yet so maybe none of this matters to me just yet BUT...

If you didn't take the photo yourself and/or are not intimately familiar with the location/environment/lighting/etc. how can you look at someone else's photos and know that they have poor color correction skills?

Most (99%?) of the time, I'm talking about skin tones. It's a double-whammy: consumers are most sensitive to their skin tones, and Pros aren't particularly good at correcting for it - it's much easier to make the grass green and the sky blue.

Anyone who knows anything about color correcting for skin tones can tell VERY quickly when there's a problem. Our job is to educate our Pros on how to do that.

Don

Baldy · April 14, 2005

Mitch wrote:

Once clicked I can crop as I please.

Hi Mitch,

So one good thing about dealing with smugmug is you often get very honest answers.

My very honest answer is yes, theoretically, a customer could crop the center of a shot and mess it up. But in the last million prints we shipped, no one ever has. If they did, we'd replace it.

In the meantime, we can point to tens of thousands of pro prints that are saved by the crop option, emails by the score saying it's the coolest feature ever, and many high volume pros who came to us from Printroom or elsewhere who depend on this feature.

Color is a very different and critically important issue, and other things like custom watermarks and backprinting are important too. But it's hard for me to internalize that disabling cropping isn't tempest in a teapot, a theoretical more than practical issue.

Honestly, I think if you were to press Minoltaman, who is championing this issue, about whether he's saying this from experience in selling prints off smugmug, I think he'd have to say no.

If you were to press Erik Olsen, who sells a lot of prints, about his experience with the feature, I think he'd quote customers who say it's the coolest thing ever.

It would be hard for us to change because the shopping cart is so involved so you'd be delaying improvements that are really important for this one.

BTW, we demoed a streamlined shopping cart last night at a camera user group in the Bay Area. Three of our customers were there and it was cropping that got the most kudos. One guy made a huge point of why he had to bail from Printroom because they don't have this feature.

I hope this helps.

Thanks,
Chris

cambler · April 14, 2005

To be honest, cropping concerns me only slightly. Since I upload 8x10 crops only and make that the only size available, I can let the issue go.

It's the color that I'd like to bypass, and your requirements for demonstrations of competence are more than fair. Indeed, if I'm doing it wrong, I want to know, so I can fix my workflow, eliminate the confusion, and move on.

I can always add some custom text that tells my audience that their images are pre-cropped for their protection

Baldy · April 14, 2005

I can understand the concern for cropping because most labs report it as the #1 issue, ahead of color. It was for us before we added cropping to the shopping cart. But here are the actual proportion of returns we see:

The bottom 4 items are only seen in consumer shots. Washed out (usually from using Adobe RGB) and unsharp (too little sharpness) are only seen in pro/serious amateur shots.

Note that cropping didn't make a statistical blip.

Baldy · April 14, 2005

minoltaman wrote:

I have a few reasons for this

Fair enough.

So I think it's only fair to us and our customers to focus our print-related resources on our print-related customers.

No?

System · April 14, 2005

Baldy wrote:

Fair enough. So I think it's only fair to us and our customers to focus our print-related resources on our print-related customers.

No?

:soapbox

I think you know me by now Baldy, I push for every feature my dime or my posts can buy me. I think that is only being fair to myself, my family and my customers. That said....I think you are an you are doing a fine job. Now if you could kick all of these folks that take all of these people pictures out of here, that would be just great!

Kidding....:giggle

I will try not to...:deadhorse on this cropping thing for to much longer.:nono

Don't work to hard Baldy, your return chart was interesting. :jawdrop I wonder how most of those people are doing color, those return percentages seem quite stiff in that area....Color is most certainly the word of the day for you smugs.

Happy shoopting to all.

-don

mercphoto · April 14, 2005

minoltaman wrote:

Issues with smugmug
1] Backprinting, I want my name or generic on the back.
2] The cart branding and footer, I don't like it and it will lose me business.
3] The color correction tool, it needs to go.
4] The cropping tool is just in the way for my needs.
5] Low security level on password protected galleries

I have some conerns over cropping as well, but not to the extent you do. If you have a 3:2 aspect ratio image on your site, don't allow a customer to order an 8x10 image. Thus no cropping happens. I think its a reasonable compromise that SM is offerering here.

I have some unsophisticated customers, but have yet to have an issue with the current cropping tool. I post 3:2 images, but have sold a lot of 4:5 prints. I haven't had a customer complain about the cropping tool yet. And its easier than me uploading a 3:2 version and a 4:5 version of the same image. But I certainly could do so if I was concerned about control over the crop.

I guess what I'm saying is that any concerns with cropping that I have are not showing up in the real world. So I write it off as me simply being paranoid over the issue.

For color correction, SM has raised some very valid points about why it is there and their issues with removing it. I think their suggestion to have people prove they can manage color correctly before allowing that option off is a good one. Personally, I'd be willing to go that route.

System · April 14, 2005

mercphoto wrote:

I have some conerns over cropping as well, but not to the extent you do. If you have a 3:2 aspect ratio image on your site, don't allow a customer to order an 8x10 image. Thus no cropping happens. I think its a reasonable compromise that SM is offerering here.

>>>> I would rather do server side cropping myself and offer many products instead of just products that fit the aspect ratio perfectly. I don't see how eliminating other products is a compromise, it is simply what one has to do here to (kinda) eliminate the cropper.

I have some unsophisticated customers, but have yet to have an issue with the current cropping tool. I post 3:2 images, but have sold a lot of 4:5 prints. I haven't had a customer complain about the cropping tool yet. And its easier than me uploading a 3:2 version and a 4:5 version of the same image. But I certainly could do so if I was concerned about control over the crop.

>>>>Cool beans for you, I would like US to be able to do the server side cropping. This would be very convieneient and would only take one upload and you could offer the full product line-up on whatever image you wanted to.

I guess what I'm saying is that any concerns with cropping that I have are not showing up in the real world. So I write it off as me simply being paranoid over the issue.

>>>> I don't have a problem with this statement and I hear you. I just hate seeing that clunky system in the checkout process if it is unneeded or unwanted or can't be taken out of the cutomers hands and be put into ours.

For color correction, SM has raised some very valid points about why it is there and their issues with removing it. I think their suggestion to have people prove they can manage color correctly before allowing that option off is a good one. Personally, I'd be willing to go that route.

You will have to stand in line, because I and others hope to be at the exam center door when it opens! Anyway, I mentioned earlier I have bigger wants and needs than solving this particular cropping issue, so I am backing off this one just a bit.:yikes :snore

Have a good day.

-don

Baldy · April 14, 2005

minoltaman wrote:

our return chart was interesting. I wonder how most of those people are doing color, those return percentages seem quite stiff in that area....

It's a problem that's new to digital and almost no one understands why.

It's simple: with film, it was sensitive to UV but we knew that and placed filters on our lenses. Unlike film, which is not sensitive to near-infrared, digital cameras are and record it as red.

If you use a light source high in near-infrared, like indoor household lighting or on-board flash, welcome to the danger zone and fair caucasian skin going nuclear.

An excellent reference:

http://www.cci-icc.gc.ca/whats-new/news34/science_e.shtml

They had the problem with canvas and Nikon CCD-based cameras, where the problem is least pronounced. Try it with blemishes, surface veins, and Canon CMOS cameras and you'll be shocked.

mercphoto · April 14, 2005

Baldy wrote:

It's simple: with film, it was sensitive to UV but we knew that and placed filters on our lenses. Unlike film, which is not sensitive to near-infrared, digital cameras are and record it as red.

Aha! Now I know why the Canon 17-40/4L has a special coating for infra-red. I think it was done to address this very issue. Wonder if the EF-S mount 10-22 has the same coating?

System · April 14, 2005

Baldy wrote:

It's a problem that's new to digital and almost no one understands why.

It's simple: with film, it was sensitive to UV but we knew that and placed filters on our lenses. Unlike film, which is not sensitive to near-infrared, digital cameras are and record it as red.

If you use a light source high in near-infrared, like indoor household lighting or on-board flash, welcome to the danger zone and fair caucasian skin going nuclear.

An excellent reference:

http://www.cci-icc.gc.ca/whats-new/news34/science_e.shtml

Interesting read, Baldy, thanks. I can see I don't run into this problem much because a huge percentage of the the stuff I shoot is natural light work. Much of the time not enough natural light,

but natural light none the less. I do at times shoot tons of people shots as well, but these be candid street shots and concert shots also under natural light. When I am not shooting in natural light I am shooting African Cichlids under the most extreme lighting conditions and am looking to get all of the fluorescence, luminescense and metallic reflection, and color and pop out of a fish that I can. Something like what you see below on this 2 and one-half inch long male ob peacock:

The fish you see pictured is an accurate representation of the actual fish and it does make me remember at at times that I may be at an extreme other end of the color spectrum than some. I am almost always trying to capture an extreme or odd range or spectrum of color and I am almost always looking for the largest colorspace and print gamut I can get. I am an official color freak.

And btw, I would not try to print this image at smugmug in this form as it has deep greens and blues that are out of smugmug/ezprints color/print gamut This image would would need some color work done to tone these back without making the fish look signifigantly different for this image to be be printed properly here at smugmug.

Happy shooting.

-don

DJ-S1 · April 14, 2005

Baldy wrote:

It's a problem that's new to digital and almost no one understands why.

It's simple: with film, it was sensitive to UV but we knew that and placed filters on our lenses. Unlike film, which is not sensitive to near-infrared, digital cameras are and record it as red.

Are you suggesting using an IR cutoff filter for everyday indoor photography to eliminate some of the color tweaking necessary? Or is that for special studio stuff only?

Baldy · April 14, 2005

mercphoto wrote:

I guess what I'm saying is that any concerns with cropping that I have are not showing up in the real world.

Spoken by a very wise man.

My favorite line in business is, "Profit is accounting opinion. Cash is fact."

I had the undeserved privilege of working with Steve Jobs and the guys who designed OS X and iPod for four years. We believed user interface suggestions are opinion until they face the acid test of real consumers.

It was hilarious watching film from the test lab during pizza parties. The best UI designers in the world would scream as they watched the film, "NO! LADY!! DON"T CLICK THAT! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING!?"

We often hear that we should call a no-crop option (which we're re-introducing shortly) fit. Good idea. It only takes 5 minutes with consumers to see they love the term. It's crystal clear what it means and exactly what they want.

"I always choose it when I watch DVDs I rent from Blockbuster. I like movies to fill my screen without losing anything."

Then try and offer fit in the real world. You get help emails like, "You lied to us. You said it fit, but instead you put two hideous white borders on my prints. You should have called the option 'two hideious white borders.' Fit means fit."

System · April 14, 2005

Baldy said:

"It was hilarious watching film from the test lab during pizza parties. The best UI designers in the world would scream as they watched the film, "NO! LADY!! DON"T CLICK THAT! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING!?"

and then Baldy said:

"Then try and offer fit in the real world. You get help emails like, "You lied to us. You said it fit, but instead you put two hideous white borders on my prints. You should have called the option 'two hideious white borders.' Fit means fit."

Unfortunately in my earlier life as an electronic tecnicain, consumer electronics retail manager, customer service manager, salesman, installer, systems designer, and troubleshooter, I feel that top statement bigtime!!!! I believe that stuff 300 percent and love to see things like that. Well, not actually love to see it happen, but you know what I mean.

As far as that second statement goes I have heard that kind of jazz far to many times myself. The hooha never fits in the thingie right for some customers. That's just the nature of business with the general public.:cry

Interfaces, always a touchy subject, eh?

Cheers

-don

Oh yeah, I forgot, and his line is pretty darn good too...

Baldy said:

My favorite line in business is, "Profit is accounting opinion. Cash is fact."

System · April 14, 2005

Baldy wrote:

We often hear that we should call a no-crop option (which we're re-introducing shortly) fit.

...and thanks!!!

Cheers

-don

Nikolai · April 14, 2005

That Bay Area camera users gathering..
Baldy,
would you be so kind to share more info from that event?
How did it go, and such..

TIA

Baldy · April 14, 2005

There were about 30 people, very knowledgeable and full of enthusiasm, who gave us 2 hours of floor time (amazing). Three smugmuggers were in the audience, one of whom is a Star Explorer fanatic who thinks it's the greatest app ever.

We demoed most features, fielded a zillion questions (why don't you support RAW, etc.), and got tons of applause.

Lots of questions on print quality with the usual focus on dpi, jpeg compression, and shouldn't you use tiff files. I pulled out a 24x30 print made from a 600 KB 80 dpi file and everyone gathered around with the lights on high, looked close and gasped.

Someone who really knew printing chimed in and said, "don't try this at home, kids. It looks so great because EZ Prints upsampling is amazing and it was done on continous tone printers. Won't look like that on your ink jet with dithering."

We demoed the new shopping cart and talked about i2e, the new autoadjust software I've spent so much of my life testing over the last 4 months that we're about to intro. It's truly amazing.

SM print service - Do you use it and for what?

Comments