BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
edited April 16, 2005
How many 4xD, 5xD and 8xD prints do you actually sell? Reason I ask is most pros seem to behave like Lynnsite, only making available print sizes of their choosing, typically 4x6, 5x7 and 8x10 plus some enlargements.
I did a few user tests this a.m. and two things really popped out: if they are buying prints from their own albums that they shot, they get "prints from small cameras" quickly. If they're buying from a pro, their mindset is completely on what sizes fit their albums, frames, or spots on walls.
If you go into ratios, you're dead. Here's what a young mother said who had purchased a couple times from smugmug in the past:
"Oh... Gosh. (laughs) I'm trying not to think back on my sophmore math teacher. How would I know what the ratio is? (Long silence) So... If I knew the camera was a more rectangular one (looks at me curiously) ... would it say somewhere if that's what the camera was? ...Then (looks down at feet) I can't buy an 8x10? I thought all photographers sold 8x10s."
You know, I HEAR Mitch, and I CAN UNDERSTAND him. I don't usually shout, I am sorry here, but what he is saying is so on!
Now I have explained to a family member how to order from you all. Of course I was on the phone with her at the time and walked her through it. But we could order from you, if we figured out to go to cart and we might not be sent back "home", so to speak.
But if you don't leave IN the easy stuff, like Mitch is talking about it makes it much more difficult. IMO. If you have to talk to the pros, say "if you are a pro, you might want to know..............."after reading the first few words, no one else will, but they need to be able to order, and I could order from Mitch.
The more square and more rectangular does not do anything for me. Neither do those little photos with the choices, I just need to know what is going to happen and what my choices are.
And this is how it goes for me. I shoot digital 20D, and I am 1/8 pro say. I do know there is a choice for me. I can keep my whole print or I can lose part of it and put it into a regular frame. I learned that at Shutterfly and I don't remember what they said it was so long ago.
But now I am ordering from you all. I need to know how much is going to be taken off if I go the standard route. And I NEED to be able to say take it all off the bottom instead of equalizing it, I need those choices, and you did that fine with a red thing, I think it was.
Other people might not know about those choices, but you did have it pretty good before, I thought. The reason being, I am bringing my photo to "you" from my smugmug acct, and by that, you are telling me what I can have.
I am not running out to get a pt and shoot camera with a photo size based on what you say, I am just bringing you a finished product from my camera and your thing says if you get a 5 X 6, it will need to be cropped like this, if you want it differently ...or whatever.....
I think Mitch should just sell the photos........
I know more than some of my kids, but I don't know as much as any of the people who are interested in this thread. Why don't you have Leno or Letterman go out on the street and ask the average consumer what they know or want. (Actually ask Mitch, the guy on the street will just let you know that they don't know anything.) And they are not interested in a thread like this, either.
What happened to Nikolai should not happen to anyone. I have never used a service without a warning.
I would want all of my money back.
And I would want the choices made to me of whether to crop or not and where.
Also, I don't know what a small camera is. In my day, when I was not a grandmother, people still took BIG cameras out in the field. Hasselblads, were they big, or were they small. I think there were some 8 X 10 nuts out there, too.
I did not know they made square prints????? I don't know what you are talking about on that. I suppose people who shoot square might know, but I wouldn't.
I guess I am in a rant. We all want different things. You say you would like to change just that one word, and I agree. What is it, small camera? I would be leery of that, too. As I was trying to point out, what is a small camera?
(Maybe you could say "cheap" camera)
while I generally like the idea about breakdown by sizes, I would respectfully disagree about "leave only fitting sizes" idea.
Here's the case I started to bug Sm about "best-fit"/no crop feature upon.
I had a few pictures taken with "small"/"point-and-shoot" 8mp sony in 4:3.
I wanted to have them in 20x30. There was no 20x30D match, everything else was either smaller, or way more expensive. There was no warning "your images will be cropped ruthlessly" either. So, I ordered 20x30 only to realize upon its arrival that top and the bottom was cropped.
Oh, btw - did I mention the fact that the image had custom border:
Nikolai,
Not what I would go with either, but if you only could choose fitting sizes there would have been nothing that would have fit. Pictures would not have been printed.
It was the only other idea I came up with that did not include warning the customer that the image will be cropped. Or a button to let the customer crop.
nik, have you told help@smugmug.com of this? remember, they're in the customer service business
I have a bad habit of not relying on customer service too much. I'm from ex-USSR, where it was inexistent. Instead I learned "not to step on the same rake twice" (russian saying:-).
I hear a lot of talking about grandmas lately.
Well, here I am, a well educated male, two university degrees (math and computer science), computer and photography geek. I know and understand all the photo and computer terms well enough. I know how to use my hardware and software.
Did the cart help me to make my choice? I would read the explanation, I swear! And I would definitely "honor" the warning..
I guess the key point here is that I'm NOT the grandma.
I don't sell a lot (I'm a programmer, remember?:-), and I don't buy a lot. Hence it's not really important. And I give it, it's not. I can go to my personal account at the same EZPrints and do what I want there.
As to those $50.. I susrvived:-). But I remember them. They serve as a scar not to step on the same rake ever again...
I have a bad habit of not relying on customer service too much. I'm from ex-USSR, where it was inexistent. Instead I learned "not to step on the same rake twice" (russian saying:-).
I hear a lot of talking about grandmas lately.
Well, here I am, a well educated male, two university degrees (math and computer science), computer and photography geek. I know and understand all the photo and computer terms well enough. I know how to use my hardware and software.
Did the cart help me to make my choice? I would read the explanation, I swear! And I would definitely "honor" the warning..
I guess the key point here is that I'm NOT the grandma.
I don't sell a lot (I'm a programmer, remember?:-), and I don't buy a lot. Hence it's not really important. And I give it, it's not. I can go to my personal account at the same EZPrints and do what I want there.
As to those $50.. I susrvived:-). But I remember them. They serve as a scar not to step on the same rake ever again...
Just my $.02. I mean, my $50:-)
well, for the future, we don't want you to have any more scars.
well, for the future, we don't want you to have any more scars.
I would appreciate even more if the cart become a bit more user-friendly not only for people who're ordering 4x6 and 8x10 of their (grand)kids, but also for the people with the "small point-and-shoot", yet pretty expensive 4:3-enabled cameras who actually take those pictures and sometimes even do some postrocessing and such...
Thanks for chiming in!
"May the f/stop be with you!"
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BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
Here's the case I started to bug Sm about "best-fit"/no crop feature upon...
Ouch, I'm sorry that happened to you. Honestly, we see this so rarely we haven't been focused on it, but I suppose we could consider a warning since one is still one too many.
My suspicion is it happened on this print because of the white borders, something we don't see often either, making the crop lines easier to miss.
One thing we've learned, however, is that the term "best fit" or "fit" doesn't mean "no-crop" to the consumer. To them it means what they get from Blockbuster when they rent a movie — the movie fills up your screen with no borders.
And I would want the choices made to me of whether to crop or not and where.
Unfortunately, it doesn't take long on smugmug's help desk to learn that most consumers don't want you making choices about where to crop their photos. Hell hath no fury like a bride for whom you just made a decision about how to print her photo.
And the no-crop option is a 1/4 of 1% thing. It's a very rare person who wants a print with two white borders. We see it maybe once a week.
It's in the past, though. You guys have provided a new rake, I'm ready and willing to try it.
I only wish the existing "4:3" option was not named "Picture from a person who has absolutely no idea how to shoot a decent picture. And, btw, are you really gonna pay for it???".
For what it's worth (not much) the movie industry has a similar problem with widescreen vs standard display of movies on televisions. I'm sure that millions have been spent trying to educate customers about the difference between formats, but it's just beyond most people. I don't know what the percentages are, but I know a lot of them just say "I don't like when they cut off the top and bottom of the picture with those black bars." So you can see how successful that industry has been at tackling this problem.
If we're really worried about which size grandma will pick, put "senior discount" next to the print size with the ratio closest to the original.
For a while I thought saying something like "Rectangular - like a movie screen" and "Square - like a television" would work, but then there are all sorts of issues with that as well (not to mention the fact that televisions are becoming more rectangular!)
At any rate, I generally agree with those that don't like the "small cameras" thing. I don't think it's really accurate, it doesn't seem to address the real problem, and especially for pros, it sounds like an insult. It's not the size of the camera that matters, it's the photographer behind it. (do people with small cameras feel the need to go out and buy flashy red sports cars?)
Well, I've exceeded my smiley limit for this post. It's an interesting problem. I'll think about it a bit because at some point I would like to start selling some prints and I'm not sure the current wording works for me (even though I use a "large" 3:2 DSLR).
What about "Standard Frame Sizes"... has that been mentioned? Would that work? That's really the issue...
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BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
From this page: 4xD prints are 4x5.3 inches, perfect for most compact digital cameras.
Why are they called 4xD instead of 4x5.3? This terminology seems unnecessarily confusing.
You know, winnjewett, you might have hit the jackpot with a blinding flash of the obvious.
After you asked, "what's an xD," and I sent that link in response, I went swimming. And with each lap I asked myself, "WHAT!? Why did we ever call it that?"
The answer is, other labs who offer them call them that and we don't want to contribute new terms multiplying like rabbits. But it seems obvious to just call them what they are, just like we do every other print size.
Just a couple of comments that are not closely related to each other.
First - it annoys me that Kodak, Fuji, Noritsu and the other companies that make the minilabs haven't figured this out. Back when I was a boy (he said, scraping the mold of the north side of his aging body) you got prints that matched your film format. And we had a bunch of different film formats. We didn't have white bars, we didn't need no stinkin' white bars. We did have nice little white borders all around the print.
Ok I got that out of my system.
Second - Didn't the APS system have this problem? Didn't they have C, H and P? C was 4x6, H was 4x7 and P was panorama 4x12?
I always assumed the paper was on a 4" wide roll, they printed the short dimension to 4", let the other dimension fall wherever it came out and cut the paper accordingly. No white bars. Now, the process may have been completely different.
Is that what best fit does?
And I'll add a third - when I dropped off APS at the camera shop they would always ask the same question, "Do you want them printed a special size or just as shot?"
BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
edited April 16, 2005
Maybe the best thing we can do is get who the customer is clearly in our heads.
Whether we're smugmug, Starbucks, or pro photographers, we can't please everyone, so we might as well get in our heads who we're trying to please and who we can't.
Let me try to describe and you can correct me where I err: 1. It's not your grandmother.
If you look at the shots most pros are selling, they're of babies, families, engagement shots, sports (the biggest category), and events (next biggest, which includes graduations and weddings). The bulk of the buyers are early 20s to early 50s.
Yes, it's true: some happy snappies are purchased by grandmother, but she's usually a young grandmother in her 50s, or else someone is ordering for her.
Ginger said some very interesting things about the expectations of that demographic, but they don't buy many prints online.
2. It isn't the customer Mitch described bringing film to the photo store.
Mitch said some fascinating things about how customers behave at the film store, but the buyer of prints from film can't see the original shot and doesn't know what they're missing when you crop. And they expect you to crop for them because they have no way to do it.
The online buyer knows exactly what the shot is and expects what they see to appear on paper. If they have to lose something, they sure don't want you choosing what it is they should lose.
3. It can be the passionate amateur, who hangs out in forums and shoots landscapes. This is a small but important group to us, important enough to be worth confusing the other 98% with options like no-crop.
I believe they are the ones who don't like the term "prints from small cameras." One option is to just leave the xD prints in prints from small cameras drop-down, and move the enlargements to specialty prints. Then pros can turn off the ability to buy the xD prints, which as far as I can tell they already do.
Or we can keep working on a term that doesn't insult passionate amateurs but also doesn't confuse our mainstream customers.
"Picture from a person who has absolutely no idea how to shoot a decent picture. And, btw, are you really gonna pay for it???".
Nikolai,
This was what I find objectionable too. However in reading this thread I did see another suggestion I did like that although not perfect is gonna be more recongizable for people ordering prints than "print from small camera".
Wide Screen
Full Screen
Alot of people watch movies and TV (common admit it your a DVD junkie too) and although its not a universal language most people understand that wide screen is going to leave strips at the top and bottom of there tv unless they have the right sized tv (page). They also understand that full screen means it will fill up the whole screen (page). My grandparents are the most technologically loathfull people I know. I have built them several very nice computers over the years as gifts yet they continuously give them away cause they don't want to have to deal with them (I have learned no more computers for them). However they have 3 DVD players in their home and they understand wide screen versus full screen. If we don't wanna confuse them with the screen we could reword it to.
Wide Page Print
Full Page Print
Similar to the DVD discription, easy to interperet, and even my grandmother (and everyone else that I know) would understand it. Then we don't even have to mention anything about the camera.
I just went and "almost" ordered a 16 x 20 print. I decided I ought to ask my husband about my choice first. I did it because I want the photo and also because I wanted to see what the ordering was like now.
It was easy for me. Nothing confused me, I was not sent back "home". Since it was a 16 X 20 the crop lines were there, but so was the means to adjust them.
I had no problems. It was easier for me then than it has ever been.
I messed around to see what else was there, and I think I might be confused if I had a small camera. What does that mean anyway? I have been doing alot of posting, but I don't actually know what is different about a "small" camera. I used a Canon Elph for years, from what I can remember my cropping problems were the same as now, if one could call them problems. Maybe I am wrong, I am just curious.
This term re "grandmothers" is beginning to get annoying though. The older I get the more I know in this line. It is my kids who can't figure things out.
I am glad you check your demographics and stuff, I just am beginning to wish that the term for the "camera and/or internet challenged" would be changed from lil old grandmothers at the same time you change "small cameras".
Oh, the terms "to fit", I would not think from edge to edge, I would think it would be printed to fit what I sent.
I am sure that you all will be delighted to know that I like the ordering procedure now better than I have ever liked it. Except for the "small camera" words, I think even my kids could navigate it now.
Same concept in the format of the print applies be it portrait or landscape. Now I admit some people may wonder about that at first but it is easy to figure out looking at the preview and like they have mentioned many people are lazy and will just assume things anyways. But we could make it
Agree with you about the minilabs "problem" matching film format. We need a "4x?" option that would be either 4" on long side by whatever, or 4" on short side by whatever. (And charge by the whatever linear inches.)
Also agree with other's commentis above that the focus in the cart should be on the product size/form factor no matter the type of camera of the source. (what I'd like to see is an enhanced crop-box tool that would respond to user attempts to pull it "outside the box" so to speak of the chosen print size by then showing the resulting "white-bars". Also, I'd like to be able to choose to "justify" my print to have just one bar that I could just cut off instead of two, or have an option to put a white border on all four sides to "hide" the misfit.)
But now to give my submission to the "small-camera" re-naming contest:
4:3 (most digital cameras)
2:3 (film/DSLRs)
Just a couple of comments that are not closely related to each other.
First - it annoys me that Kodak, Fuji, Noritsu and the other companies that make the minilabs haven't figured this out. Back when I was a boy (he said, scraping the mold of the north side of his aging body) you got prints that matched your film format. And we had a bunch of different film formats. We didn't have white bars, we didn't need no stinkin' white bars. We did have nice little white borders all around the print.
Ok I got that out of my system.
Second - Didn't the APS system have this problem? Didn't they have C, H and P? C was 4x6, H was 4x7 and P was panorama 4x12?
I always assumed the paper was on a 4" wide roll, they printed the short dimension to 4", let the other dimension fall wherever it came out and cut the paper accordingly. No white bars. Now, the process may have been completely different.
Is that what best fit does?
And I'll add a third - when I dropped off APS at the camera shop they would always ask the same question, "Do you want them printed a special size or just as shot?"
[QUOTE=muddykneesBut now to give my submission to the "small-camera" re-naming contest:
4:3 (most digital cameras)
2:3 (film/DSLRs)
Gary[/QUOTE]
That would work for me. I would assume my Rebel and 20D would fit in the second, I would not have to deal with ratios but those who wanted to could.
I also would assume that my daughter's new $250.00 user friendly digital camera would fit in "most digital cameras", as would she, as she would not understand any of the other numbers/words. All she knows is that she has a digital camera.
All I know is that I upgraded to a DSLR on the Canon side of the fence.
To think I used to have a "small camera" in the digital elph and never noticed a difference in ratios when I changed cameras. I just take the picture I am dealt in PS, or RAW and make it prettier than it is/was, cropping or not.
ginger (I would really go with those words here from Gary.) The old lady.....
You know, winnjewett, you might have hit the jackpot with a blinding flash of the obvious.
After you asked, "what's an xD," and I sent that link in response, I went swimming. And with each lap I asked myself, "WHAT!? Why did we ever call it that?"
The answer is, other labs who offer them call them that and we don't want to contribute new terms multiplying like rabbits. But it seems obvious to just call them what they are, just like we do every other print size.
When your nose is pressed up against the photograph, it's hard to see the entire picture sometimes. I'm glad to help.
Comments
I did a few user tests this a.m. and two things really popped out: if they are buying prints from their own albums that they shot, they get "prints from small cameras" quickly. If they're buying from a pro, their mindset is completely on what sizes fit their albums, frames, or spots on walls.
If you go into ratios, you're dead. Here's what a young mother said who had purchased a couple times from smugmug in the past:
"Oh... Gosh. (laughs) I'm trying not to think back on my sophmore math teacher. How would I know what the ratio is? (Long silence) So... If I knew the camera was a more rectangular one (looks at me curiously) ... would it say somewhere if that's what the camera was? ...Then (looks down at feet) I can't buy an 8x10? I thought all photographers sold 8x10s."
Now I have explained to a family member how to order from you all. Of course I was on the phone with her at the time and walked her through it. But we could order from you, if we figured out to go to cart and we might not be sent back "home", so to speak.
But if you don't leave IN the easy stuff, like Mitch is talking about it makes it much more difficult. IMO. If you have to talk to the pros, say "if you are a pro, you might want to know..............."after reading the first few words, no one else will, but they need to be able to order, and I could order from Mitch.
The more square and more rectangular does not do anything for me. Neither do those little photos with the choices, I just need to know what is going to happen and what my choices are.
And this is how it goes for me. I shoot digital 20D, and I am 1/8 pro say. I do know there is a choice for me. I can keep my whole print or I can lose part of it and put it into a regular frame. I learned that at Shutterfly and I don't remember what they said it was so long ago.
But now I am ordering from you all. I need to know how much is going to be taken off if I go the standard route. And I NEED to be able to say take it all off the bottom instead of equalizing it, I need those choices, and you did that fine with a red thing, I think it was.
Other people might not know about those choices, but you did have it pretty good before, I thought. The reason being, I am bringing my photo to "you" from my smugmug acct, and by that, you are telling me what I can have.
I am not running out to get a pt and shoot camera with a photo size based on what you say, I am just bringing you a finished product from my camera and your thing says if you get a 5 X 6, it will need to be cropped like this, if you want it differently ...or whatever.....
I think Mitch should just sell the photos........
I know more than some of my kids, but I don't know as much as any of the people who are interested in this thread. Why don't you have Leno or Letterman go out on the street and ask the average consumer what they know or want. (Actually ask Mitch, the guy on the street will just let you know that they don't know anything.) And they are not interested in a thread like this, either.
ginger
I would want all of my money back.
And I would want the choices made to me of whether to crop or not and where.
Also, I don't know what a small camera is. In my day, when I was not a grandmother, people still took BIG cameras out in the field. Hasselblads, were they big, or were they small. I think there were some 8 X 10 nuts out there, too.
I did not know they made square prints????? I don't know what you are talking about on that. I suppose people who shoot square might know, but I wouldn't.
I guess I am in a rant. We all want different things. You say you would like to change just that one word, and I agree. What is it, small camera? I would be leery of that, too. As I was trying to point out, what is a small camera?
(Maybe you could say "cheap" camera)
ginger
nik, have you told help@smugmug.com of this? remember, they're in the customer service business
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Not what I would go with either, but if you only could choose fitting sizes there would have been nothing that would have fit. Pictures would not have been printed.
It was the only other idea I came up with that did not include warning the customer that the image will be cropped. Or a button to let the customer crop.
Mitch
I have a bad habit of not relying on customer service too much. I'm from ex-USSR, where it was inexistent. Instead I learned "not to step on the same rake twice" (russian saying:-).
I hear a lot of talking about grandmas lately.
Well, here I am, a well educated male, two university degrees (math and computer science), computer and photography geek. I know and understand all the photo and computer terms well enough. I know how to use my hardware and software.
Did the cart help me to make my choice? I would read the explanation, I swear! And I would definitely "honor" the warning..
I guess the key point here is that I'm NOT the grandma.
I don't sell a lot (I'm a programmer, remember?:-), and I don't buy a lot. Hence it's not really important. And I give it, it's not. I can go to my personal account at the same EZPrints and do what I want there.
As to those $50.. I susrvived:-). But I remember them. They serve as a scar not to step on the same rake ever again...
Just my $.02. I mean, my $50:-)
well, for the future, we don't want you to have any more scars.
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-w
I would appreciate even more if the cart become a bit more user-friendly not only for people who're ordering 4x6 and 8x10 of their (grand)kids, but also for the people with the "small point-and-shoot", yet pretty expensive 4:3-enabled cameras who actually take those pictures and sometimes even do some postrocessing and such...
Thanks for chiming in!
My suspicion is it happened on this print because of the white borders, something we don't see often either, making the crop lines easier to miss.
One thing we've learned, however, is that the term "best fit" or "fit" doesn't mean "no-crop" to the consumer. To them it means what they get from Blockbuster when they rent a movie — the movie fills up your screen with no borders.
And the no-crop option is a 1/4 of 1% thing. It's a very rare person who wants a print with two white borders. We see it maybe once a week.
It's in the past, though. You guys have provided a new rake, I'm ready and willing to try it.
I only wish the existing "4:3" option was not named "Picture from a person who has absolutely no idea how to shoot a decent picture. And, btw, are you really gonna pay for it???".
4xD prints are 4x5.3 inches, perfect for most compact digital cameras.
Why are they called 4xD instead of 4x5.3? This terminology seems unnecessarily confusing.
-w
If we're really worried about which size grandma will pick, put "senior discount" next to the print size with the ratio closest to the original.
For a while I thought saying something like "Rectangular - like a movie screen" and "Square - like a television" would work, but then there are all sorts of issues with that as well (not to mention the fact that televisions are becoming more rectangular!)
At any rate, I generally agree with those that don't like the "small cameras" thing. I don't think it's really accurate, it doesn't seem to address the real problem, and especially for pros, it sounds like an insult. It's not the size of the camera that matters, it's the photographer behind it.
Well, I've exceeded my smiley limit for this post. It's an interesting problem. I'll think about it a bit because at some point I would like to start selling some prints and I'm not sure the current wording works for me (even though I use a "large" 3:2 DSLR).
What about "Standard Frame Sizes"... has that been mentioned? Would that work? That's really the issue...
After you asked, "what's an xD," and I sent that link in response, I went swimming. And with each lap I asked myself, "WHAT!? Why did we ever call it that?"
The answer is, other labs who offer them call them that and we don't want to contribute new terms multiplying like rabbits. But it seems obvious to just call them what they are, just like we do every other print size.
First - it annoys me that Kodak, Fuji, Noritsu and the other companies that make the minilabs haven't figured this out. Back when I was a boy (he said, scraping the mold of the north side of his aging body) you got prints that matched your film format. And we had a bunch of different film formats. We didn't have white bars, we didn't need no stinkin' white bars. We did have nice little white borders all around the print.
Ok I got that out of my system.
Second - Didn't the APS system have this problem? Didn't they have C, H and P? C was 4x6, H was 4x7 and P was panorama 4x12?
I always assumed the paper was on a 4" wide roll, they printed the short dimension to 4", let the other dimension fall wherever it came out and cut the paper accordingly. No white bars. Now, the process may have been completely different.
Is that what best fit does?
And I'll add a third - when I dropped off APS at the camera shop they would always ask the same question, "Do you want them printed a special size or just as shot?"
"As Shot" was always my choice.
See you later, gs
http://georgesphotos.net
Whether we're smugmug, Starbucks, or pro photographers, we can't please everyone, so we might as well get in our heads who we're trying to please and who we can't.
Let me try to describe and you can correct me where I err:
1. It's not your grandmother.
If you look at the shots most pros are selling, they're of babies, families, engagement shots, sports (the biggest category), and events (next biggest, which includes graduations and weddings). The bulk of the buyers are early 20s to early 50s.
Yes, it's true: some happy snappies are purchased by grandmother, but she's usually a young grandmother in her 50s, or else someone is ordering for her.
Ginger said some very interesting things about the expectations of that demographic, but they don't buy many prints online.
2. It isn't the customer Mitch described bringing film to the photo store.
Mitch said some fascinating things about how customers behave at the film store, but the buyer of prints from film can't see the original shot and doesn't know what they're missing when you crop. And they expect you to crop for them because they have no way to do it.
The online buyer knows exactly what the shot is and expects what they see to appear on paper. If they have to lose something, they sure don't want you choosing what it is they should lose.
3. It can be the passionate amateur, who hangs out in forums and shoots landscapes. This is a small but important group to us, important enough to be worth confusing the other 98% with options like no-crop.
I believe they are the ones who don't like the term "prints from small cameras." One option is to just leave the xD prints in prints from small cameras drop-down, and move the enlargements to specialty prints. Then pros can turn off the ability to buy the xD prints, which as far as I can tell they already do.
Or we can keep working on a term that doesn't insult passionate amateurs but also doesn't confuse our mainstream customers.
Keep those suggestions rolling.
This was what I find objectionable too. However in reading this thread I did see another suggestion I did like that although not perfect is gonna be more recongizable for people ordering prints than "print from small camera".
Wide Screen
Full Screen
Alot of people watch movies and TV (common admit it your a DVD junkie too) and although its not a universal language most people understand that wide screen is going to leave strips at the top and bottom of there tv unless they have the right sized tv (page). They also understand that full screen means it will fill up the whole screen (page). My grandparents are the most technologically loathfull people I know. I have built them several very nice computers over the years as gifts yet they continuously give them away cause they don't want to have to deal with them (I have learned no more computers for them). However they have 3 DVD players in their home and they understand wide screen versus full screen. If we don't wanna confuse them with the screen we could reword it to.
Wide Page Print
Full Page Print
Similar to the DVD discription, easy to interperet, and even my grandmother (and everyone else that I know) would understand it. Then we don't even have to mention anything about the camera.
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It was easy for me. Nothing confused me, I was not sent back "home". Since it was a 16 X 20 the crop lines were there, but so was the means to adjust them.
I had no problems. It was easier for me then than it has ever been.
I messed around to see what else was there, and I think I might be confused if I had a small camera. What does that mean anyway? I have been doing alot of posting, but I don't actually know what is different about a "small" camera. I used a Canon Elph for years, from what I can remember my cropping problems were the same as now, if one could call them problems. Maybe I am wrong, I am just curious.
This term re "grandmothers" is beginning to get annoying though. The older I get the more I know in this line. It is my kids who can't figure things out.
I am glad you check your demographics and stuff, I just am beginning to wish that the term for the "camera and/or internet challenged" would be changed from lil old grandmothers at the same time you change "small cameras".
Oh, the terms "to fit", I would not think from edge to edge, I would think it would be printed to fit what I sent.
I am sure that you all will be delighted to know that I like the ordering procedure now better than I have ever liked it. Except for the "small camera" words, I think even my kids could navigate it now.
ginger
As long as it's not "good-for-nothing-cheap-plastic-lens-crapola-camera" I'll take everyhting..:-)
full/wide is ok, but what if you're selling vertical shot? you never have TV on a side, but with cameras you quite often do..
Wide/Tall Page Print
Full/Shorter Page Print
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and we're talking 20..50 y.o active ppl..
And we can't use
digital only 4:3 format (full)
film/digital 3:2 format (wide)
or
break by sizes and replace xD thing with the actual size??
So they are smart enough to naviaget to SM shopping card but for the life of theirs they cant read two/three pretty common words?
Man, I'm missing something..:bash
OK, I'm officially out of ideas for tonite, maybe tomorrow..
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..but so far it does not seem to get us any closer to getting rid of "small cameras"...
Also agree with other's commentis above that the focus in the cart should be on the product size/form factor no matter the type of camera of the source. (what I'd like to see is an enhanced crop-box tool that would respond to user attempts to pull it "outside the box" so to speak of the chosen print size by then showing the resulting "white-bars". Also, I'd like to be able to choose to "justify" my print to have just one bar that I could just cut off instead of two, or have an option to put a white border on all four sides to "hide" the misfit.)
But now to give my submission to the "small-camera" re-naming contest:
4:3 (most digital cameras)
2:3 (film/DSLRs)
Gary
4:3 (most digital cameras)
2:3 (film/DSLRs)
Gary[/QUOTE]
That would work for me. I would assume my Rebel and 20D would fit in the second, I would not have to deal with ratios but those who wanted to could.
I also would assume that my daughter's new $250.00 user friendly digital camera would fit in "most digital cameras", as would she, as she would not understand any of the other numbers/words. All she knows is that she has a digital camera.
All I know is that I upgraded to a DSLR on the Canon side of the fence.
To think I used to have a "small camera" in the digital elph and never noticed a difference in ratios when I changed cameras. I just take the picture I am dealt in PS, or RAW and make it prettier than it is/was, cropping or not.
ginger (I would really go with those words here from Gary.) The old lady.....
-winn
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