Poyomi photo books for Smugmugers

rudib · November 24, 2010

Hi guys,

We've recently launched Poyomi, a new service for creating photo books with direct on demand prints via MagCloud. Focus is on the ease of use and the low cost of the product. Integration with Smugmug was one of the launch requirements, and now we're happy to let all Smugmugers have a go, with a coupon to go for it:

http://www.poyomi.com/coupon/smugmug

The most requested feature is self-publishing (selling prints and PDFs for a profit) and that is also coming early next year!

Black Friday will have some great sales, prices will be discounted by up to 66% - $2.00 for a 20 page book, each additional page just $0.10.

Rudi
Poyomi

du8die · November 24, 2010

Nice.

Creating one right now. I did notice that watermarks are coming through - will they show up on the final product?

Thanks,
d8

rudib · November 24, 2010

D8,

An interesting point! I think that the end result (that is, the one that you would get in print or would preview on MagCloud) won't have the watermarks. We use the downscaled images on the website for faster startup (smaller files to download) and quicker rendering, while for end processing we obviously use the full res photos. I believe that those don't get watermarked by Smugmug.

I'll look into the Smugmug API if it's possible to detect watermarks and then to create previews and thumbnails from the original, non-watermarked image.

If you have the time, go through the entire process and I'll let you know how it turned out. I'm curious.

Rudi
Poyomi

du8die · November 24, 2010

OK... It's worth the risk...

Animoto (for what it's worth) uses full res files without watermarks - so my guess is you're correct.

Thanks! Looking forward to seeing the results!

d8

du8die · November 24, 2010

Just ordered - should have waited until Friday for the sale - but I got excited...

Here's what I like:
1) Easy integration with SmugMug.
2) Easy to use UI. Made sense. No instructions needed.

Here's what I think needs improving.
1) When uploading from SmugMug, please include a "Select All" photos in the gallery button. Had to go through and click each photo.
2) On the "Organize" page - Have a "Randomize" button that will randomly order all the photos.
3) On the "Organize" page - Have an option to remove all captions from all photos.
4) Let me sign up for an account with your site that allows me to save my work and come back to it later. It should also provide links on MagCloud to my finished projects.
5) When I am finished creating a book, I have no way of finding it again on MagCloud. The only way (so far) is for me to order a print of the book, then go to my order history and track down the URL there. (OK, I just saw the e-mail)...

I'll post a follow up when I get the printed copy in about a week!

Thanks.
d8

rudib · November 25, 2010

du8die wrote: »

Here's what I think needs improving.
1) When uploading from SmugMug, please include a "Select All" photos in the gallery button. Had to go through and click each photo.
2) On the "Organize" page - Have a "Randomize" button that will randomly order all the photos.
3) On the "Organize" page - Have an option to remove all captions from all photos.
4) Let me sign up for an account with your site that allows me to save my work and come back to it later. It should also provide links on MagCloud to my finished projects.
5) When I am finished creating a book, I have no way of finding it again on MagCloud. The only way (so far) is for me to order a print of the book, then go to my order history and track down the URL there. (OK, I just saw the e-mail)...

Some comments:

1) We left out Select All because Smugmug's API doesn't support pagination right now and could overload the servers if we attacked 500+ photos at a time. Shift-select is your friend here, it works.

2) You're the first person that isn't really strict about the order

We'll try to add that as an extra action (a bit hidden somewhere).

3) Added, it's on the bottom left. Also, I've added some code that removes really obvious filenames, like DSC_1242 or IMG_1214.

4) This is coming at a later time, when we'll also support self-publishing and iPad sales through MagCloud.

5) Email notification is a good archive for this. It's a tradeoff for a no-login-required website.

Also, I have updated the code to always build thumbnails for SmugMug from originals, that way watermarks are always left out:

SmugMug gallery with watermarks, Little test book

Thanks for this feedback.

Here's the Black Friday sales coupon, it'll be valid only from now until the end of Friday at PST time. For maximum discount, order exactly on Friday, this should give you a 66% discount.

Poyomi coupon blackfriday

Sam · November 25, 2010

rudib wrote: »

Hi guys,

We've recently launched Poyomi, a new service for creating photo books with direct on demand prints via MagCloud. Focus is on the ease of use and the low cost of the product. Integration with Smugmug was one of the launch requirements, and now we're happy to let all Smugmugers have a go, with a coupon to go for it:

http://www.poyomi.com/coupon/smugmug

The most requested feature is self-publishing (selling prints and PDFs for a profit) and that is also coming early next year!

Black Friday will have some great sales, prices will be discounted by up to 66% - $2.00 for a 20 page book, each additional page just $0.10.

Rudi
Poyomi

Hi Rudi,

I just did a quick run through of your book building process, and have a few thoughts.

1. I think both you and your clients would benefit from the ability to work off line. Depending on a lot of different factors a 100 page book could easily take longer than one online session. Then there is the issue of losing the internet connection.

2. I wanted to put a text page in, and I think, (haven't tried it) I need to build the text page off line and then choose it as a photo.

3. I want to build a cover and back page photo with some text etc, but I don't want that image included in the book. How can I do that? I would like to build a book for black Friday, but this one item has me stopped.

4. The simplicity is nice. The auto layout seems pretty good.

5. The pricing seems attractive. Shipping not outrageous.

6. The pricing with your black Friday discount would be fantastic for advertising / promo / mini portfolio books.

7. Of course this is all dependent on quality.

a. I am hopping the Smugmug crew ran a few test books and
found the quality to be acceptable.

Sam

rudib · November 25, 2010

Hi Sam, thanks for the feedback.

Sam wrote: »

1. I think both you and your clients would benefit from the ability to work off line. Depending on a lot of different factors a 100 page book could easily take longer than one online session. Then there is the issue of losing the internet connection.

2. I wanted to put a text page in, and I think, (haven't tried it) I need to build the text page off line and then choose it as a photo.

3. I want to build a cover and back page photo with some text etc, but I don't want that image included in the book. How can I do that? I would like to build a book for black Friday, but this one item has me stopped.

1.: In case in the future we branch off a product for Professional users we might introduce an offline client. For now, online only it is.

2. Not yet. Mixing text and automatic layout is kinda complicated and designing a user interface that supports a good balance of automagic (as it is now) and custom pages is tricky. We're working on it, we've only recently launched this.

3. Sorry about this one, it's been requested at least once before. I might be able to pull this feature off in time for the black friday sale (until noon PST), would that work?

Sam · November 25, 2010

rudib wrote: »

Hi Sam, thanks for the feedback.

1.: In case in the future we branch off a product for Professional users we might introduce an offline client. For now, online only it is.

2. Not yet. Mixing text and automatic layout is kinda complicated and designing a user interface that supports a good balance of automagic (as it is now) and custom pages is tricky. We're working on it, we've only recently launched this.

3. Sorry about this one, it's been requested at least once before. I might be able to pull this feature off in time for the black Friday sale (until noon PST), would that work?

Rudi,

Thanks for your response.................I can create a text page in Potoshop, that will solve that issue, and being able to made a custom image text page for the cover fixes that issue,

I will be working on the tonight.

Sam

du8die · November 26, 2010

rudib wrote: »

Some comments:

1) We left out Select All because Smugmug's API doesn't support pagination right now and could overload the servers if we attacked 500+ photos at a time. Shift-select is your friend here, it works.

2) You're the first person that isn't really strict about the order We'll try to add that as an extra action (a bit hidden somewhere).

3) Added, it's on the bottom left. Also, I've added some code that removes really obvious filenames, like DSC_1242 or IMG_1214.

4) This is coming at a later time, when we'll also support self-publishing and iPad sales through MagCloud.

5) Email notification is a good archive for this. It's a tradeoff for a no-login-required website.

Also, I have updated the code to always build thumbnails for SmugMug from originals, that way watermarks are always left out:

SmugMug gallery with watermarks, Little test book

Thanks for this feedback.

Here's the Black Friday sales coupon, it'll be valid only from now until the end of Friday at PST time. For maximum discount, order exactly on Friday, this should give you a 66% discount.

Poyomi coupon blackfriday

Thanks for listening to the feedback. I'm looking forward to seeing the book.

d8

Sam · November 26, 2010

Ok,

While I think the Poyomi simplistic approach can work well for non photographers, it's really lacking for pros, semi pros, and photography enthusiasts.

The auto magic layouts are fine except that there isn't any way to intelligently make any adjustments after the auto layout is done. I was able by adding pages get the first two pages the way I wanted them but no way was I able to change the other pages. There isn't any way to select an image for the cover without also having it printed again inside the book.

As an example is you had 3 images on one page and 2 of them went well together but but you wanted to slide the third one onto the next page there isn't any way to do that.

Also do you have any plans to optionally remove the Poyomi branding?

I believe with a few additional features this can be a fun usable product for SmugMug users.

The real proof will be if the image quality justifies the effort. The price point for small quantities is attractive and I believe can be used for limited addition promotional materials.

I placed a trial order and will post my thoughts on quality after I receive the books in about a week and a half.

Sam

rudib · November 28, 2010

Hi Sam,

During early development we actually had an advanced mode that let you swap photos between positions and spreads, select a custom theme for each page and much more... It was scrapped in favor of gradually adding all of those features back in. The biggest feedback right now is for more text tools, and I think that most of your concerns regarding placement and layout options will also get addressed in the next big update - think a much more powerful Organize step with options for text pages, hard separators and more. I have a grand design in my head, just have to materialize it.

We'll also add option to remove branding, at this point we'd still like to get make some brand building.

And I agree, it doesn't make sense if print quality isn't great. I think that it is, otherwise we wouldn't be going at it!

Thanks for your feedback.

Rudi
Poyomi

rudib · July 8, 2011

Hi guys,

To restart a really old thread: We have deployed a lot of features that were requested in this thread, you can read about them on the Poyomi blog. To list them: text pages, Advanced Mode (full spread photos, multiple themes in a single book, ...), self-publishing to MagCloud for book sales, free publishing to iPad via MagCloud's iPad app, custom book branding, saving in-progress books for later changes and a lot of other minor stuff.

Any feedback is really welcome!

Thanks.

Rudi
Poyomi.com

Poyomi photo books for Smugmugers

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