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DLMST
Posts: 81
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Newbie' s site - 12/11/2002 12:48:58
Hi, I' ve started a web site and would love to hear what you think. Any and all suggestions, tips, and opinions would be greatly appreciated! - DLMST
Oops, I almost forgot, here' s the link ... http://home.earthlink.net/~imagesbydst/
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GoDario27
Posts: 232
Joined: 12/26/2001
From: Barberton OH USA
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RE: Newbie' s site - 12/11/2002 14:04:50
On each page, I couldn' t see the box above the side navigation...and i get the error:
" Applet fprotate notloaded"
All else seemed to look/work fine. AAAwesome photos!
s:)
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_gail
Posts: 2876
From: So FL
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RE: Newbie' s site - 12/11/2002 17:13:37
I echo what others have said about your site...it is lovely and the photographs are breathtaking.
I do have a few thoughts and suggestions:
- This is the WORLD Wide Web. You will no doubt have visitors, and probably already have, from other countries. On your home page I suggest that your opening statement acknowledge where the photos are taken. It only needs to be stated once. For example:
quote:
Invariably the uniqueness and beauty of wild lands always manage to move me. Presented on this website is a sample of images from destinations throughout (or in) the United States and Canada in which I' ve hiked and photographed.
- I confess I was a little bit disappointed to click on many of your thumbnails to find the enlarged photo was not too much bigger than the thumbnail itself. I wanted to hone in on the detail of some of those majestic scenes. For future galleries, I' d encourage you make them larger, optimizing them well so as not to put a drag on download time.
- Visited hyperlinks - I think they are a little dull after they are clicked on. Adjust the color so they are more easily seen but still show that they have been visited.
gail
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pacific77
Posts: 34
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From: Coos Bay , Oregon
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RE: Newbie' s site - 12/12/2002 4:27:32
enjoyed your site and photos , I immediately spotted Crater Lake , I' ve lived different places around the country and overseas too. Crater Lake is more beautiful than any place I have ever seen . No photo I have ever seen comes even close to being there.
I agree with trying to make them a little bigger or being able to view them in two different sizes , people with faster internet connection can view large ones pretty quickly. maybe your picture then two links under them one for smaller pictures and one for maybe 600 x 800
< Message edited by pacific77 -- 12/12/2002 1:30:04 AM >
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Eli
Posts: 2659
From: ... er ...
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RE: Newbie' s site - 12/12/2002 5:59:59
what a wonderful site!
my only suggestion, aprart from echoing _gail is that you make the photo galleries a little more organised positionally. You may even want to think about make a virtual gallery...... whatever.
Great site!
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Mike54
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From: Way Up Over
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RE: Newbie' s site - 12/12/2002 6:19:23
I would have to echo the thoughts of the others and will add one more thing. I would maintain the side navigation on the thumbnail pages for consistancy. It is a very nice site.
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New photogalleries, stop by sometime.
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_gail
Posts: 2876
From: So FL
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RE: Newbie' s site - 12/12/2002 11:25:46
I' d love seeing your photos 800 X 600 pixels but this may be too large. I recommend a picture width or height of 430 pixels or so. It will give visitors more to look at while not taking pix too long to load into the browser for those with a dialup connection.
I' d also consider unsharp masking many of your photos; a few could also use some brightness adjustment. If you have Photoshop, the tediousness of this can be reduced by creating an Actions palette. I realize this is an enormous task for the number of photos you have in the site, so consider it for future photos.
Someone mentioned the layout of the thumbnails, which is FrontPage' s Photo Gallery Montage. I happen to like it but there are three more layouts available.
gail
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DLMST
Posts: 81
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RE: Newbie' s site - 12/12/2002 14:27:48
Hello all and thank you so much for your kind comments and terrific suggestions!! I was tickled so see so many tips. You were all so helpful.
Regarding the Applet: I used FrontPage' s " banner ad manager" for the timed photo series in the side navigation. I' ve noticed that it does seem to take a long time to load (via dialup connection). Does anyone know of a better way to do this that a " newbie" like me could wrap my brain around? (Have the others among you had trouble viewing this component on my site also?)
Many of you mentioned that you' d like to see the images larger. I' ve been thinking about how to do this. If I make the images " large enough" I run the risk of image piracy (or so I' ve been warned). At the size they are, they are pretty much useless as photographic prints if downloaded. I' ve assumed monitors are usually 72ppi so with images at 250 they' re around 3inches viewed. (I think). Output dpi is at least 150 sooooo, maybe I would be safe to enlarge them to ... say ... 400-450? (as suggested by Gail). Any thoughts on this and piracy? Also, how do I " optimize" for a minimum of download time vs. image quality?? (Which settings in FrontPage do I adjust?) I' ve been using the FrontPage Photo Gallery (Montage) feature for this with them set as JPEGs at 90 quality. Would using the " progressive" feature also be useful?
Also, thanks for reminding me of the " World" in WWW. It never occurred to me. Duh! ;-)
Again, thanks! ... and if you have any additional suggestions, critiques, etc. I' m all ears.
Deb (DLMST)
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DLMST
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RE: Newbie' s site - 12/12/2002 14:28:30
PS: Happy Holidays to All
Deb (DLMST)
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_gail
Posts: 2876
From: So FL
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RE: Newbie' s site - 12/12/2002 15:11:23
quote:
ORIGINAL: DLMST
Many of you mentioned that you' d like to see the images larger. I' ve been thinking about how to do this. If I make the images " large enough" I run the risk of image piracy (or so I' ve been warned). At the size they are, they are pretty much useless as photographic prints if downloaded. I' ve assumed monitors are usually 72ppi so with images at 250 they' re around 3inches viewed. (I think). Output dpi is at least 150 sooooo, maybe I would be safe to enlarge them to ... say ... 400-450? (as suggested by Gail). Any thoughts on this and piracy? Also, how do I " optimize" for a minimum of download time vs. image quality?? (Which settings in FrontPage do I adjust?) I' ve been using the FrontPage Photo Gallery (Montage) feature for this with them set as JPEGs at 90 quality. Would using the " progressive" feature also be useful?
Ah yes, I wasn' t thinking about piracy when I made the suggestion to enlarge the pix. Yes to the progressive feature for large images.
There is a lot of discussion about protecting photos online in these forums (such as watermarking), so may I suggest you do a search. Not much that can be done in the long run.
I also recommend you visit the dpreview forums, join, and get into some discussions about this with the pros there. Also do a search as there are plenty of discussions about this at dpreview.
http://www.dpreview.com/forums/
I hadn' t noticed that your pix were 150 dpi; in the future you should set the resolution to 72 dpi and resize the images accordingly. The web standard is 72 dpi, though many have begun saving jpegs at 95 dpi or thereabout.
Please forgive my honesty here but you are a fantastic photographer. I don' t know if you do it as a hobby or if you are a pro. But I' d surely invest in a photo editing program to create and optimize photos.
I resize, edit, sharpen and otherwise enhance and optimize my photos in Photoshop. I insert them into FrontPage and often use the thumbnail feature, though when I really want them to look good I manually create thumbnails.
Here' s just one of many threads on Image editing software.
http://www.frontpagewebmaster.com/tm.asp?m=106395&appid=&p=&mpage=1&key=&language=&tmode=&smode=&s=#106395
Saying this, some visitors to your site may not even notice the visual difference. Someone at Outfront recently called me a " perfectionist" and I suppose I am. FrontPage does a marginally adequate job at optimizing photos and maintaining visual quality. IMHO your images deserve much better.
gail
< Message edited by _gail -- 12/12/2002 4:38:19 PM >
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Chris W
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From: Salisbury, Wiltshire, UK
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RE: Newbie' s site - 12/13/2002 10:27:56
To address a point above, about the pictures being small to prevent piracy, consider publishing a much larger picture, but watermark right in the centre like a real SOB !!
A useful program for watermarking is picture shark 1.0, I think you can get this from tucows.
Regards
Chris
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DLMST
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RE: Newbie' s site - 12/16/2002 13:06:44
Hello again. Sorry for the delay in thanking you all for your much appreciated advice re: photo optimizing, watermarking, etc. ; and comments! (I' ve been occupied with a recently adopted " pound" pooch ... a 10mth old shepherd mix. She' s a wonderful handful!)
and to Gail: I' m definitely an amateur photog (primarily an avid outdoorsy-type who aims to share the sights) and not very aware of the technical side of preparing images for webspace (as opposed to print). I' ll see what I can wrap my brain around in this area. Many thanks for your insight!!
Well, I do know one thing that I' ll be doing after the holiday season ... enlarging those images, etc.! ;-)
Thanks again all!
Deb (DLMST)
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_gail
Posts: 2876
From: So FL
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RE: Newbie' s site - 12/16/2002 13:18:33
quote:
ORIGINAL: DLMST
Well, I do know one thing that I' ll be doing after the holiday season ... enlarging those images, etc.! ;-)
When you' re ready, let us know if you' d like some additional help. It would be helpful to know the photo editing software you use so we can help guide you through some of the steps. It would be particularly timesaving if you have software which will let you batch process.
Enjoy the puppy. No doubt you' ll now be taking lots of " pooch portrait" photos. [:p]
gail
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DLMST
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RE: Newbie' s site - 12/16/2002 13:30:56
Wow! That would be super! I' m using Photoshop Elements version 2. It does allow for some batch conversions, etc. (I do want to be sure that the optimized images don' t over saturate the color, etc. so as to not give an inaccurate representation of the natural hues and tones of my originals. So, any and all advice would be warmly welcomed.) Thanks!!
Peace on earth,
and best wishes,
Deb (DLMST)
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