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 07/23/2007 05:10:33 PM · #1
Hi all,

If anyone has some time, would you mind looking at my newly designed website? It has a specific purpose: it's a place where people whom I am actively courting for work and models who I want to shoot can look to see what I've done. I do not expect, nor do I really want, to get work from people who "find" the website on their own. I don't have time to try to do this more seriously than I've described, and if I can't do it right, I don't want to get into that aspect of it at all. I just need a "professional looking" spot on the web to be able to do what I want, nothing more.

So, with that in mind, if anyone has a minute and could look knowing that there are still some bugs (a word moves wrongly from one scene to the next in my flash intro, you have to go back through the flash intro every time you go to the homepage . . . I'm sure there are more), I would appreciate it. I don't want to say more about what strikes me as not so great (and perhaps deserving of a fairly complete redesign, which is frustrating because this is the initial design and I'd hoped not to have to scrap it all), so I'll leave it to anyone who has a minute. Post comments here, please, or PM me (please don't write to me at the address on the site, as I've not set that E-mail up yet).

Also, I hope you won't all think this is cheeky of me, but I'm off to bed now, and won't look at the thread again until the morning. That means there's no rush to comment, and I won't be able to respond again tonight. Apologies for that, but I just wanted to get this up while I had a minute.

Thanks for anyone who has the time to take a look.

Thanks,

Rob

P.S. Yes, I almost forgot the link:

//www.inkstone.biz/

Thanks again! Your time and any and all comments appreciated.
 07/23/2007 05:15:45 PM · #2
Nice website but lose the flash intro...
 07/23/2007 05:33:31 PM · #3
nice website. but it would be nice if you had a navigation buttons on the open photo, so that you didn't have to close the photo to go to the next one. I would get rid of the intro and leave it as an option on the main page for people interested.

edit: I just noticed the next and prev. I guess the question is, can you make it more visible somehow?

Message edited by author 2007-07-23 17:37:29.
 07/23/2007 06:47:22 PM · #4
I agree with Gotaka and coronamv...flash intros leave me cold. Lovely shots though! :-)
 07/23/2007 07:01:12 PM · #5
Rob, I am really impressed with your photos!

The Flash intro is nice but it doesn't fit the purpose you've described. Plus it says "click to activate" but then all it does is send you to a completely different page.

You've got a handful of photos that aren't up to the high standard you've created (a couple too many duck photos, a couple too many phonebooth photos), but otherwise very impressive. If you want models, however, you'll need more portraits (yeah, I know it's a vicious circle).
 07/24/2007 03:05:06 AM · #6
Originally posted by coronamv:
Nice website but lose the flash intro...


Originally posted by snaffles:
I agree with Gotaka and coronamv...flash intros leave me cold. Lovely shots though! :-)


Originally posted by posthumous:
The Flash intro is nice but it doesn't fit the purpose you've described. Plus it says "click to activate" but then all it does is send you to a completely different page.


I get the feeling I should lose the flash intro . . . :P That was my feeling, too. Not only is is "surplus to requirements" as they say here in England, but it doesn't match the portfolio at all. It's gone :) I'll work to make a page that's designed the same as the others in terms of layout and colors, and use that as a front page to point to the galleries. Thanks, it's always good to get confirmation when you think you see something wrong (also, I needed a push to dump the flash, as I learned what I know of it -- ie, hack level -- to do this, and I was loathe to have wasted all that time, but chalk it up to experience).

Originally posted by Gotaka:
nice website. but it would be nice if you had a navigation buttons on the open photo, so that you didn't have to close the photo to go to the next one. I would get rid of the intro and leave it as an option on the main page for people interested.

edit: I just noticed the next and prev. I guess the question is, can you make it more visible somehow?


This is built in to what I'm using to generate my pages, and I'm not sure how much customization I can do. Mind you, someone else might be able to customize this to the moon, but I'm a web hack, so I might not be able to do it. I'll show this to my dad, and if he says he can't work it, I'll try to figure something else out (there is text above the portfolio images that says to click on them to navigate, but it's not very noticeable on its own). Hmm . . . what to do, what to do . . .

Originally posted by posthumous:
Rob, I am really impressed with your photos!

You've got a handful of photos that aren't up to the high standard you've created (a couple too many duck photos, a couple too many phonebooth photos), but otherwise very impressive. If you want models, however, you'll need more portraits (yeah, I know it's a vicious circle).


Don, coming from you that means a lot to me. For this version, I didn't a whole lot of thought into what I chose image wise, anything that tickled my fancy went in. I wanted to see what would happen if I had portfolio pages with different numbers of images, with lots of images, and with not so many, and how it all fit together. As I revise now, I think I'll break them up so that there aren't pages with so many images as was on "scenes", and I'll be careful to choose only the ones I like the best (keeping in mind too that much of any one subject won't work well when the galleries have fewer images in them).

I have some more model shots (from my "dichotomy" shoot) that I'm processing, and I'll add those to the people page soon. People in my area seem pretty willing to work even with someone who hasn't shot people before, so this may suit my purposes in that respect, too, but we'll only know once I start seeking shoots more actively (and the vicious circle kicks in).

Thanks, everyone, this has been really helpful!

Best,

Rob

Message edited by author 2007-07-24 03:10:50.
 07/24/2007 03:51:35 AM · #7
When it's running smoothly/quickly it'll be great.
A couple of things: the flash beauty message is tacky and not necessary and as a result I was expecting a collection of awful soft focus pastel pet and wedding pictures. I was however pleasantly surprised when your pictures loaded (maybe your intention?!).
Another things is there are too many pictures in the first two folders and I reckon each folder should contain maybe 16 (two rows of eight or something like that) of the absolute best.
Hope this helps.

Message edited by author 2007-07-24 03:52:18.
 07/24/2007 12:02:12 PM · #8
Thanks again, everyone, for the comments. The revision is up, I used the same template for the entire site and lost the flash intro and main page. It seems to be working (though IE, as usual, doesn't follow Web standards in how it renders the site and that makes some of it look a bit dodgy, which is annoying, to say the least; another reason not to use IE. Ever.).

I think it's how it will be for now, and I think it serves its purpose. If anyone still wants to look, the final version (as much as anything is final on the web) is here at Inkstone Photography.

Thanks again, I really appreciate everyone's time, help and suggestions.

Best,

Rob
 07/24/2007 12:18:18 PM · #9
Rob I have noticed that some of the text on the front page is spilling over on to the "white cross" boarders, maybe something to do with font size and the resolution I am viewing it with. Other than that its looking good.



Screen print

Message edited by author 2007-07-24 12:23:41.
 07/24/2007 01:18:25 PM · #10
Originally posted by MudHut:
Rob I have noticed that some of the text on the front page is spilling over on to the "white cross" boarders, maybe something to do with font size and the resolution I am viewing it with. Other than that its looking good.



Screen print


Graham,

Thanks for this, especially for the screen print. I can't reproduce it; what browser are you using, if you don't mind me asking (make and version)?

I tried IE 6.0, Firefox 2.0, and K-Meleon 1.0. It could be screen resolution, but I'm not sure why that would change how the browser renders the page (I tried not maximizing, which should replicate a lower screen resolution, but the error wasn't there).

I love the Web, but sometimes I really hate it, too :/

Thanks again, Graham.

Best,

Rob
 07/24/2007 01:25:14 PM · #11
Feedback from a web-developer.

So my complaint is that you have clickable images on your main page that link back to that same page. I had to READ the tiny text to figure out that I have to click a specific place to get to the portfolios. VERY COUNTER-INTUITIVE. VERY HARD TO READ TEXT DUE TO SIZE AND COLOR.
07/24/2007 02:19:34 PM · #12
Originally posted by _eug:
Feedback from a web-developer.

So my complaint is that you have clickable images on your main page that link back to that same page. I had to READ the tiny text to figure out that I have to click a specific place to get to the portfolios. VERY COUNTER-INTUITIVE. VERY HARD TO READ TEXT DUE TO SIZE AND COLOR.


Eugene,

Thanks, very helpful. Have I mentioned I'm a web hack? I fiddled this out of Lightroom, and used the TTG gallery index plugin to generate the web page. It wasn't happy about having the alleged gallery links not be links, so I left them. I sort of ignored the useless clicking, but it's definitely better without it. I have now excised the hyperlinks from those boxes, and turned the text white (it's up).

I'm still fighting with the css, xml and html files to get the text a bit bigger and the boxes larger also. I just don't know enough to do it easily (I started with HTML in the mid 1990s, but didn't keep up when things went to css, so I never learned it properly). Thinking about it, at higher resolutions, the text size must be bloody annoying . . . hmmmmmmm.

Thanks again, Eugene!

Best,

Rob

/edit/

Okay, so now I've really hacked the main page, but it seems to have worked; text is bigger, boxes should work to hold the text, and it should be suitable on many browsers. I may work on it a bit more and see if I can get the logo into the top banner, but I really want to edit some pics tonight, so we'll have to see. May not be worth it. Anyway, please let me know if you look at it and it looks like it's not working!

Thanks again, all, very, very helpful community here! /edit/

Message edited by author 2007-07-24 15:07:04.
 07/24/2007 03:13:29 PM · #13
Rob Im viewing your site with IE7.5730 Screen res is 1280 x 1024. If I knew where the font size for IE are set ?? I would tell you that too. Ah text size is set to medium.
Hope this helps. Is it maybe somthing to do with HTML Layers ?

edit for naff spelling.
Just viewed your page again, the text are now staying within the place holders, but the font size has increased

Message edited by author 2007-07-24 15:18:28.
 07/24/2007 03:18:16 PM · #14
Originally posted by MudHut:
Rob Im viewing your site with IE7.5730 Screen res is 1280 x 1024. If I knew where the font size for IE are set ?? I would tell you that too. Ah test size is set to medium.
Hope this helps. Is it maybe somthing to do with HTML Layers ?


I'll have to look tomorrow; I redid the whole main page with a table, but started from the Lightroom generated page, which is encrusted with css, so what I've done as a hack might not work. It looks fine in my IE, but I haven't downloaded 7 and now may need to (or may need to rely on you and others to tell me if it's still not working).

Still thinking, and really appreciating the expertise and help being offered.

Best,

Rob
 07/24/2007 03:18:53 PM · #15
hey what is the code/program you are using for your portfolio galleries?

where you click on the thumbnail, the screen goes dark, and pops the new picture up over top?

ive seen that on many different websites and still haven't found out what coding or what product creates that effect
 07/24/2007 03:24:30 PM · #16
Originally posted by slide12345678:
hey what is the code/program you are using for your portfolio galleries?

where you click on the thumbnail, the screen goes dark, and pops the new picture up over top?

ive seen that on many different websites and still haven't found out what coding or what product creates that effect


It is called Slimbox

//www.digitalia.be/software/slimbox
 07/24/2007 03:36:35 PM · #17
Originally posted by slide12345678:
hey what is the code/program you are using for your portfolio galleries?

where you click on the thumbnail, the screen goes dark, and pops the new picture up over top?

ive seen that on many different websites and still haven't found out what coding or what product creates that effect


There are a hundred ways to do this, unfortunately. I started with flash galleries from FlashVillage (free registration required to download the free templates). Taught myself some flash, hated it and how it looked, and moved on. Finally found slimbox, referenced by Erick ( thegrandwazoo), and started to muck about with it. Then found a web page that had a slimbox template for Adobe's Lightroom. Wow. That was it. Put a gallery collection together in Lightroom, click on the "Web" tab, sort stuff the way you want it, and bob's your uncle! Lightroom did all the heavy lifting, though as you've seen I've had some issues in getting the main/intro/home page (before you get to the galleries) set up.

The Lightroom templates are available at The Turning Gate; I used both the slimbox template and the galleries index template.

Best,

Rob

/edit/
Edited to avoid double posting: fairly comprehensive redesign of the main and intro pages, with a few last minor things to clean up, but generally finished on the whole. Thanks to all for the help!
/edit/

Message edited by author 2007-07-25 07:29:04.
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