DPChallenge: A Digital Photography Contest You are not logged in. (log in or register
 

DPChallenge Forums >> Photography Discussion >> Website advice desparately needed...
Pages:  
Showing posts 1 - 25 of 31, (reverse)
AuthorThread
08/30/2006 08:42:27 PM · #1
//www.pubcity.net/stevehill/

First give this a look...

I bought the Flash template and had someone insert the images.

The images (21)were sized for the thumnails and the full view and inserted into the template. Does anyone know how much work this is to do (timewise, difficulty)and how much it should cost....ballpark number?

I'm totally dissapointed with the thumbnail crops...they look crappy. I also gave them no text to insert because I needed the porfolio part quickly and that's where I spent my initial money.

Please give me some feedback cause I'm not too happy with what I'm seeing and I'm not sure what to do. Thanks in advance.

Steve
08/30/2006 08:44:44 PM · #2
//www.pubcity.net/stevehill/

for the lazy. :D
08/30/2006 08:46:01 PM · #3
First impression: Schweet!!! Going back to browse some more.
08/30/2006 08:49:17 PM · #4
I have a pretty quick computer, but it's taking a long time to load. I would've exited it if I had just clicked it without a real reason.

I think the thumbnails look quite nice actually.
08/30/2006 08:52:17 PM · #5
Is a tad slow to load. If you are doing this as a custom job, you might want to seperate the different sections into seperate swf files and load them as needed, instead of preloading the whole site.
08/30/2006 08:55:03 PM · #6
I love it. Wow.
08/30/2006 09:38:19 PM · #7
Holy crap font is WAYYY too small (and I have good eyes so long as my glasses are on)!! I don't like the noises (on second thought I REALLY don't like the noises), I don't like the thumbnail previews becasue they give no hint of what you're about to be seeing. It's a very spiffy getup but I'm not really a fan as it is now.

I would: Make New Thumbnails, Resize the Font, Get rid of the beep beep boop.

Oh and if you're going to call it Moon Dance you need to get some Van Morrison playing or something :)
08/30/2006 09:44:58 PM · #8
Originally posted by pawdrix:

The images (21)were sized for the thumnails and the full view and inserted into the template. Does anyone know how much work this is to do (timewise, difficulty)and how much it should cost....ballpark number?


sounds like the sort of thing you get a college kid interested in photography to do for free. I'm surprised you didn't resize them yourself.

Timewise... I'd say an hour to figure out the template, two more hours to do the work. But nothing extra to re-do crappy thumbnails. Only some of the thumbnails look crappy, btw.
08/30/2006 09:50:46 PM · #9
Slow to load for me also.
I think text is a bit too small, but other then that it looks very nice.
08/30/2006 09:59:42 PM · #10
I heard the noises and left. Immediately.
08/30/2006 10:00:11 PM · #11
schwip, phit, bing, kic, whop...

Yeah those fu'ing sounds need to go...without question.

I need to insist that he redo some of the thumbs. A few are simply silly....I mean "a crotch" shot? ...a bare solar plexis?

WTF?
08/30/2006 10:16:51 PM · #12
It loaded fine for me and the sounds didn't bother me one bit. Actually I quite liked your website and really like your work. I'm going back to finish looking at the rest of your photos now :)

Edit to add, Cityscape .. next to last photo wasn't one I'd put on my site. Not sure what other's think of it. Just being honest :)

Message edited by author 2006-08-30 22:18:25.
08/30/2006 10:36:41 PM · #13
Not bad.. I can't understand the text, though, is that still template stuff? I don't ever like sounds in web pages, unless the only thing on the page is an embedded video, and even then I'd prefer to download it and watch it instead.

I love the third 'cityscapes' image.

edit: It does take a long time to load, but not having to wait when I clicked on every image was definitely nice. I'm on dial-up here, so I'm used to having to wait for everything at home.

Message edited by author 2006-08-30 23:34:07.
08/30/2006 11:08:14 PM · #14
Originally posted by pawdrix:

I need to insist that he redo some of the thumbs. A few are simply silly....I mean "a crotch" shot? ...a bare solar plexis?

WTF?


You might find that he is just grabbing a specific portion of the larger image (that is pretty common) but it's worth the time to do the small crop yourself to get what you want.

I like the B&W with the colour rollover.

I like the general layout and theink it's going in a good direction.

The other thing I would like to see is a larger size image option - I love a number of the images but they are small on my screen and I would get more out of it in a larger size (particularly some of the panos).

Not sure I understand the language used in the contact pages e.t.c. ;-))
08/30/2006 11:16:16 PM · #15
I have a fast PC and fast internet, and good golly that took a long time to load. I do agree though that the crops are not soo good, as far as sounds I dont have my speakers on. I do like the layout and the feel of it, but I certainly think he needs to go back and do some work on it, if your paying for it, you need it to your liking.

MattO
08/31/2006 12:12:56 AM · #16
Takes longer to load than i'd like(broadband), but at least with a counter i know something is happening.

Not sure...what are you showcasing? Your photography or someone's ability to make a showy presentation? IMO, your images should be what I remember about the site, not the gee-whiz of the site itself.
08/31/2006 02:59:34 AM · #17
Originally posted by Prof_Fate:

Takes longer to load than i'd like(broadband), but at least with a counter i know something is happening.



I'd agree with this. I'm on 8MB ADSL and it still took a fair while to load. If I were (and who knows how many people are) on a thinner pipe and just browsing casually, I probably would have closed the window and gone somewhere else before it had finished loading. You have about 3 seconds to grab the average web viewer, and by that time I was still staring at a thing saying 30%.

Once it had loaded, it looked ok. I was somewhat left wondering what exactly was the business.

I clicked on one of the topics. Then I clicked again to actually make it do something, because of an IE bug. I went through to the contact me page. I tried to click on "submit" without filling in any data. At that point the flash program broke and wouldn't respond to clicks on anything else, so I gave up.
08/31/2006 03:30:15 AM · #18
i think you web is preety nice very pro. about hte little thumbs i see waht are yo taling about. they seem not very atractive, i think you can spare more time i how do you want your thumb crop.
08/31/2006 03:57:10 AM · #19
Not sure if someone's pinched your picture's but i've seen alot of those pictures elsewhere. On another website i think. I'll try and have a look where i've seen them before. Are they your photo's?

Message edited by author 2006-08-31 04:58:36.
08/31/2006 05:16:31 AM · #20
Loaded quickly enough for me - my sound is off so nothing to annoy me.

Pictures animated nicely, big enough to see well, and yes the thumbs could be a little better but I wouldn't have picked on that had you not mentioned it. It may be down to the fact it is in development, but the scroll buttons for the thumbs (up/down) didn't do anything. If there are no extra pics to see then they shouldn't be there.

Looks pretty good though!
08/31/2006 06:18:49 AM · #21
I have a similar website and its not too bad at all, heres how and how long I estimate:

1) Start image > Resize to ? 640x? lets say, batch them or one at a time, 15 seconds.

2) Re-open image and selection tool in photoshop to what your thumbnails are ? 80 x 20 lets say, save each as "Save for web to optimise the size ) about 30 seconds each due to selcting part of the image each time.

3) There will probably be an XML file you have to state the name of the file and the info for it, i.e. the x/y position of the thumbnail. 30 seconds a picture.

It can be time consuming to add a whole gallery but to do small updates its not too bad at all, the thing to consider is that cropping the thumbnails out from the main image should be your responsibility as you are showing your viewer whether to see it or not, entice them in is what i do with an interesting part of the shot.

I really like the site though and recognise a few of the shots on there too :0) Keep up the good work.

Message edited by author 2006-10-18 06:31:14.
08/31/2006 06:52:33 AM · #22
Very cool Steve - slow to load, but very cool.

Given the relatively small number of pics, I think that the thumbs issue is no problem - it is quick to flick through them. However, I query the scalability - if you were to have a few hundred images, it would quickly get hard to find specific pictures, and navigation might start being difficult.
08/31/2006 09:16:04 AM · #23
BUMP

Thanx for thew looks and replies so far, guys

My Web Site

First give this a look...

I bought the Flash template and had someone insert the images.

The images (21)were sized for the thumnails and the full view and inserted into the template. Does anyone know how much work this is to do (timewise, difficulty)and how much it should cost....ballpark number?

I'm totally dissapointed with the thumbnail crops...they look crappy. I also gave them no text to insert because I needed the porfolio part quickly and that's where I spent my initial money.

Please give me some feedback cause I'm not too happy with what I'm seeing and I'm not sure what to do. Thanks in advance.

Steve
Note: there's no text and only 21 images
08/31/2006 09:23:17 AM · #24
Looks great if you ask me! Loads very fast and looks swanky. I like the thumbnail crops, they add a little sense of mystery and it actually makes me more likely to click them to find out what they are or what context they're really in. If the template was well made, adding the images shouldn't be too hard at all, or time consuming. I'd imagine they would just put the images in specific folders and let the flash do all the work, loading them from the external source, but I'm not sure how this specific template works.
08/31/2006 09:30:04 AM · #25
I agree that certain elements should be split up into seperate loadable modules.

The Title shouldn't take almost 30 seconds to appear on the browser when someone is using a broadband connection.

Other then that relatively minor issue, the site looks slick.
Pages:  
Current Server Time: 03/28/2024 12:27:37 PM

Please log in or register to post to the forums.


Home - Challenges - Community - League - Photos - Cameras - Lenses - Learn - Prints! - Help - Terms of Use - Privacy - Top ^
DPChallenge, and website content and design, Copyright © 2001-2024 Challenging Technologies, LLC.
All digital photo copyrights belong to the photographers and may not be used without permission.
Current Server Time: 03/28/2024 12:27:37 PM EDT.