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08/31/2006 06:10:45 PM · #1 |
I'm on a 1Mb link, and it loads way too slow.
The point is that you will be able to compress the photos so that nobody can tell the difference, and significantly cut the loading time down.
I personally think that your thumbs are fine, like I said it's a personal and artistic decision how to crop them. |
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08/31/2006 04:41:04 PM · #2 |
Steve,
If I am correct, you do not want to adjust the Flash template - you just want to re-create the thumbs... this is a very easy and quick fix. Personally I wouldn’t suggest you pay more that $10 for such a thing.
However, I would agree with others that the flash could use some tweaks as well. The comment about compartmentalizing the .SWFs could be useful for slow connections (although personally I am willing to wait any length of time for an initial load if I never have to wait between clicks). Also, turning off the sound would probably be a good idea. At least have someone add a Flash button that will de-activate all sounds.
Some superb images – I enjoyed them!
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08/31/2006 04:07:39 PM · #3 |
My thoughts...
Without knowing the method required to insert the photos it is hard to guage. I did not find the thumbnails to be poor. I thought it was fairly stylish.
That said, it looks like the site is optimized for 640x pixels as it's smaller than 800 pixels wide. IMHO, this is a major no-no for a photographic site. Very few people browse at 640x. In fact, it's not even a resolution generally supported by Microsoft since XP. I wouldn't even recommend 800x640 anymore. Not for a media based site. If I recall correctly something like 70% of users are now at 1024x768. But at least make it 800 wide.
So how much did you pay for the template and where'd you get it? Did they give you the .FLA files or just the .SWF files?
Message edited by author 2006-08-31 16:08:43. |
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08/31/2006 03:16:29 PM · #4 |
Hey, thank you all for the looks.
I had no time to edit the thumbs, so there's where I messed up but I'm stunned how poor the guys crop choices were. My fault for trusting him....right?
The sounds are a horror show and I'm praying that they can be shut down. What crapola. It'll cost me an arm and a leg to play with the template much more...it is what it is but if anyone knows of something more flexible in Flash or plain old HTML, that's easy to tweak I'm all ears. Please advise...
As for the loading, it takes me only 10 seconds and faster for everyone I showed the site to, outside of DPCers. So I assume dial-ups are a little problem but luckily most people that I will be doing business with will have fast connections. I'm not trying to canvas the planet for views but I needed this site to show people who inquire directly.
My Web Site
Message edited by author 2006-08-31 15:18:28. |
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08/31/2006 11:29:43 AM · #5 |
Looks very similar to mine, love those templates.
It can be quite a big job... I don't batch resize my photos, I always tweak them with individual amounts of USM.
The only way for you to be really happy with the thumbnails is to do them yourself... it's an artistic decision as to what part of your photo they're going to show.
The templates can be quite fiddly and aren't always straightforward.
Edit: You MUST compress your photos. The template is not meant to take this long to load.
Message edited by author 2006-08-31 11:30:13. |
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08/31/2006 09:39:34 AM · #6 |
I clicked on the link and was able to come back and read more posts while it loaded )-; thats a downside.
I really hate the noice, I don't like websites that make noice, or I can't turn off. Makes me leave a site very fast.
I don't care for flash iether, because of the time having to wait for everything. Although it had a nice transistion effect between images. I think the bigest thing were the sound effects..> Blech
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08/31/2006 09:30:04 AM · #7 |
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. |
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08/31/2006 09:23:17 AM · #8 |
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.
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08/31/2006 09:16:04 AM · #9 |
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 |
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08/31/2006 06:52:33 AM · #10 |
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.
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08/31/2006 06:18:49 AM · #11 |
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.
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08/31/2006 05:16:31 AM · #12 |
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! |
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08/31/2006 03:57:10 AM · #13 |
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. |
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08/31/2006 03:30:15 AM · #14 |
| 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. |
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08/31/2006 02:59:34 AM · #15 |
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.
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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. |
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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. |
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08/30/2006 11:16:16 PM · #17 |
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
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08/30/2006 11:08:14 PM · #18 |
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. ;-)) |
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08/30/2006 10:36:41 PM · #19 |
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. |
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08/30/2006 10:16:51 PM · #20 |
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. |
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08/30/2006 10:00:11 PM · #21 |
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? |
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08/30/2006 09:59:42 PM · #22 |
| I heard the noises and left. Immediately. |
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08/30/2006 09:50:46 PM · #23 |
Slow to load for me also.
I think text is a bit too small, but other then that it looks very nice. |
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08/30/2006 09:44:58 PM · #24 |
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.
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08/30/2006 09:38:19 PM · #25 |
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 :) |
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