Better gallery questions

[MP Guy]

What would make the current gallery a mpre attractive place for hosting photos? What is missing from the RFF gallery that Pbase or Flikr have? I woul like to enhance the gallery to the point where it would be the gallery of choice.

Thanks for the feedback.

[ray_g]

The gallery feature here is nice, and generous, jorge. But since you asked: What I like about flickr:

1. Ease of organizing and editing photos and albums with drag and drop features, batch editing.

2. Slideshow feature for viewing photos, albums. Much better than that on RFF. Especially useful for emailing your slideshow link to show your photos to someone who is not very computer literate or has a short attention span.

3. Notification if someone has left a comment on your photo.

4. It is a place where I can consolidate all my photos, digital, RF, etc.

5. It is a straightforward web storage service. No pretensions. You pay your dues (or use it for free), and you upload your photos. People do not complain if you post photos they think have no artistic merit. Therefore, I can use flickr to post photos of my kid's birthday parties to show relatives in the west coast for instance. No complaints re why have a separate "others" gallery, or a "private" gallery. Or if you post too many photos all at once. Or why too many digital photos.

I guess the RFF gallery was not designed along these lines. But if you want to make it the photo-hosting site of choice...

6. Most of the regular RFF folks are there too.

[Sparrow]

posts to the gallery appearing in the “new posts” list, get some real comment and feedback on actual photos as they are posted

[Goodyear]

I love Flickr.

Part of the appeal of it to me is the excellent interface, which is very intuitive and quite pretty in a way that the RFF gallery isn't.

I also prefer it to the gallery here because it isn't as 'specialist', and it the group system adds a very effective extra dynamic.

TBH, I haven't really got into using the gallery here, because Flickr hits the spot for me as an online gallery site. I do feel I miss out on some of the community here, but that is somewhat cmpensated for by the much broader community going on at Flickr.

[RayPA]

The best thing about the RFF gallery is that it is one of the few places on the 'net dedicated to showing RF images only. Don't change that. For that reason alone, I wouldn't mess with it at all.

But, since you asked. I have Flickr and pBase. I'm a paid member at RFF, but rarely keep photos here anymore beyond one or two pages. Why? :

Too difficult to manage (organize, delete, move, replace, upload) photos and galleries.

This is a tough one because it is both a positive and a negative, but I think sometimes it's too small. You can get lots of clicks and comments from some really nice people, see some really great and inspiring work and build a nice rapport with other members, but all it takes is one person to ruin the whole experience--for example, someone uploading 30 pics in one sitting, or someone suddenly deciding that the gallery should become something it's not, like an art gallery fit only for work that meets some higher (read: their) standard.

Funky Censorship rules.

No Groups. No notes. In short, it's not Flickr, which to me is the epitome of the image posting experience.

[photogdave]

Horses for courses. One of the best things about the RFF gallery is that it's NOT Flickr or Pbase.
There are so many high quality images posted here on a daily basis, I can't keep up as it is. If it became "the gallery of choice" we'd be overloaded with heaps of images and the overall quality would be diluted.
I like it the way it is. Improvements would be a notification of when comments were posted (I thought this was implemented but I haven't seen it) and maybe a tagging system similar to Flickr.
Any other improvement would be on the part of the members. For example I no longer post in Rate My Photo because no one ever does!

[ywenz]

The Gallery puts up a lot of information at the folder level that doesn't need to be displayed. All we care about is seeing the maximum number of thumbnails in each screen. Observe the screenshot attached...



Since we're already browsing within a user's folder, the "User" field is uncessary.
The "Views" category is useless except to the owner of the image. This point is debatable, but at least, it shouldn't be displayed at the folder level.
"Date" - This field is useless for obvious reasons.
"Dimensions" - I doubt many people care about the dimension of the image while browsing thru thumbnails.
"Comments" - I don't find this information useful when browsing thru thumbnails, but some might...

In short, just do what flickr does... wow I should have said that to begin with..

Oh and, you should make the "Page browsing" links at the bottom of the page larger and more obvious so it's easier to click on. It'll be a much better viewing experience if you don't have to shift all of your viewing attention to the mouse pointer when trying to click to another page.

[rbiemer]

Since you asked...
I don't think that bigger is necessarily better but some tweaks might be helpful:
Notification of comments should be the default setting, I think, instead of needing to specify for each photo as one uploads.
I would like to be able to "subscribe" to a member's gallery just as I can to any threads here, So that I get a notice when ever that member puts up new photos.
As I might have mentioned before( ) more random images on the front page.
Rob

[rbiemer]

Originally Posted by rbiemer

I would like to be able to "subscribe" to a member's gallery...

Did you just do that, Jorge? I just looked at the gallery and lo, and behold! There is a "subscribe to users gallery" button(?) now!
Thanks!
Man I love this place!
Rob

[ClaremontPhoto]

Subscribe to Users Gallery sounds great. I'll be using that one.

Big uploads (twenty photos) just after I upload my one and only daily photo are annoying. Especially when it's twenty pictures almost the same and of a personal appeal.

The two stage process is something I don't understand the need for. I click to 'Upload'. Wait. Then click to 'Process' whatever that is. One step would be better.

[ClaremontPhoto]

Originally Posted by Jon Claremont

Subscribe to Users Gallery sounds great. I'll be using that one.

Additional: I just tried it.

It works BUT he's got several galleries and I need to subscribe to each one.

I've got eight galleries myself.

Could 'Subscribe to Users Gallery' be changed to 'Subscribe to User'?

[willie_901]

The current RFF Gallery is hard to use. The user interface is completely non-intuitive and clunky. FLICKR does just about everything right when it come to ease of use when uploading, labeling and organizing photos.

If the RFF Gallery was easy to use, and if it was easy to organize and label photos, I would post my best RF images there. Since the RFF Gallery tools are so inefficient, I just can't afford the time.

If you decide to redo the RFF Gallery, I would be happy to alpha or beta test the new user interface.


For months I have thought to myself that RFF should just use FLICKR to host the RFF Gallery. This FLICKR Group would be private and only RFF registered users could post. Current members would be invited to join, and when a new RFF user registers, they would be invited to join as well.

The RFF main page could show a "live" feed of the most recent RFF FLICKR Group posts.

Because the FLICKR Group would be private, it really would not be any different than the current RFF Gallery.

The are disadvantages. RFF users who wish to use the Gallery would have to register for a free FLICKR account, and they would have to log into FLICKR to post. For me, this is much less hassle than using with the current RFF Gallery user interface. I know some RFF members hate FLICKR, so they would disapprove. Then, there is the issue of transferring the existing RFF Galleries to FLICKR. This transfer could be made easier some sort of software tool to do the most of the work. However, comments would likely be lost, and comments are valuable feedback. Another possibility is to freeze the current RFF Gallery and just start fresh with FLICKR. RFF members could help Jorge reduce costs by removing their images from RFF and reposting them on FLICKR.

The advantages are significant. Besides ease of use, RFF would cut it's overhead as FLICKR would host the Gallery for free. This would save lots of disk space and reduce bandwith costs.

In the unlikely event Jorge decides to use FLICKR for the official RFF Gallery, I would volunteer to be one of the FLCKR RFF Group administrators .

willie

[RayPA]

Originally Posted by willie_901

The are disadvantages. RFF users who wish to use the Gallery would have to register for a free FLICKR account...

Not really that big of a disadvantage unless of course someone has an aversion to Flickr, but massive uploads of personal work and personal gallery "stocking" would not affect the RFF gallery. The RFF gallery would simply be another group as it is NOW on Flickr (the current Flickr unofficial RFF group). Adding an image to a group is a one-two clicks on Flickr (as you know).

Originally Posted by willie_901

...
In the unlikely event Jorge decides to use FLICKR for the official RFF Gallery, I would volunteer to be one of the FLCKR RFF Group administrators .

willie

I would also be willing to administrate/moderate on a Flickr-based gallery.

[Toby]

I find the RFF gallery difficult to use and a pain because I tend to go through phases of using DSLR's or medium format so I feel uncomfortable posting those images. My pro work is all DSLR now, so flickr is a much better fit

A best of RFF gallery would be a good idea, either on flickr or here posting preferably by nomination or invitation. This would then be where the images on the home page could come from.

[Gabriel M.A.]

What Ray and Ray said

[ywenz]

There's already an RFF member flickr group at:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/66333716@N00/

But how would the RFF ads be seen if everyone browses thru Flickr?

[RayPA]

[quote=ywenz]There's already an RFF member flickr group at:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/66333716@N00/

But how would the RFF ads be seen if everyone browses thru Flickr?[/QUOTE]

Ouch! You devil.


.

[Goodyear]

Originally Posted by willie_901

For months I have thought to myself that RFF should just use FLICKR to host the RFF Gallery. This FLICKR Group would be private and only RFF registered users could post. Current members would be invited to join, and when a new RFF user registers, they would be invited to join as well.

The RFF main page could show a "live" feed of the most recent RFF FLICKR Group posts.

Because the FLICKR Group would be private, it really would not be any different than the current RFF Gallery.

The are disadvantages. RFF users who wish to use the Gallery would have to register for a free FLICKR account, and they would have to log into FLICKR to post. For me, this is much less hassle than using with the current RFF Gallery user interface. I know some RFF members hate FLICKR, so they would disapprove. Then, there is the issue of transferring the existing RFF Galleries to FLICKR. This transfer could be made easier some sort of software tool to do the most of the work. However, comments would likely be lost, and comments are valuable feedback. Another possibility is to freeze the current RFF Gallery and just start fresh with FLICKR. RFF members could help Jorge reduce costs by removing their images from RFF and reposting them on FLICKR.

The advantages are significant. Besides ease of use, RFF would cut it's overhead as FLICKR would host the Gallery for free. This would save lots of disk space and reduce bandwith costs.

In the unlikely event Jorge decides to use FLICKR for the official RFF Gallery, I would volunteer to be one of the FLCKR RFF Group administrators .

willie

Now that's an idea I like.

[tblanston]

Couple things that keep me away from flickr and will continue to do so -

The site is just atrociously ugly. The style there is not my taste at all. Regardless of what content I'm looking at is, it always feels like some random collection of snapshots due to the way they are presented. It feels really hokey to me.

The size at which photos are shown by default is WAY too small. Browsing any collection on flickr is painful because first I have to browse almost completely untelling miniscule thumbnails, then I finally get to see a decent preview, then I have to click once more to see it at a decent resolution.

What flickr does great is organization anad management but I really see little else that is appealing to me. Looking at photos there is always a very unsatisfying experience. Not to mention, the standard of quality there is, on average, really freaking low. Lower than I'm interested in wading through.

[RayPA]

Originally Posted by tblanston

Couple things that keep me away from flickr and will continue to do so -

The site is just atrociously ugly. The style there is not my taste at all. Regardless of what content I'm looking at is, it always feels like some random collection of snapshots due to the way they are presented. It feels really hokey to me.

The size at which photos are shown by default is WAY too small. Browsing any collection on flickr is painful because first I have to browse almost completely untelling miniscule thumbnails, then I finally get to see a decent preview, then I have to click once more to see it at a decent resolution.

What flickr does great is organization anad management but I really see little else that is appealing to me. Looking at photos there is always a very unsatisfying experience. Not to mention, the standard of quality there is, on average, really freaking low. Lower than I'm interested in wading through.

this was the thing that kept me away from Flickr for the longest time, and why I initially joined pBase. With pBase you can change the look, using templates. IMO, this is its one advantage over flickr. But Really they're all pretty ugly (yes even the RFF gallery), and in the end the best option for presenting images online is a personal web site.

[tblanston]

Originally Posted by RayPA

...
But Really they're all pretty ugly (yes even the RFF gallery), and in the end the best option for presenting images online is a personal web site.

Yes, clearly it is impossible to have everyone agree in that regard. Visually, I find the RFF gallery quite pleasant, personally. i like to see the image centered in the page, at maximum resolution. Within reason. There's no cause to share something any larger than 1000 pixels these days.

The whole left-aligned thing is so confusing, but it's a product of their ****ty web design. The images all come up on the left side. If I wanted to present my images like flickr does I'd just throw the in an empty directory on my webserver. Seriously, what's the point. It would even be a plain white page, like flickr, except without the unecessary clutter at the top and bottom.

Question: Any people familiar with the deviantart system? I think presentation wise, it's pretty good over there. Where DA fails is in organization. You visit someones gallery and you basically get it ordered by chronology and that's it. No sub-galleries or anything. There is a possibilty to filter by genre/caterogy but it's not very intuitive. However, they've coded a system that has no equal when it comes to community interaction, with a very simple subscription/notification system. The message centre is an ace job.

Then again, I'd never suggest relocating RFF to DA either. Keeping RFF gallery in house is ideal. There are some ways it could be improved though. I'll put some thought into it.

[AShearer]

Originally Posted by photogdave

Horses for courses. One of the best things about the RFF gallery is that it's NOT Flickr or Pbase.
There are so many high quality images posted here on a daily basis, I can't keep up as it is. If it became "the gallery of choice" we'd be overloaded with heaps of images and the overall quality would be diluted.
I like it the way it is. Improvements would be a notification of when comments were posted (I thought this was implemented but I haven't seen it) and maybe a tagging system similar to Flickr.
Any other improvement would be on the part of the members. For example I no longer post in Rate My Photo because no one ever does!

I could not agree more with this post. Bigger would not be better in my opinion.

I like the small community and I'm willing to put up with a few nuts to have that.

[jano]

flickr may be nice for uploading, but the interface makes no sense when browsing. It's horrible!

[peter_n]

Agreed. I don't use flickr so I can't comment on the uploading/organizing experience, but the site has a horrible UI. The only time I've been able to view for more than a minute or two is for Tommy Oshima's Noctilux stuff.

Please don't move the RFF gallery to flickr!!

Getting an email when someone comments on one of your RFF pics would be really nice.

[pesphoto]

Originally Posted by peter_n

Agreed. I don't use flickr so I can't comment on the uploading/organizing experience, but the site has a horrible UI.
Please don't move the RFF gallery to flickr!!

Getting an email when someone comments on one of your RFF pics would be really nice.

Agreed. I like some of the photos I see on Flickr, but the site itself us a pain in the butt.