Is This The System for Me?

Samir · August 18th, 2005, 06:56 PM

I take around 1500-2000 pictures and videos per week. I currently put them on a separate local server from my main site. But I know I'm losing time in all the resizing and sorting that I have to do.

Putting them in a hosted solution will use a lot of space (40gb+) and will grow at a rate of 1gb per week. But this will give me the advantage of not spending time on resizing, writing html, etc.

The only reason I haven't gone to a hosted solution yet is because I also want visitors to be able to buy prints and I get a share of the profit via one of the on-line photo processors. I've read discussions here that this feature will be enabled at some point. Will it realistically do what I want? Any feedback appreciated.

SaN-DeeP · August 20th, 2005, 02:31 AM

What do you meant by resizing the photos ?
Photopost allows you or the end-users of your website to upload photos to a software script based web navigation..

But it wont automatically resize the uploaded images,
for example: you wont be able to cut down an uploaded image with dimensions 1600 * 1200 to 800* 600

Regards,

Samir · August 20th, 2005, 04:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SaN-DeeP

What do you meant by resizing the photos ?

I was describing my current system.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SaN-DeeP

But it wont automatically resize the uploaded images,
for example: you wont be able to cut down an uploaded image with dimensions 1600 * 1200 to 800* 600

Are you sure about this one? I was always under the impression that most gallery systems did take care of resizing images for display while keeping the originals untouched. If photopost can't do this, then it fails to meet my needs right on this level.

Chuck S · August 20th, 2005, 09:00 AM

Okay here is how resizing works below as its more like size and dimensions.

Thumbnail image max width and height in pixels

THIS WILL BE THE SIZE OF THE THUMBNAILS

Max allowable image width in pixels

MAX WIDTH IS JUST THAT ANY IMAGE WIDER THAN THIS WILL BE RESIZED DOWN TO THIS MAX WIDTH

Max allowable image height in pixels

MAX HEIGHT IS JUST THAT ANY IMAGE WIDER THAN THIS WILL BE RESIZED DOWN TO THIS MAX HEIGHT

Trigger medium graphic height and width
An uploaded larger than this will create a medium image of this size.

JUST AS IT SOUNDS THE SYSTEM WILL CREATE A MEDIUM IMAGE. THIS IS USEFUL FOR USERS WITH LARGE MAX SETTINGS SO AS NOT TO SPAN A PAGE OUT

Quality setting for image resizing/thumbnails?

THIS DETERMINES THE LEVEL OF COMPRESSION/QUALITY. MORE QUALITY IS LESS COMPRESSION LESS QUALITY IS MORE COMPRESSION 70 is default

If photo upload width or height exceeds maximums, resize upload down to max dimensions?

THE MASTER SWITCH SHALL WE SAY

Samir · August 20th, 2005, 12:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by omegatron

Okay here is how resizing works below as its more like size and dimensions.

Thumbnail image max width and height in pixels

THIS WILL BE THE SIZE OF THE THUMBNAILS

Max allowable image width in pixels

MAX WIDTH IS JUST THAT ANY IMAGE WIDER THAN THIS WILL BE RESIZED DOWN TO THIS MAX WIDTH

Max allowable image height in pixels

MAX HEIGHT IS JUST THAT ANY IMAGE WIDER THAN THIS WILL BE RESIZED DOWN TO THIS MAX HEIGHT

Trigger medium graphic height and width
An uploaded larger than this will create a medium image of this size.

JUST AS IT SOUNDS THE SYSTEM WILL CREATE A MEDIUM IMAGE. THIS IS USEFUL FOR USERS WITH LARGE MAX SETTINGS SO AS NOT TO SPAN A PAGE OUT

Quality setting for image resizing/thumbnails?

THIS DETERMINES THE LEVEL OF COMPRESSION/QUALITY. MORE QUALITY IS LESS COMPRESSION LESS QUALITY IS MORE COMPRESSION 70 is default

If photo upload width or height exceeds maximums, resize upload down to max dimensions?

THE MASTER SWITCH SHALL WE SAY

That's the way I thought it would work. I haven't been able to get the admin demo to work yet, so I haven't been able to see the settings.

With that out of the way, what about the ability to print photos? That is what will make or break this one for me.

Chuck S · August 20th, 2005, 12:47 PM

Well we have coding in place but at this time there is no company the print photos is attached to yet.

We have been trying to work with several companies but each time these printing companies need to come through on there end to setup the functions on there systems to pass post information to there systems to work they dont come through so the print system is just there and no printers yet

Samir · August 20th, 2005, 05:32 PM

This is the one bit of functionality that will seal the deal for me. I've looked into www.ezprintsinc.com, www.expressdigital.com, and www.printroom.com for the printing services. They may be of use to you.

I want the ability that www.killboy.com has for publishing photos and ordering prints.

Samir · August 20th, 2005, 05:43 PM

Another one that might be useful would be www.photoreflect.com

Michael P · August 21st, 2005, 01:59 PM

Keep in mind, every photo printing service I've looked at requires you to uploa dimages to their site. PhotoPost would need the ability to POST a list of image URLs to the photo service, so as long as one of those allows this, writing the POST wouldn't be difficult since everything else is in place.

Samir · August 24th, 2005, 02:13 AM

I can see why uploading the pictures to their site would be neccessary. But I'm sure there could be a way to do it on demand, say when an order is placed.

I'm sure the way they have it set internally is that it takes the photo from their archive and then uploads it to wherever it gets printed. I'm sure it could just upload from the photopost site and then submit it in the same manner. Anyways, I'm still looking for the feature or some eta on it to make a decision on photopost.

Samir · February 4th, 2006, 01:20 AM

Just as an update, I finally found a solution, but it wasn't what I originally thought.

I used www.smugmug.com and completely uploaded everything up to their servers. They have a very good built-in gallery that people can also buy prints from.

I had a lengthy conversation with a representative at www.printroom.com. They have a solution that can be integrated with Gallery as seen here:
http://phatcatphoto.com/events/galle...lubs411_sat001

PhatCat uploads the files to their Gallery on their site like normal, but there is some simple html that integrates the pricing and tells printroom the paths to the images it needs. When the visitor buys a print, it is transferred to printroom as needed. There's a technical pdf that outlines how this all works. It's not that terribly hard because I could understand it.

I would contact them to see if this same integration is possible with Photopost. I know I would've been a Photopost customer if it was available for me at the time.