Thanks for your comments, Boris. I've included my reply below.
> I must say that for my dial up conn it is a
> little too content rich - it loads slowly.
Sorry ' bout that. Not too much I do about that though. Even though I made the
thumbs slightly larger than my previous site, they still only weigh in at about
8Kb each. The actual photos are about 80Kb each (with some smaller and some
slightly larger). On average, one of my image pages will probably take about 40
seconds to load on a 56K dial up, 17 on ISDN, and 1 or less on a T connection.
And a page of thumbnails should take no more than 30 seconds on your connection
according to MS Frontpage (same as the PUG gallery). I have a T3 here, so I'm
not sure what any of that means <g> but it *sounds* reasonable enough. Hey,
it's dial up!
> The rest is excellent.
Thanks.
> What I did not like though was the rather heavy frames
> and copyright notice inside the pictures. Though of
> course it is only a matter of my taste, which means that
> it is mainly irrelevant.
Nah, it's not irrelevant. It's very helpful info. I'd be curious to know other
peoples opinions, non-photographers in particular. I'm still undecided on the
heavy frames. Right now, I like 'em. When I compared it to my old page (no
frames), each photo looked more "polished" that way for some reason. Maybe it
was the illusion of being matted and framed, I dunno... or maybe just because
it's different than before. Perhpas once the newness wears off I won't like it
at all. I guess only time (and more feedback like yours) will tell. Thanks.
As for the copyright... yeah, well... I tried to be discreet about it. Putting
it where it won't distract [and even outside the photo if I couldn't find
someplace], and changing the colors to make it blend. But as for why I used 'em
in the first place... I had a few too many (I guess even ONE is a few too many,
huh?) people tell me "thats a nice photo! I even have a print out of it framed
on my (insert: desk, wall, cabinet, desktop, etc)". The first time or two,
you're flattered... but after that you start to think, um, okay, so how about
paying for it now <g>.
Its funny because just a year ago I would've never imagined having such
a "problem". Back then: "who would ever want to use my stinkin' photos?"
Now: "Don't you dare.... !"... lol. evolution of a photog, I guess.
Reality is that I'll never be about to 100% stop these people from using my
stuff (let alone printing) without persmission. But I can do two things: (a)
make it inconvenient by disabling right click and the imagetoolbar, and (b)
slap my website on the photo so that at least it benefits me A LITTLE when my
photos appear elsewhere.
So the copyright notice stays... but the frames... the verdict is still out on
those. Thanks for your feedback! Much appreciated,
- jerome
OH YEAH...
> P.S. Humble request/question - the front page of your
> site features thumbnails presented as as a slip of exposed
> film. Could you tell me how you did this? I mean the slip
> of film thing? I wanted to do it too, but I couldn't find
> a way... Thanks.
I used the same program I use to edit all of my photos. I don't use photoshop
<gasp>, but rather have stuck with plain ol' MS Photodraw. But for this, you
can also use something like PowerPoint. Essentially, I constructed it from
scratch. Every number you see is a separate text box, every film sprocket is a
seperate little box filled with white paint, etc. Add that to a bunch of black
rectangles and boxes, paste 4 images on top of it, and taadaa. It's tedious and
time consuming, but the end result was rewarding.
