Uploading photos and website issues

[wavemachine]

After being a member of the forums for a while I thought it was time to upload a few of my images.

I have to say I did find the process time consuming and quite painful and feel it could be greatly improved. I can understand why you ask for so much information about each image to prevent the users from uploading a ton of images with no info however one solution may be to allow user to upload a block of images and not make them viewable until the mandatory information has been entered, you could also set a time limit of a couple of days to enter the information otherwise the image will be deleted.

I am not sure if you have been experiencing issues with the site but out of approximately 10 images I uploaded the image was only available for 1 of them although the textual information was, I ended up having to delete and resubmit them.

Maybe you would consider using a system similar to the image upload in facebook.

Am I missing something and do others agree/disagree?

[silversnapper1]

As far as I can see, the only compulsory information required is a title, a short description and some tags. The other data is either imported from the exif data or not required.

Steve.

[wavemachine]

Yes I did notice that, however for me it is painful in that you have to upload each photo individually rather than multiselecting a group of photos to upload.

I am not sure if you have used system such as facebook where you can do just that, once the photos are uploaded you can put info with each photo as required, organise them and publish them all.

[silversnapper1]

Sorry, I thought that the point of your post was the amount of information required.

Yes, I have noticed that you can only load one pic at a time and yes, I wholly agree that is laborious. I do use Flickr and the multiple upload facility is a really great asset. I am also a member of other sites where multiple images can be uploaded.

If I wasn't a new member I would probably suggest starting a lobby group to get that facility added.lol

I also note that you can only add 5 tags to a pic too when I often add far more than that.

Steve.

[Reaction]

I agree with wavemachine. I have just tried to upload my first image, and it's not at all clear what to do. For example, I wanted to submit an image for consideration in Your Mission

1) Do I upload the full size image as I'd like Digital Camera staff to see it, or a downsampled version for web viewing?
2) Does the PhotoRadar website downsample it automatically and so prevent access to the full size version?
3) In the highly unlikely event my image was ever good enough for the magazine, would I be contacted for the full size version etc.?

The website also correctly detected the EXIF data in my image, but when I went to view it in my album, it was all wrong (it said I was using a Sony A330 when I use a Canon EOS 550D!)...

[Amy Davies]

Hi Reaction,

The maximum upload limit to PhotoRadar is 5MB, which should give you plenty of scope to upload an image of any resolution you like. We'd always suggest that you downscale online images in order to make them load quicker and to prevent copyright infringement however. As a general rule of thumb, a good example is around 600 pixels wide and 72dpi.

If you do choose to upload a large-scale image to PhotoRadar, you, and others, will be able to see it by clicking on the magnifying glass on the top right of your image.

Digital Camera will get in touch with a hi-res image request should you make it through.

As for your EXIF data problem, that is something I've not heard of before. I'll look into it for you and get back to you after I've done some investigating.

Hope that helps, if you have any other questions please do let me know.

Amy

[GeoffWessex]

Amy, I don't think there's a problem with the size of the file uploaded, in fact I think the 5Mb upload limit is very generous....... it's the fact that you cannot seem to upload a batch of files at a time which makes it laborious.

PS that 'rule of thumb' about using a file of about 600px wide at 72ppi would actually make a file of not necessarily more than about 200kb.... possibly less, depending on compression.

[Lurkalot]

Originally Posted by GeoffWessex

Amy, I don't think there's a problem with the size of the file uploaded, in fact I think the 5Mb upload limit is very generous.......

"generous" I think the word is ridiculous, and far too big for web use. No wonder the site crawls along. And no wonder the gallery doesn't get the views that it should.

Originally Posted by GeoffWessex

PS that 'rule of thumb' about using a file of about 600px wide at 72ppi would actually make a file of not necessarily more than about 200kb.... possibly less, depending on compression.

Absolutely, the files should be no more than a couple of hundreds kb.

[Reaction]

Amy,

Thanks for looking into the EXIF problem. The site crashed a couple of times yesterday whilst I was uploading the image, so perhaps that caused the record to be corrupted? I'd guess it was a spurious error.

On the more important matter of copyright and image size, I think something definitely needs to be stated on the submission page to warn / recommend users about the pixel dimensions of the file that is being posted to the gallery.

[Andyjb]

I tried to upload a 2.5mb file yesterday and it took an age to load and when it did the bottom half of the picture was missing. I deleted and reloaded it 4 times with the same problem. I then decided to resize it for web use with the longest side being 1000 pixels. It loaded very quickly and none of the image was missing. In future, I will resize all of my uploads to this size which is more than adequate for viewing on this site.

The problem then is that noone seems to view what you upload. Having looked through the first few pages of newest pictures it appears that only about 1% get any sort of recognition. There seems little point in sharing your pictures with others on this site if they are not looked at. Perhaps there should be a "number of viewings" figure available on our personal photo page that shows just how many people have looked at each picture. Andy