Feedback requested on my new website

36cm2 said:

Tim, the site and your work are excellent. I noticed that when you enter slideshow mode, the slideshow only presents the photos on the particular page you are on (e.g. if you are on page 1 of black and white toned photos, the slideshow ends with the last photo on that particular page). Users might find it easier to use the slideshow if it were to continue through all of the photos in the category, without having to back out and move to the next page within the category. I went through the slideshow for page 1 and assumed when it stopped that I had seen all of the black and white toned photos, until I noticed that there are 67 in that series and I hadn't seen that many. Just a minor comment. Hope it's helpful.

Leo

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I know. I felt the same. Does anyone know how to fix this?
Tim

blaze-on said:

Looks good Tim...easy to read and follow. The images look very nice as presented and all seems to work on my firefox browser on a Mac except this one page (attached)

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I hope this might now be fixed?
Tim

It's always difficult to distingush problems that are common to the site i.e. everyone has the same experience and comments on it and problems that are either peculiar to the individual (eyesight) or peculiar to the monitor set-up or browser. However on IE7 and with my monitor, the print typeface looks fine and, as BobF said, no problems with the text running into the print on the Home or About Tim pages or from what I can see, any other pages.

pentaxuser

tim rudman said:

I hope this might now be fixed?
Tim

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Yep: the text no longer bumps into the image in Firefox (I see the vspace and hspace tags are gone ).

Bob.

tim rudman said:

I hope this might now be fixed?
Tim

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Is OK now in Opera.

Great site, I especially like the keyboard navigation in the galleries - much preferred to having to use the mouse all the time. The pictures are incredible.

I'll add my voice to the pricing comments - I might be tempted myself by some of them, but would be put off asking - I've always found that 'if you have to ask, you probably can't afford it'...

Maybe you can put up a 'standard' price for a particular size, process, mounting option and use POA for anything else? At least that gives us a point of reference.

hi tim ... i love your works, and made my first steps into lith printing with your stuff (and fotospeed) ... so first thanks for that ....

about the site:

1. as already mentioned, the text runs into pictures on safari too... here no problems with fonts proper appearance though...
2. the basic arrangement of the layouts is nice and classic for webdesigns (so very userfriendly), but the graphic design is problematic technically and with some kitsch issues.
- "tim rudman" and then "photography" after two miles and a millimeter lower is not very nice.. just "tim rudman photography" should be ok and simple.
- the upper menue - all those boxes "home" "about me" are a bit old-fashioned... well i am really minimalist, so not a big fun of "boxing" words in frames etc ... u can keep some interactive features like underlying the word where mouse touches or changing color and that sould enough...
- streighing everything in vertical would be better ... cause now, the main page goes inward relativly to the "tim rudman" and main menu ... not very nice in terms of graphic design.
- the line under selcted page (about me -> biography) in the vertical menu is not nice ... old fashion....
- i would reconcider the colors and color combinations ... not neccesserly change substentially though .... the orange color (if u insists, and it is very nice) would be much better on much darker grey ... and the site would have more snap on contents as well ... now the site looks dull a bit and it doesnt help the contents to pop either. personally, i use black on my site, but that is too dramatic maybe (or in my terms "nothing but a content") ... a darker grey would make it less dramatic, but effective.
- about galleries and works ...
1. your works seem to be quite coherent as collection under the main categories. that should be the main thing... for those who are interested in techniques etc (and there will be many of those visiting your gallery, including me) i would suggest to have a look at wolfgang moersch site ... give this option of course but not placed above the picture ...
2. about the frames .... ok, this is an issue of "computer" and "real life" ... personally, i rarely "frame" my photographs in real life too ... a matter of attitude .. mounting and on the wall is my preferance. but even if u love to frame, on computer it looks different. actually, it is a bit kitsch to mimic that much the "real prints" ... your works speack for themselve and that is more than enough, any addition is getting into "too much"... u can show in "price" section how the prints are mounted for informative prurposes of course (even photograph a real print to show a potential online buyer what he gonna recieve) ...
3. as mentioned, i aslo dont like "page 1" page 2 for thumbnails ... try to put them together
4. in some galleries, under "theme" there are repeated pictures with different techniques... i would suggest not to do it in "theme" main galleries... concentrate on the theme, coherance, aesthetics etc etc ... leave the other issues to technique selection with even comparisons like wofgang moersch makes.... it keeps the viewer more attached to your works and their impact, rather than than thinking about techniques etc ... cause sometimes instead of looking at fine works, one may get into simmilar mentality of "leave the foto, just tell me what camer/lens/software/megapixel/developer" used here .... again, if u go the route of collctions according to technique, there u will have all the room for blind freacks of technique, or those who simply want to learn from your examples ...

Hi Tim,

Congratulations on your new site and the images - wonderful.

It all worked OK for me on my newish DELL desktop, Explorer / Vista without any monitor adjustments required. Your West Pier pics took me back to the late 60s when I used to go there quite a bit through work. It was in decline then but still being used of course, probably losing money as well I guess. Very sad to see it like that but very evovative pics of what it once stood for - such a shame it has now mostly all gone.

I look forward to visiting the completed site in due course.

All the best,

Neil.

I have a new problem... Firefox 3 in Vista: the images open in the frames as before but are now not centred vertically - the top of the image is hard against the top of the frame. Looks fine in IE7.

Bob.

Looks good, and works fine on Safari and a Mac OS.
j

bill spears said:

No one else has mentioned this Tim so I'm assuming its either my monitor or my eyesight but the small font looks a bit...how can I describe it ...
'fractured' or broken up ??
Everything else seems to work fine and I'm really crap with computers !

Beautiful work and some great images. Enjoyed very much.

Bill

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If you have font "Eras Medium ITC" installed and aren't using it for anything else, then try disabling it and I think things will look better. The site displays different fonts depending on what you have installed and some of them are more suitable for crt monitors and some for LCD monitors. Eras is not good for small point sizes cos its not designed for use on screen like the core microsoft web fonts are.

tim rudman said:

I know. I felt the same. Does anyone know how to fix this?
Tim

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I think you will have to do some php/javascript changes to lightbox to make that work.

tim rudman said:

I know. I felt the same. Does anyone know how to fix this?
Tim

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It's controlled by the line, rel="lightbox[???]

See Part 2 Section 2

http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox2/#example

Had a quick look at the code. It looks like the way its written means it will only put into the slide show any lightbox rel tags found on the displayed page.
So you either have to fool it by adding hidden tags on your page or you edit the lightbox javascript to pick up the contents of the directory the images are in and build them into the relevant array.

Thats probably easiest to do by dynamically modifying the lightbox javascript file with a static table of the contents of the particular gallery directory you are displaying. Then when lightbox initialise happens, load that static table instead of scanning the screen for rel tags.

ITD said:

Great site, I especially like the keyboard navigation in the galleries - much preferred to having to use the mouse all the time. The pictures are incredible.

I'll add my voice to the pricing comments - I might be tempted myself by some of them, but would be put off asking - I've always found that 'if you have to ask, you probably can't afford it'...

Maybe you can put up a 'standard' price for a particular size, process, mounting option and use POA for anything else? At least that gives us a point of reference.

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Thank you ITD. Done

Thank you Vic Vic. I really appreciate you considered comments. This is new territory for me. Some of the stylistic issues are clearly a matter of personal taste but I have taken your comments on board and will live with the site a bit before making decisions on the design side.
I take your point about printing details under the image as in Moersch's site. I had considered that but decided that this was not really the function of these pages on my site, unlike Wolfgang's where he has an outstanding range of products to promote through his site, and is filling a previously empty niche that really needed someone like him to fill. I figured that in my case that info (other than the basic process details given) would possibly detract from the image. I considered putting relevant info on the toning and process pages for those who use those options. Have yet to see if/how that could be done. I'm not to aware of these things as you may have gathered (give me a dish any day ).

I take your point about different versions of the same print too. I agree with that in general and I think there are only 2 examples (in the Pier set) of alt versions and I debated whether or not to do that, but I like them both and they speak in very different ways, so I did.
Just once in a while this presents a dilemma doesn't it. Whereas I nearly always make one interpretation of a print which I consider 'right', just now and then I like 2 versions equally in different ways. My newset print is an example and i have to decide whether to release both or one. Fortunately this dilemma is uncommon as a little time generally sorts it out.
many thanks again.
Tim

Rob and Fintan
I wish I knew what you were talking about but I will pass it on to one who does. Thanks very much

Tim,

Naturally your photographs are a joy to see. I'm using Windows 2000 and Firefox 3, I did find the site easy to navigate and the only comments I would have are:

1. Same issue as has been mentioned about frames on slide show, I'm not seeing the frame at the top of the image so it looks unbalanced.

2. I found the italic body text to be slightly hard to read and in a way at odds with how clear and crisp the site is as a whole.

3. In relation to the workshops page, I think it would be nice if it opened with either the "about my workshops" or "workshops offered" page, it might also be nice if you mentioned where you have held workshops in the past (you were in Ireland with fpworkshops.com, if I recall correctly), this way people can check out with the organisers of previous workshops to see when or if you will be back, just an idea.

Thanks for sharing your work with us, very best of luck with the web site.

David

I have just tried the site on Firefox. The text is terrible compared to IE7. If this was all that was available and I was simply a site browser, I don't think I'd bother. That is how bad it is in terms of text. As others have said, it is quite spidery and not quite straight either. Like a drunk spider! The calibration hints won't work either. It won't take me there. Have just come back to IE and everything on the site is fine.

pentaxuser

tim rudman said:

Rob and Fintan
I wish I knew what you were talking about but I will pass it on to one who does. Thanks very much

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Do you know if all the photographs from say Trees (winter) are in two separate folders for page 1 and page 2 ? Thats the key to this I would say.

Actually if I was you I would forget the page 1 and page 2 business altogether.

I would reccommend that from the start you consider the fact that your reasons for having the site are likely to change over time. So, now would be the time to do whatever can be done to enhance ease of maintenance as well as flexibility for ease of change in the future.

I very much doubt that I am the girl for the job of advising you on how to accomplish this.

dferrie said:

Tim,

snip>> it might also be nice if you mentioned where you have held workshops in the past (you were in Ireland with fpworkshops.com, if I recall correctly), this way people can check out with the organisers of previous workshops to see when or if you will be back, just an idea.

Thanks for sharing your work with us, very best of luck with the web site.

David

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It hadn't occurred to me that telling people about previous workshops that were no longer available would be of interest.
Would it interest anyone??
Tim

Davids idea is good I think.

BTW if you want some images taken during our workshops let me know. They are on our site in the gallery.

bugs fixed

I think all the bugs are now fixed?
And a number of font and other cosmetic/functional changes.
The Alumni gallery should go up on Thurday/Friday now that a few probs have been sorted out. Thank you all very much
Tim

I like it but am not so sure about the frames in the 'galleries' section. Great looking at the images again too !