The Lens Flare - Next Version

[azkul]

We've been busy rewriting code over the last few months; however, we're planning on focusing solely on this website for several weeks starting late November.

We have about 3-4 weeks before that will begin, which is enough time to get feedback from all of you.

So the question is...

If there was anything you'd change or add to this website, what would it be?

We'll see what we can do to get all of the best suggestions into the next version (depending on how much work is involved in creating it).

Thanks,
Brian

[golda]

Brian, I would really like to see a dark background,so the images have more impact when viewed.Maybe a good charcoal grey would work also.
Thanks
Golda

[Alfresco]

Small thing, but would make site navigation easier: On the page selection menus ("Additional XXXXX Images") the page you're on is difficult to determine (highlighted black in a dark blue list, at least on my computer). And how about adding a "Next" selection at the end of the page number list rather than requiring clicking individually on those tiny little numbers?

Bruce

[bubbalinn]

Hi Brian,

I'm still thinking LOL.. I think the site is really nice the way it is, I guess I'm use to it. Anyway all I can think of right now is here in the forum instead of when you click on the members name taking you to there profile, I think it would be nicer if it took you to there gallery. Then at the members gallery have the link to there profiles.

[A.Lovely]

I agree with Alan about the gallery of the member being the first to view and
then click the profile....

[azkul]

Thanks for your suggestions, and please keep them coming.

Our goal for this next version is to simplify the navigation so that it's easier to get around and give you more than just a place to host your pictures.

A sneak preview of the new design can be seen here: http://beta.thelensflare.com - nothing actually works on this page. It's a sample only and it will probably change as we get into specific features.

The new version will have enhancements to the "album" feature, which will make it possible to write more about each of your sets of pictures.

Each person will have a blog to post messages, articles, or whatever.

We're debating on which social networking features to include like friend lists, etc.

You'll have the ability to upload full resolution images (with a password) to use as an online backup. This will be a premium feature meaning it'll get rolled into the premium membership or have a separate fee since there's a cost involved with large amounts of hard drive storage.

We're working on adding the ecommerce modules needed to be able to sell prints from the site. We'll be able to print and ship the orders. You'll have the option to select prints that you'd like to sell from the site, and we'll pay you a fair percentage of the sale after printing costs. (This feature will be optional and we'll only sell prints you actually want to sell).

We're going to drop the Wordpress blog, wiki, and forum in favor of fully integrated solutions. The current forum was written by somebody else, and we've tied into its registration features, etc. It's different software, which is why links point to different stuff, profiles are separated from forum and gallery, etc. We'll still have a forum-like feature on the new site, but it'll work seamlessly with the rest of the site.

These are just a few of the new features... there are several even more exciting features we're building, but not ready to disclose just yet.

[A.Lovely]

Brian it sounds very exciting and I think I will enjoy the new version. Good luck
in your trials and work on the site. Much thanks for all your time. I appreciate
this site very much and it is a joy to visit and leave a capture now and again.
A.Lovely

[Art57]

I checked out the preview. It really looks nice and polished. It may take a bit of getting used to the new layout but it sure looks like a move in the right direction. Keep up the good work!

[azkul]

Yeah, the new design will be completely different from this one. We basically threw away the code and started over.

It'll take some getting used to like you said, but we're going to try and roll it out in a way that you can ease into it.

The last time we rolled out a new design, we had both the new and old going at the same time for a few weeks. We're going to try and do the same thing this time as well.

[bubbalinn]

Hi Brian,

I'm just waking up but this thought somehow came into my head.

With you mentioning about making prints or selling photos, how about for the security side of things make it where people can't take the larger versions of the photos. I remember using a "no right click" code on my GeoCities web site. When people right click to take a photo a message I made would come up like (this photo is copyrighted) or (no no no you can't take my photo)..

Then for on the fun side in the forum and maybe on the comments on photos, how about instead of all smilies have some photography and other stuff like cameras, camera with flash going off, a smiley taking a photo, tripods, cars, flowers, animals, and stuff like that. Then going farther maybe make it where you can use animated avatars. I know not many people even use avatars, just a thought...

[azkul]

Thanks for your suggestions, Alan.

The right click thing helps prevent people from taking photos that don't have a good understanding of the web. However, it's trivial to find the image's URL and go to that location directly. The browser also stores a 'cache' of the image, so another way is to look in your cache folder and find it there. We can add the no right click thing, but it's not all that effective.

I think a more effective means of copy-protecting an image is to add a watermark. The software I use on the site has the ability to do this, and so I think it would be a good feature to have. The way the process would work is that you would upload your 'watermark' image. For this example, lets say it's the orange camera TLF logo.

On the upload page, you'd see a checkbox or something saying 'apply my watermark'. You'd check that and when you uploaded your image, the software would put the logo on a layer above your picture, then change the logo's opacity so that the picture shows through. The logo itself would be small, so it doesn't hinder the view of the picture all that much, but it essentially 'ruins' the picture for somebody trying to steal it and use it elsewhere.

Here's an example of how Corbis does it: http://www.corbisimages.com/Enlargement/En...7&caller=search

However, I feel that the photographer should be able to choose the watermark image for their images. Many people have their own logo, or even just some text with their name and a copyright symbol would work great.

Another problem is the use of "hot linking". Hot linking is where somebody adds an image tag on their website that points to a picture on TLF. When the picture is loaded, it's coming from my server instead of theirs. That person is essentially 'stealing' the picture because they're using it without permission. This makes my hosting fees go up because they are using more of my bandwidth. They should also be paying the photographer for the use of the image.

Honestly, I don't mind if a photographer hotlinks their own image. I do this all the time when I'm asking for feedback or promoting one of my pictures in forums. Often they don't allow you to upload images to them, so the only way to display the picture is to hotlink it from somewhere else. The problem I have though is when people hotlink images that don't belong to them.

The photographer's watermark would help with this. I also think it's appropriate to add text to the bottom right of the image saying "thelensflare.com" - at least then, if somebody hotlinks the picture, everybody will know where it came from, which helps promote the site. This makes the extra bandwidth costs more like a marketing expense so it's worth it.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about this.

Thanks,
Brian

[bubbalinn]

Hi Brian,

I figured there were other ways to snag a photo and the right click thing would just stop some people. I think the only way to protect images is to only upload thumbnail size shots LOL.. The watermarking is another good tool that would stop people a little more, but I think to really work it has to be big and across the photo, but that ruins looking at the photos.

I'm no photoshop wizard but I could clone out the Corbis watermark on that flower in no time. If the watermark is in a detailed part of the photo it would be hard to cover up. I think adding the watermark feature would be a good idea, and have the check box where TLF logo would show up. Adding it where you could make your own watermark would be extra nice especially for the members who don't know how to add text to there photos.

But still if the watermark is small and say in a corner it's easy to clone out or just crop the photo to cut out the watermark. It might cut down on the hot linking, but like you said they would be posting TLF watermark giving some advertising for the site but there still taking the photos and bandwidth.

Hey make a no hot linking code with a password, if you guys can make my windows ME useless you should be able to mess up the photos somehow ROFL....

[azkul]

You're right. We could add a 'no hotlinking' option. There's a way to display a different image when it's being called from another site. I'm sure you've seen them from time to time... the image tends to be some sort of text that says "this person is hotlinking images from TLF without permission". If we gave the photographer the option to check this or not, it could solve that problem.

I could clone out the watermark on Corbis too, so it's not a perfect science.

It's sort of like the club you can buy for your car. You know... the thing you attach to your steering wheel. It's trivial to get past the 'club'. All you have to do is cut out part of the steering wheel.

The reason why it is helpful though is that it makes it harder to steal than somebody else's car that doesn't have the club. If the person wants to steal 'your' car, he's going to find a way. If he's looking to steal 'a' car, he'll likely go for one that's easier to get to.

The amount of actual image theft is so low though that it's not worth hurting those that are doing what they're supposed to. If we put the watermark in the center, it effectively hurts the experience of the legitimate viewer. That's why I think the watermark should be off center, perhaps in a corner like Corbis. Also, there's no reason a photographer can't add their own watermark in Photoshop or whatever before uploading the image - then they have full control of it. I know some people on TLF already do that.

[A.Lovely]

Wow! Brian and Alan, I didn't know about this "hotlinking" and how it is stealing.
This is very interesting to me. I'm not much of a PC buff, so anything is new to
me. Thanks for putting it on the boards guys.

A.Lovely

[azkul]

I just thought of a technical issue with the 'no hotlinking' option. The way I was thinking of doing that would be an Apache directive, but that doesn't work for individual images. I also plan on serving the images from a separate server, which effectively bypasses the Apache configurations. The images would be served from a content delivery system, which is great for people outside of the US because the actual image is loaded from a server closer to home (i.e from the US, UK, Japan, etc), thus making it faster to retrieve. We're already doing that for the layout image files, and it works great.

I'll have to think more on that to see if there's anything that can be done from a hotlinking standpoint. We might just need to rely on watermarks. We'll check into it further when we get to that point in the code.

Thanks,
Brian