If you are opted in to the Recent Blog Posts email, look for this new version in your email on Thursday's now instead.
If you are opted in to the Recent Blog Posts email, look for this new version in your email on Thursday's now instead.
Many users have asked if we could expand this functionality, as there is a lot to be learned from seeing an image and then the equipment, settings and flash used to capture the image.
...ask and ye shall receive...
When you go to photo detail pages, you'll now see the expanded data (IF the data accompanied the image when it was uploaded.
If the EXIF does not accompany the digital image (if it's been stripped in your editing/post process), that field will be blank. Otherwise, whatever we get and that we can decipher, we'll display. In some cases, the data will be missing, corrupt, partially corrupt or otherwise indecipherable. You might notice that some images have a date that they were taken (with a digital camera) that dates back to ... say... 1969. Obviously, that's a little 'wonky' (technical term, we understand). The reason is that the field comes back with a default value that sneaks past our validations.
We will, of course, be working on improving and tweaking this to make sure that we catch most of the 'wonkiness'.
Another change you might notice is that we've combined display of the Categories and Tags. They are now in the same display area, under the EXIF display.
If you want to enable other users to add tags to your images, you can also do that (that's enabled in the image preferences for the image and can be changed at any time).Happy 4th to y'all!
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We thought there could be a few more little bits that might make the collections feature more useful and fun.
Collections are a great way to wander through the site, looking for the best and keeping them handy for the future... have fun exploring!
Photo Collection Count
The number of collections a photo is contained in is now shown on the photo display page as well as in your profile in large thumbnail view. Clicking on the count will show you all of the public collections that the photo is in. The count is displayed up under the title of the photo as shown here:
Set Collection Thumbnail
When you add the first photo to a collection it automatically becomes the thumbnail for the collection. Once you've added additional photos to the collection you can now set which photo in the collection is used as the thumbnail image.
To change the thumbnail image, login and view the contents of your collection. Roll over the image you want to use as the thumbnail and then click the set thumbnail icon in the bar at the bottom of the image. See the circled area below.
users... COLLECTIONS!
icon for adding to your favorites list. Both favorite and add to collection are now icons above each image throughout the site, next to the Spotlight This and Enter Shoot Out buttons as shown below.
icon above the image. That will bring up a window that will allow you to either i) create a collection to add the image to; or ii) if you already have a collection that you're ready to add to ... to add it to that collection. Here, you can also (when creating a new collection) determine whether the collection will be private (visible to only you), or public (visible to anyone in the community viewing your collections).
icon on the Collections tab. If you click on that icon, you can create a new collection right there.
We've added a photo toolbar under your photos when you view your own photos. The new toolbar shows in the large thumbnail view when you're in your profile and under the photo on the photo detail page. All photo manipulation has been moved into this toolbar to make it easier to find.
You'll now find "edit" in this new toolbar with a sub-menu for setting the photo properties and, for JPG+ members, the basic and advanced editors. Delete has been moved to the toolbar as well so you no longer have to edit a photo to find delete.
JPG+ members can also access the download function from the toolbar as well as the new hide feature.
If you're wondering what the "+" is for... well, it doesn't do anything yet. But we got some more stuff in store. We'll be doing some cool new stuff on this bar (and beyond) that you'll want to keep your eye on in the coming weeks. We can't tell you all about it yet or, well, we'd have to... you know...dispatch you to a frozen tundra somewhere north of Minsk.
New stuff part deux... Double WooHoo!
JPG+ members have a new feature that allows you to hide photos from view, essentially making a photo private until you decide to unhide it making it visible to others again. This feature is available in the new photo toolbar (see the above), look for the hide/unhide icon (like so):
When a photo is hidden, it will show up under your "Hidden" tab when you view your own profile page. Other users do not see this tab. Hidden photos are removed from all other views. This includes your profile, the photos page, all themes, challenges and contests, etc. (so make sure that you don't hide an image that is entered in a theme, challenge or contest that you want to remain in that theme, challenge or contest). Also you will be the only one able to view the photo detail page by clicking through on one of your hidden photos in the hidden tab.
This feature allows you to remove photos from view that you don't want shown but you don't want to delete either. While the image is hidden, all information about votes, views, likes, etc. is kept intact, so... should you decide to unhide the photo again it will be restored to view with the same counts as it had prior to being hidden.
Now... "why", might you ask, would one want to hide their photo? Well, maybe you want to upload some images to JPG for safekeeping (but you don't want them viewed, commented, liked, etc.). Maybe you want those images accessible to you while you're traveling out of the country so you can show your rich uncle Steve, who you're hoping will sponsor your 'round the world photo documentary project on the fruit fly. There's lots of reasons why a person would/could/should use it... some we're sure we've not even thought of yet, so as you think of those reasons...make sure you USE IT!
Enjoy~!
Well that was an ugly one, but the issue with no hot photos showing up for new challenges has been fixed. Long story short, some undocumented compatibility problems with the new version of our database software.
We have also recalculated the hot photos for any challenges/themes since the issue first occurred. So all challenges since "Red" have been updated now with the list of hot photos.
]]>As is often the case, with big change, comes a few headaches. Our weekly email newsletter and blog digest have been suspended while we build a new and more scalable and stable system for those email distributions. Additionally, mobile email uploads have been 'broken' while we enhance some elements there that were affected by our upgrade. Several users have also pointed out a few other elements that didn't fare so well in the upgrade.
In addition to a few broken items mentioned above that needed our TLC, we're re-working some of our photo storage and organization so that we can unveil a few things in the new year...
Which brings us to our "New Year's Resolutions"!
As we've evaluated JPG and its direction after we made the difficult decision to discontinue the print magazine, we have spent considerable time and attention focused on the community and what we can do to improve the interactions, tools, utility and overall look/feel and continue to make JPG the best place for our community to share, discover, discuss and more.
So... what does all this mean?
Well, after a few of the remaining bugs are worked out, we're going to be completing some of the elements of our upgrade that will allow us to do more (lots more). We're adding core functionality that will allow you to better organize and manage your images, take advantage more easily of themes, challenges and contests and more easily interact with users and great images around the site. You'll be able to feature your images, have the opportunity to earn revenue and more.
At the same time, we'll be simplifying a lot. Navigation and options will be streamlined and .... (drumroll...) we'll be introducing a new and enhanced interface that will truly celebrate your amazing work.
As you can imagine, we've got lots to do... There will be some noise and some dust. There may be some banging and screaming. Despite all that, we're excited to share our new plans for JPG with you and hope you'll love all the great stuff we're working on!
Happy New Year!
]]>We'll have to iron out these issues over the coming days. Currently there is an issue with the photo editor, its refusing to load the original photo. The other issue is the email upload if you use that for mobile photo uploads. The photos are currently not getting uploaded.
Now for the new feature... you'll notice a new box on the the photo page with all the photos counts along with new like/dislike buttons. This is the first cut at this feature so give us some feedback on it.
A few things to note. You can optionally give a prop when you like a photo which gets entered into the comments. If you want to dislike a photo we are currently requiring you to leave a comment in an effort to prevent drive-by dislikes. The comments left show up as regular comments and you can of course remove them or block the commenter if necessary.
Lastly if you want to reverse your like or dislike back to neutral, just click the button again to remove the like or dislike.
Happy holidays & Enjoy!
]]>Original Post:
We will be conducting site-wide maintenance Friday December 23 beginning at 11pm PST. We expect the maintenance to last until approximately 5am Saturday December 24. During this time the site will be unavailable. We will update this post when the maintenance is complete or if the schedule changes.
We have reported the issue to our provider and they are working to correct the problem. Once it has been corrected we will regenerate the thumbnail images.
Thank you for your patience while we resolve this issue.
Update: Dec 19, 2011 16:00 PST
The problem with our storage provider has been resolved and we believe all thumbnail images have been regenerated. If there are any photos you uploaded today that are still missing thumbnail images please let us know.
Oh and while we were at it, we added the 3 voteable themes back to the top of the theme list on the photo edit page as well. So all is right with the world of theme entry from the edit page again.
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We have been notified that our storage provider will be performing maintenance on the systems we use for photo storage tonight. The maintenance is scheduled for Nov 4, 11pm EST through Nov 5, 7am EST. Durning this time uploads of photos to JPG will be disabled and if you are JPG+ member you will not be able to download your originals.
Also fixed is a problem were the photo may appear squashed or stretched after saving the image. This was occurring only if you did an operation in the editor that changed the dimensions of the image, such as rotate or crop. The actual dimensions of the image were then out of sync with the dimensions we used when displaying the image on the site.
Note that if your large image on the site still looks stretched after saving, that is caused by the original image still being cached in our CDN (Content Delivery Network) and it will fix itself once the new image has made its way out to all the servers in the network. Just be patient and check it again, it can take up to an hour for the image to get updated on all the servers.
We've also fixed an issue with the NSFW filter where some images that were flagged as NSFW were not being filtered correctly in the contest entry block in the right sidebar on photo pages. All photos flagged as NSFW should now show as filtered there if you have enabled your filter.
We're working away on lots of cool stuff for the site and our awesome community and we're looking for help to bring some of these great new features to you even faster!
Specifically, we're looking for someone with amazing skills in:
The perfect person or team will be able to design AND develop AND deploy.
If you are this person (or team) or if you know this person (or team), use this email: support@jpgmag.com!
What are you waiting for?!?!?!
]]>What do we mean by quick draw? Users have let us know that it would be cool if there were a way to more quickly enter their images in the Shoot Out contests. Like... maybe if there were a button, a lot like the Spotlight button that appeared on each image so that you could just enter it into a Shoot Out contest right there!
POOF!
Now, when browsing through your images, you'll see that you can hit a button above your image (the one that says "Enter Shoot Out") and you can, right there, enter it in any open JPG Shoot Out photo contest! How cool is that? This will, of course, make entering that much easier.
But that's not all... no way - no how! We thought it would be cool to add a little something extra!
When you browse the site, do you ever see an image that is just perfect for one of our Shoot Out photo contests... and maybe you whisper to yourself... "that would be just perfect for the [_____] Shoot Out - I wonder why it's not entered!"?
Well, now - if you come across that image that would make a perfect entry into an open JPG Shoot Out photo contest and you think it should be entered, you can use that cool new "Enter Shoot Out" button above all the images on the site to enter images into any open Shoot Out (that's right, even if it's not your image)!
Now, why would you want to do that? Great question. While you will pay the entry fee for any image that you enter into the Shoot Out, you will get a share of the prize (if it wins one) and the credit for entering it in the Shoot Out. So, let's say you enter someone else's image in a Shoot Out. Just like when you spotlight someone's image, this is another way to give them props for their great work (AND give them, and yourself, a shot at a cash prize). So, when that image is entered, you'll be mentioned, right below the image, as the one who entered it in the contest. IF the image wins a prize in the contest, you'll get 15% of the prize that the image won (the rest, of course, goes to the member that submitted the image originally... that's only fair)!
So, if you fancy yourself a keen photo editor with a great eye for the image that will win, and you're willing to put your money where your eye is, enter-away! If you spend hours on JPG and you wish you had a good reason to tell your spouse why you spend so much time on the site... Now you have one! You can browse images, pick great entries, and win money! In fact, it's a pretty cool way to spend time... browsing through over 2.1 million images and entering great images for a shot to share the cash prize with the member who shot the image...
COOL!
Now, of course, we realize that SOME photographers won't want others to enter their images in contests (although, with a shot to win the cash prize without footing the entry bill, we can't imagine WHY?!). So... if you'd prefer not to have your images entered into the Shoot Out photo contests by other users, you can opt-out in your profile.
To clear up any questions all of this might raise, you can check out the FAQs, under "Contests".
We're sure this will add some more fun to the JPG Shoot Out photo contests.
As part of this we've also tweaked the login process slightly to try to return you to the page you were on when you hit the login link. That way you don't lose your place on the site when you login.
Also new is the display of your remaining Shoot Out credits in your user profile or a link to add credits you have none.
As always, have fun... be safe... and happy shooting~!
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