Hello all! I am going to make this a sticky post in hopes that I can get all of you who have submitted pictures to the Pentax Photo Gallery (PPG) and have had them accepted please post a couple of them here and please link back to your gallery so we can see your work. We have so many incredible photogs on this site I am curious to see what Pentax considers your best work.

Thanks!

[thoughton]

Looks like they are beavering away fixing stuff, I notice they have now added the artists URL field to the public page. I had reported yesterday that despite being in the artist profile edit screen it didn't appear on our public page.

Also saw an interesting thing today, when I visited an old broken PPG link:

[mikeSF]

Hey so it looks pretty slick. But I noticed they now show much larger versions of our images, and for those of us with existing collections, that means old images are stretched out, digitally. Their new submission guidelines is a minimum of 900px high, whereas before it was 600px at greatest dimension.

I wonder if they will let us replace our old images with higher resolution versions or if we're stuck deleting them and putting them through the gauntlet again?

agreed, the first thing i notice is that all my pics look much softer than they were. i even see some artifacts and haloing on a few images as a result of the upscaling. hopefully they'll allow replacement with higher rez files.

[v5planet]

agreed, the first thing i notice is that all my pics look much softer than they were. i even see some artifacts and haloing on a few images as a result of the upscaling. hopefully they'll allow replacement with higher rez files.

Yes, I've also noticed a lot of artifacts in images I -just- uploaded at their requested resolution. Images that are in landscape orientation suffer more as they have a greater number of pixels that go through whatever compression algorithm PF is using currently.

[Ash]

I see it also, and find it a turn for the worse in terms of practicality. The interface is not what I'd consider a 3-month off-line job, but it is a step int he right direction. Hope they iron out all these initial niggles, particularly with image rendition.

[mikeSF]

ok, i just spent some time in there and uploaded some pics too and am generally annoyed by a few things but find the voting to actually be easier than before. everyone's pics look soft to me which is a real bummer.
i also set up my list of lenses which shows fine in the edit page but does not appear on the actual page.

[Dr Orloff]

Voting is miles better, loading is miles better. Viewing larger sized images is a good idea but was never properly thought out. There are some good ideas in there but overall the execution is incredibly shoddy. A lot of these bugs have been or will be fixed but how they were not spotted in the first place is just about incomprehensible. Amateurish in the extreme.

The front page is poor. The recently added category has gone, which was probably the most browsed. But the big problem is that image quality. This is a showcase for Pentax and the message it gives is that images taken with Pentax gear look dreadful.

[mark lj]

Agreed. Not impressed. Image quality should be paramount.

[thoughton]

Yes, I've also noticed a lot of artifacts in images I -just- uploaded at their requested resolution. Images that are in landscape orientation suffer more as they have a greater number of pixels that go through whatever compression algorithm PF is using currently.

Are you talking about the PPG? Or PF? I don't think the PPG has any sort of 'number of pixels' limitation, that's usually a forum type of restriction, especially for attachments.

I'm slightly puzzled by all the negative reactions to the new PPG interface. IMO it is a zillion times better than the old one. Does no one remember how long you had to wait on the old site while it animated each page flip? And the annoyance of having to click on a tiny thumbnail to see a medium-sized photo before voting? I much prefer the new method where the thumbnail is almost as large as the old full-size image, and we can click through to a much bigger one. The whole site is miles more responsive for me, it has some minor niggles which they seem to be sorting out as we go but on the whole I consider it a vast improvement.

The only major problem I can see right now is they should either implement a mechanism where we can replace our 900x600 images with 2050x1250 ones, OR they should display 900x600 images at their native size and not enlarge them.

I can see Dr Orloff's point about the 'recently added' category going missing, that was the most interesting one for sure, but the old Flash site was so painful to navigate I was never able to spend more than 5 minutes browsing through it anyway. I'd much rather have a non-flash site, and no 'recently added' category (although both would also be nice )

Oh yes, I also love the new 'drag and drop' image uploading. No more clickety click click click woohoo.

[mikeSF]

i dont see a way to view the photo on a black background, instead i see the photo before and after on either side, grayed out. this is distracting.

and on the artists list, when you scroll to someone and click their name, you then must click the "GO" button, why add this extra step??

[v5planet]

Are you talking about the PPG? Or PF? I don't think the PPG has any sort of 'number of pixels' limitation, that's usually a forum type of restriction, especially for attachments.

I'm slightly puzzled by all the negative reactions to the new PPG interface. IMO it is a zillion times better than the old one. Does no one remember how long you had to wait on the old site while it animated each page flip? And the annoyance of having to click on a tiny thumbnail to see a medium-sized photo before voting? I much prefer the new method where the thumbnail is almost as large as the old full-size image, and we can click through to a much bigger one. The whole site is miles more responsive for me, it has some minor niggles which they seem to be sorting out as we go but on the whole I consider it a vast improvement.

The only major problem I can see right now is they should either implement a mechanism where we can replace our 900x600 images with 2050x1250 ones, OR they should display 900x600 images at their native size and not enlarge them.

I can see Dr Orloff's point about the 'recently added' category going missing, that was the most interesting one for sure, but the old Flash site was so painful to navigate I was never able to spend more than 5 minutes browsing through it anyway. I'd much rather have a non-flash site, and no 'recently added' category (although both would also be nice )

Oh yes, I also love the new 'drag and drop' image uploading. No more clickety click click click woohoo.

Definitely in terms of usability this new design is leagues beyond the old flash based nightmare. There are definitely size restrictions on submissions though -- they explicitly ask for images that are 900 pixels tall. Try to upload one that's shorter and it will get rejected. If you submit one larger they say they resize the dimensions. But they also compress the photos -- several of the images I submitted showed jpeg artifacts after upload, both in terms of slightly posterized tonal transitions and pixelated halos along some high contrast divisions.

[thoughton]

Definitely in terms of usability this new design is leagues beyond the old flash based nightmare. There are definitely size restrictions on submissions though -- they explicitly ask for images that are 900 pixels tall. Try to upload one that's shorter and it will get rejected. If you submit one larger they say they resize the dimensions. But they also compress the photos -- several of the images I submitted showed jpeg artifacts after upload, both in terms of slightly posterized tonal transitions and pixelated halos along some high contrast divisions.

Yes, that is one drawback, that we don't know the maximum size acceptable upload. We know that it is a little bigger than 2050 x 1250 in a fullscreen window on a 27" iMac. We need someone with a 30" monitor to tell us what size photos the site serves them.

Interesting to hear about jpeg compression. If you load a PPG window in a small browser window, and then enlarge the browser window, the image grows with the window. That suggests that the image is loaded at full size even in a small window and they are just relying on browser resizing to downsize it (rather than loading smaller jpeg versions created on the server e.g the way Flickr does), but until we start seeing 'new' acceptances from larger uploads it's hard to tell exactly what's happening.

[Sagitta]

Not sure what the issue is, but I signed up and can't upload. The photo just gets a 'Could not add this photo to the gallery' error with no explanation. Anyone know what thats about?

[Fries]

Not sure what the issue is, but I signed up and can't upload. The photo just gets a 'Could not add this photo to the gallery' error with no explanation. Anyone know what thats about?

Happend to me also and I've been active on the PPG a bit longer so it isn't specific to you. I'll try later and if that doesn't work I will contact them.

[Pepe Guitarra]

I have been reviewing and voting on submitted photographs. I study them carefully, I take my time, even if there are about a zillion of them. I remember that Pentax ask that you submit your best photos. I look at them from the composition point of view (making sure the principles of composition were considered when taking the photo, e.g., unity, harmony, etc.). I see them from the technical aspect: Is it sharp? Is it sharp wherever it should be? Is there a message?, and finally, would I hang this in my gallery? home? Or, if hang in a gallery, would it call my attention to the point that I spend several minutes on it? For example, when I saw a collection of paintings by Vincent Van Gogh in the Los Angeles Museum of Art, I spent eight hours looking at 12 photos. That kind of attention. What I have noticed is: some people do not submit their best photos. If they do, their level is not that advanced yet. I suggest them to look at the photos in the premier gallery, or in the featured galleries to get an example of what constitute a good photo. Remember what Picasso used to say: To break the rules, you have to know them. That being said, I have enjoyed voting, I have learned a lot, and I have enjoyed wonderful photos that I wish I could take.

[Dr Orloff]

Well I've done a bit of voting. A lot faster now which is better. What is rather bad though is that there are some photos that have come up more than once. One photo has come up five times now.