You know what's AWESOME about Pictage?

Waiting 8-12 hours for them to release an event to you after you've already FTP'd your pictures - NO COLOR CORRECTION.

That's what's AWESOME!

You know what's even more AWESOME. When you're client is waiting for them.

Does anyone else LOVE this service as much as I do?

AWESOME. Have a nice day.

I'm glad it's going GREAT for you Jason.










(it was a pleasure to meet YOU in vegas )

LOL. You're BAD.

That's amazing! Does Pictage provide you with the stamp so you can send a letter to the bride notifying her when the gallery will be ready, too?

Come on, Eric!

Carrier pigeons are cooler than stamps.

They nixed the plan for smoke signals (goin' green & all...)

I just spit my tea out. Thanks for the laugh!

Jason, what's even cooler is that once it's finally released, they will let your client know again and again and again and again.

LOL - OK - I needed that laugh. I just don't understand this - why is this not automatic? Last I heard someone actually has to physically "release" the event. Why?

You're right though - once it is released, they NEVER forget it!

I was in your hotel room in vegas when I learned about photocart. Check it out.

LOL - You're bad too!

pickpic, baby.

Someone isn't physically releasing your event - although that was something that used to occur (like a long time ago).

Are you uploading Q10 JPG's or Q12 JPG's?

-Jeff

Photocart has got to be the most affordable, feature rich, fully customizable solution available. It really is that awesome ... AND you will put a lot more cash in your own pockets!

Wow. I quit using them 5 years ago and they were bad then. They still continue to offer crappy service and people still use them. I don't know if I should boo them or applaud them. If I treated my clients like that I'd be out of business, but they've found a work around to that.

Does this matter? I upload pictures and don't want Pictage to color correct. Why does it take an average of 8-12 hours for it to be released? It should be automatic....

It's just an annoyance and having to add an extra day in my workflow stinks.

Thats Awth-some!

I think it has something to do with the compression and thumbnail creation process that is constantly going on on all the pictage servers somewhere between when you upload and when it is released to you. Several sets of smaller jpegs (thumbnail, full size, etc.) must be made of hundreds of files to accommodate the viewing options of pictage's interface. With dozens if not hundreds of weddings in the queue - sometimes its super fast other times its painfully slow :-/.

Lets say for arguments sake that you change it to 10 instead of 12 and it takes only a few minutes after upload.

You are still spending hours ftping the files instead of minutes like you would on a pickpic cart.

It does matter, in fact because upon upload, if you have Q12 JPG's, they all have to be resized to Q10's before the event can be posted. So basically when you submit the event, if it needs resizing it goes into one queue (which takes a while due to the obvious processing needs) and if it doesn't need resizing it goes into the other queue where just thumbnails and web optimization stuff happens and so it takes much shorter time. So, just upload Q10's, and you should get a quicker release time Yes, but when someone eventually orders through your PickPic cart, you still have to sit down, log in, review the order, prep the files, upload them, and place the order with your lab. Yesterday before I finished my morning coffee I had a huge order from a mother who went through and did custom stuff to each image, ordered all different sizes, and I didn't have to do a thing.That's why Pictage works for me, because I don't like having to do anything But that's a topic for about a million other threads that have already occurred here Again, stick to uploading Q10 JPG's

Actually they are "evaluating" using smoke signals and carrier pigeons. So don't rule that out, just yet!

So that's even more awesome - my archived files are stored with a generation loss. Cool! Didn't know that's even better!

Yes - but with a PickPic cart you don't have to work on EVERY file before uploading. I learned a long time ago that unfortunately, I cannot trust the lab services to work on my files. So that forces me to upload "print ready" image for EVERY file because I do not know which picture Mom will order.

I'd be happy to only work on a few!

Not trying to turn this into a bash Pictage thread. Just pointing out some obvious stuff that NEVER EVER changes.

Have you ever looked at a big print, printed at Q12 and one next to it printed at Q10? I'm guessing you haven't, otherwise you'd understand that there is basically no difference in how an image, printed at 300 DPI, looks.

Hey Jason...'sup? Good to see you in Vegas.

I have clients make a folder on Pictage to make album selections...then I would order a high-res ftp download of those shots to include in the album...then add some of my own from the event already on my hard drives. That ftp download would save me the time of writing a list of photo numbers and then marking them in my library to be included in the album. Anyway, I noticed a difference in quality and it's due to the same thing here. Those high res downloads are not the same files I uploaded, proven by the fact they're about 2/3 the original file size. Now I'm back to making a list and marking.

I'm with you in not wanting to bash Pictage here, but it's true that it's not a perfect system (and I mean perfect in both performance and that it provides the best set of solutions for me). Is there one? I dunno.

Jason,
Mine get released in less than an hour.. but we all know it's cause I'm cooler and way better looking!

I don't think that was the point of his statement. I believe it was about data loss, which affects image integrity, and not the print output.

Hi guys -

Just wanted to quickly chime in here. When files are uploaded to Pictage we do have to create smaller proxy versions of each image so that when your clients are viewing them online they download quickly. We also will compress maxed out JPGs down slightly, but as was mentioned earlier, this is undetectable on even the largest size print.

The point of Pictage vs. other services is that once you upload you can technically be done. We can take care of all the marketing and fulfillment for prints, photo products, and within the next two months - even albums.

So yes - there is a bigger up front commitment as far as time when putting an event online, but theoretically that is compensated for by the time you save on the back end. It's as close as we can come to meeting our mission statement of "You shoot the pictures - we do the rest."

We've put an intense focus this year on making it easier to create an event (phase 1 of the photographer site redesign launched in March) and making uploads faster. We launched a plugin in January that allows you to upload directly from Aperture to Pictage, and the Lightroom version will be in Beta the last week of April. In addition we have a completely new standalone uploader (DEC) which will be launched by June. All three of these tools reduced upload times by as much as 70% in our lab tests.

I know there are still many areas that can be improved (photographer ordering interfaces, online statements, die cutting wallets, offering print packages, etc...), but we are documenting your feedback and in effect allowing you to set our development roadmap. If an issue has been mentioned on OSP or the Pictage forums, be assured that we have scrutinized it and are working on a solution.

-------------------------
Ian Siegel
VP Product and Technology
Pictage, Inc.

Thanks Bruce. Yes.

Darn it! Maybe you could put in a good word for me? I'm not cool, or good looking, but I know you!

Ian -

OK - I've "stirred the pot", and I'm glad you're reading our feedback. I've pointed out a negative that makes me little crazy, and you guys have pointed out why. Thanks for that. However - I must admit, I am not crazy about the fact you are opening the .jpgs, resizing, and saving again. That does not effect print quality, I agree - but it does say something to me about the "archives" your "saving" for me. It's a loss of generation, and leaves me with a decision to make - do I make an extra step doing it myself, and then uploading? Mind you, I'd still need to create Q12 Jpegs for myself, or do just not worry about it. I'm not sure...

Let me point out some positives I've seen over the last two years, just to show I am not bashing:

FTP times has been improved ten-fold. It is rare my FTP "stalls" when uploading anymore. That's pretty huge.

The new interface is sweet - and it's a nice shopping cart for clients to look at.

Customer service has improved, even though I'm still getting complaints from my clients - but my clients are nuts.

Lab quality on printing has improved.

Kevin - you too! I'm glad we got to chat even for a few minutes...

Just to chime in again. Kevin makes a good point. Pictage provides a service, as well as being a lab. EVERY lab has it's problems we need to live with, there is no perfect solution. They provide the best full service solution out there...

Jason... did Ian just PayPal you $10,000 of hush money? That was the fastest turnaround of a disappointed Pictage customer I've ever seen.

Ian -- not that my opinion matters much...have you considered / are you considering offering an express upload option? I know of a Pictage competitor that has software which quickly builds thumbnails and then can upload either the thumbs or the full-images. Seems like it would be nice to first upload the thumbs and then let the full-size images load as a background job.

Dan

That's actually a pretty genius idea (gears turning...)Sorry, I misunderstood

Nice. LOL.

Not really a turnaround, just don't want to accuse them of being horrible.

I don't like to be disappointed though.

It takes 8-12 hours to do that?

I'm pretty sure it's just resized for the internet. Thumbnails and such need to be resized for the net - and if you have a watermark the auto process needs to add it at this time. As I understood it, your full res files are backed up separately and those are used for prints. Please let me know if I'm wrong.

Also ftp, probably has less to do with pictage and more to do with your internet provider. With Fios in NYC I get blazing upload times, it takes just a few hours. In NOLA where my upload pipe is only 512 mb - it takes DAYS - lags and times out. Really I think everyone should be using a regular FTP-client software (Fetch, WSFTP) vs their ftp interface - it's just easier and more foolproof for when it does stick.

Well yeah, if there are a bunch of people in line before you. It would depend on how busy their software would be. I'm assuming only one wedding could be done at a time. The rest wait in que.I worked in web development for 10 years. The concept doesn't sound rare to me that it could take that long at times.

YES!! I think this is the best of both worlds... or add a step into the process which allows the full size images to be uploaded when an order is placed within a short period of time.

Umm.... From what I've been reading, you're wrong. But - it doesn't affect print quality though!

Awesome, thanks good to know!

THAT's what I've been saying AWESOME!

So that is an acceptable proposition?

at least pictage is consistent with their crappiness. haha

And the next morning when you wake up to the drink your coffee, I will have deposits in my bank account while you are still waiting for a check from Pictage.

I am really happy Pictage works for you because you rule!

Great seeing you and Erin tonight.

same here. glad it works for you, but i can punch out that order faster than pictage can - thats why i charge what i charge for prints - and not give a percentage or a monthly fee to anyone but paypal's minuscule 2.9% + $0.50