My feature requests (as they have been for every service I've tried from Flickr, to 500px, to Smugmug):
1) Let me upload my RAWs. Better if you can display them as is, but at least do what Adobe does and show the embedded JPEG if not.
2) Allow me to edit online with HTML5 compatible tools (Adobe's online service will let you edit, but uses Flash for some odd reason). With that I can edit from the road using my iPad.
3) If you want to make money, help me make money too... i.e. better to take a share of sales (win-win) then charge me and I have to hope I make enough to justify paying you. Even better if you can help me market.
4) Killer option even if you fail on the previous three - identify the things I can't. Wildflowers are number one on this list, but animals can be an issue sometimes as well. It wouldn't hurt if you can take my location from the photo, figure out which way I'm facing (time of day and angle of sun), and identify that peak in the distance as well (though supposedly the military is working on that one).
5) One I am surprised I don't see more of on the photo sites - run some juried contests. Great way to spark interest in your site, as well as let folks know they can find the up and coming photographers with some help (sort of like 500px's "editor's choice", but with benefits.
6) One more "killer" feature - tell me what I did wrong. If I ask you to look (programmatically) at my photo, take a look at the curves and the EXIF data, and tell me what I should have done to get a better picture.
7) Final request - give me a way to take what you have organized, and pull it back as those same albums onto my PC. That reduces guess work of what I have or haven't backed up, and lets me not worry as much about whether you will still be around in two years.
I'm just speculating here, but perhaps their primary target audience are casual users, not serious photographers. It seems like most of your feature requests are geared towards power users.
#6 sounds like a really great idea. Does a version it exist anywhere in any form? Plugins for Photoshop/Lightroom/Aperture/whatever? Standalone desktop software? Anything?
Thanks. It definitely seems like where a super-super-simplistic version for amateurs would be of great value, especially if it can work across multiple images, spotting mistakes you tend to make regularly.
RAW files are not for public consumption and should never be shown without processing. They lack contrast and sharpness at a minimum.
Sure, upload the RAW files as a backup (Smugmug provide a "Vault" service for this reason) but if you're not going to process your RAW files then you'd be better off shooting in JPEG and configuring the in-camera processing correctly.
1) Let me upload my RAWs. Better if you can display them as is, but at least do what Adobe does and show the embedded JPEG if not.
2) Allow me to edit online with HTML5 compatible tools (Adobe's online service will let you edit, but uses Flash for some odd reason). With that I can edit from the road using my iPad.
3) If you want to make money, help me make money too... i.e. better to take a share of sales (win-win) then charge me and I have to hope I make enough to justify paying you. Even better if you can help me market.
4) Killer option even if you fail on the previous three - identify the things I can't. Wildflowers are number one on this list, but animals can be an issue sometimes as well. It wouldn't hurt if you can take my location from the photo, figure out which way I'm facing (time of day and angle of sun), and identify that peak in the distance as well (though supposedly the military is working on that one).
5) One I am surprised I don't see more of on the photo sites - run some juried contests. Great way to spark interest in your site, as well as let folks know they can find the up and coming photographers with some help (sort of like 500px's "editor's choice", but with benefits.
6) One more "killer" feature - tell me what I did wrong. If I ask you to look (programmatically) at my photo, take a look at the curves and the EXIF data, and tell me what I should have done to get a better picture.
7) Final request - give me a way to take what you have organized, and pull it back as those same albums onto my PC. That reduces guess work of what I have or haven't backed up, and lets me not worry as much about whether you will still be around in two years.