Climb Eastern Canada

by **mitchleblanc** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 7:46 am

Hey everyone,

I am pleased to announce the release of a new site called "X-img": http://www.x-img.com. The basis for the site is a gallery of good, high quality images of climbing (and certain other sports) that is easy to search through, without the usual crap images.

Please have a visit, register, try uploading some pics, and play around. Not everything is quite working 100%, and you might run into trouble... I'm releasing to you now as a "test period", and would appreciate your patience and feedback. Please don't spread the word too much, until some of the bugs get worked out...

Thanks, and hope you enjoy it.

The X-img Crew aka one guy.

by **The Mitt** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 12:45 pm

I have to say Mitch that is one of the coolest ideas I have seen for webpage. Just a suggestion but one for videos would be great as well.

The Mitt (AKA Sean K)

by **The Teth** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 2:24 pm

So how did Scenery on Mt. Carleton get a 7.75? Not that I am disputing. I just notice that the highest I can vote is 7.

by **mitchleblanc** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 4:30 pm

The Mitt wrote:I have to say Mitch that is one of the coolest ideas I have seen for webpage. Just a suggestion but one for videos would be great as well.

The Mitt (AKA Sean K)

Yeah, you're right. We'll see how this goes, and if good, then it would be super easy to modify to serve up movies and stuff. I'd like to put some feature movies up at some point too though....

Glad you like it!

Mitch

by **mitchleblanc** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 4:32 pm

The Teth wrote:So how did Scenery on Mt. Carleton get a 7.75? Not that I am disputing. I just notice that the highest I can vote is 7.

Ha. That one is just an old image fron the early days, when the voting was completely different.. most of the bunk images (some lame scenery shots submitted by friends of mine) will be deleted soon, and are just there for testing!

Mitch

by **dcentral** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 8:04 pm

So how does the whole selling of images work? Does the person uploading the images get any money or photo credit?

by **mitchleblanc** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 8:36 am

dcentral wrote:So how does the whole selling of images work? Does the person uploading the images get any money or photo credit?

Originally I had conceived an idea for just making a cool photo website. Then it found a site selling stock photography for nearly 180 US per photo.. in resolutions/quality barely better than a good digital camera. (my 8 MP takes as good or better). So it occured to me that if a site could be made that has alot of really nice "extreme sports" (I shudder to write that, but you get the idea) photos, someone might be interested in purchasing photos. So the idea is that you upload super high res, such that the best photos (monthly, weekly, for a given area, etc.) could be either sold, put into calenders, posters, etc. (the later I will probably try to do myself). I certainly intend to give most profit to whoever took the photos, and most of the remainder would go to bandwidth etc.

Certainly, this is assuming anyone is interested in buying anything. I think it would be conceivable that someone could make some money if they had some really nice shots, but didn't want to pretend to be a "professional" photographer. The basis of the site is that uploading high quality photos is rewarded... financially would be nice!

It will also be possible to buy prints of images, for example some nice glossy 5x7s or whatever, of all images. Images can also be tacked onto stuff like shirts, mugs, cheesy stuff like that.. but could be cool, I suppose.

Anyway, I figured I would get the service working, and try to raise interest, and then tackle that area later... Hence a lack of info on the site (and of concrete answers on my part).

Thoughts?

Oh, regarding credit for photos, it would be given the photographer, yeah.

by **The Teth** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 10:24 am

As to credit, you should have a field for the photographer, since it will not always be the person posting the images. I occasionally hand my camera off to a friend because I am extremely vain and what to see how great I look climbing.

I just reposted two images I put up yesterday, because I originally took them off my web page and they where not of high revolution. Apologies to the three people who had voted on them. I upped them from a pixel width of 600 to 1200. Should I have gone with an even higher resolution?

The Teth

by **granite_grrl** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 11:20 am

It's like the gallary on http://www.rockclimbing.com, except with a lot less people posting images and that you actually hope to sell them.

I don't think that you'll actually be able to sell these images, but from the sound of it its more of a side thought. Hopefully there will be someone out there really taken with something posted and wish to buy it, but don't keep the site with that as the expectation. (ps - this isn't saying that the images are bad and shouldn't be hung on the wall, I just don't think there's a real demand for it from the rock climbing community, I could be wrong though)

The only draw I have for putting up images on this website would be that it's a smaller audiance with less photos and they won't be lost as quickly as the photos I've posted on RC.com.

Also watch out for photo bombing!! If these photos are open for members to vote on you're going to get people who start giving intentionally low votes for reasons other than the quality of the photo (They don't like someone, or they want their photo to better in compason to someone else's). You may be able to avoid this if the site remains small, but if you want to sell any of the images I think you'd rather go big.

All in all, nifty. My monitor is screwed up, but I'll check it out the actual images when I get to a comp with decent colour balance.

Rebecca

by **mitchleblanc** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 10:22 pm

Hey Rebecca,

Thanks for your input. As for it being a smaller audience than Rockclimbing.com .. well that is hopefully temporary, as you say. And no, the selling of images and things is not *entirely* secondary, but I don't know if it will work either

I guess we'll see, and hope for the best. I'd rather sell photos, t-shirts and memberships than put ads or whatever.

The main motivation for the site, however, is how much I dislike the rock climbing.com or zerofriction.com gallery formats.. there's just too many crappy pictures. I've actually tried to imitate photography sites more, as they are more focused on quality and the actual pictures. By limiting the number of uploads, unless you get good votes, you will be able to keep the quality of the database high. I hope.

As for vote bombing.. the db records which images you've voted for... so if me and my 10 friends vote your image 0... (and you can only vote once) it will not really have any effect if many people are voting (the opposite of what you said) as those 10 won't affect the average much (if a large enough population).

Cheers,

Mitch

by **mitchleblanc** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 10:28 pm

The Teth wrote:As to credit, you should have a field for the photographer, since it will not always be the person posting the images....

...I upped them from a pixel width of 600 to 1200. Should I have gone with an even higher resolution?

The Teth

You can upload as high a resolution as you want. I'm not sure exactly what the "optimum" is. I would go for greater than 1024x768, so that the best images can at least be used as desktops for most people. Images for "sale" would be ideally as big as possible, in the 3000x2000 range.

No worries about reposting (I guess it's the only solution) .. It did occur to me that maybe the voting function was broken though! I was like "Hmm. I thought I voted on this before?"

As for a photographer field.. Good call. Consider it done (soon).

Mitch

by **dcentral** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 11:24 pm

If you are trying to sell photos for print, the important thing is to make sure that the files are saved at 300 dpi.

The pixel demnsion won't really make a lot of difference if the image is save at 72 dpi which is what you need for screen.

by **Fred** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 1:32 am

I just wanted to add...

Some of you were wondering why I hadn't installed the "photo gallery" feature for this forum. Now you know. Because my friend Mitch can always do it bigger and better. hehe. I knew the "x-img" site was coming so I waited out. I'm pretty stoked to use it and see everyone else use it too. Nice work Mitch. The site looks great.

by **The Teth** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 9:07 am

Well if any of my photos top out in the 6 to 7 range, then I may reload them at maximum resolution. I do not usually vote for my own images, but if I reload one I will place a vote as close as possible to the previous consensus to get it back into the standings.

Here is another idea. You should add a brows option to see the photos you have not yet voted for. Might come in handy when you start getting lots of photos on the site.

Also, for photos which are tied in their ratings, I would sort the list so the one with the most votes gets higher on the list. (Not sure how you do it now. Maybe you already do this.) Presumably the more votes the more reliable the rating. (ie. An image rated a 6 with 12 votes is more likely a six than one rated a 6 with 1 vote.) The above browse option to look for the stuff you have not yet rated would keep the ones with few votes from dropping out of sight.

The Teth

by **mitchleblanc** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 10:28 am

Yeah, both the option of search for images you haven't voted on yet as well as images uploaded since you last visited are things that I agree are important, and will be added.

As for the voting numbers/score.. I haven't actually decided an "equation" for calculating the image "score". The current value listed is just the average of the votes, obviously.. the "rating" of an image (for archiving, ranking, increasing upload limit, etc) will, as you say, involve also the number of votes. I imagine I am going to also add a second voting scale, for composition/originality or something like that, and also likely change the scale to greater than 7, and remove the words (I think the wording (average vs. terrible, for example) no doubt influence the votes people give.)

(Note that currently there is no upload limit... not enough users, so no one would ever get their limit increased, no matter how good the photos).

Finally, as for changing the image resolution.. It would reset your votes if you resubmit the photo, as you know... and that's not really ideal (especially if you had a high score and number of votes was a factor). Links, etc, would all break too, as the image id for each upload is unique. Perhaps I could implement a tool for reloading at higher resolution, although obviously there needs to be some verification that the photo is the same as the original, aside from size. I'm sure I could write some code to do that automatically.. or I could just have a moderator check and overwite the original file...

Cheers, and thanks alot for the feedback,

Happy New Years!

Mitch

by **The Teth** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 11:35 am

I like having the words with the number. It is easier for me to decide whether a photo is Good or Very Good versus deciding between a 5 and a 6. However, moving to a rating out of ten rather than a rating out of seven might make more sense.

1 Terrible
2 Bad
3 Poor
4 Below Avg
5 Avg/Fair
6 Above Avg
7 Good
8 Very Good
9 Excellent
10 Perfect/Flawless

It would allow for more of a spread and result in less tied scores.

When I suggested taking number of votes into account I was thinking about the order for ties (eg. Whether they make the top 10), but it would make sense for the limit calculations as well.

Is there room to list the number of votes with the thumbnail along with the ratting? (Perhaps in a different colour)

As for changing resolutions, it probably will not be common, so I would suggest just having the moderator check and overwrite the original. Easiest option would be to allow members to attach an image to email from the Contact Page. Then they could email you and say “Hay, could you overwrite such and such image with this higher resolution one”?

The Teth

by **dcentral** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 2:15 pm

You could just write a script using the GD library in php that copies the original and resizes it. So it stores the high-res version and only displays the new smaller version, and you could provide a link to the high res, when someone purchases the photo.

Are you doing this already or are you just resize the original.

by **The Mitt** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 3:38 pm

Hey I already saw a picture that would be cool to have. The one that says flash, redpoint, pink point, brown point. Very cool pic.

Mitt

by **mathieu** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 3:58 pm

Thanks Sean (aka the Mitt). The story that goes with the photo is the reason behind the caption.

This is Jon Large leading the first pitch. Just getting to the first belay is already an exposed traverse, so when you start you are already over 100 ft off the ground. He hasn't realized it yet but he just skipped a clip that is in the roof. He will keep climbing quite a ways, realizes the error of his way and then thinks in sport mode and yells out falling. He glances down just before letting go and realizes he is in for a 30 + foot whipper so he keeps his cool and then proceeds to downclimb all the way down to the roof he just passed in the picture. A few tense moments (typical when climbing with him) but Jon pulls through without taking the 30ft wiper and completes the pitch. Now I don't know in what style he did the climb but in my book its damn good style.

by **The Mitt** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 5:43 pm

So tell us about the climb. Where, what's its name, Grade stuff like that. I'm interested, looks like a cool route.

Sean

by **dcentral** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 7:08 pm

Ha, that's a good story, I think i remeber Jon telling me about that one.

I'm sure he was super cool

with the height and everything.

by **mitchleblanc** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 8:30 pm

dcentral wrote:You could just write a script using the GD library in php that copies the original and resizes it. So it stores the high-res version and only displays the new smaller version, and you could provide a link to the high res, when someone purchases the photo.

Are you doing this already or are you just resize the original.

Yep, that's what I'm doing now. I actually resize (using php) and save the thumbnail and "viewing" image (about 700 pixels wide I think, or 600... anyway, the one you see) on the server, rather than resize them each time, otherwise the delivery is too slow. I think? Granted, I don't think I did tests. Must be. Anyway, so I do have the orginial, and yeah, it's all automatic.

by **dcentral** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 10:01 pm

Yeah the delivery would be really slow. If you are storing the hi-res, then there shouldn't really be any need reupload the image if people like it. Cause they wouldn't be able to d/l the hi-rez right away.

by **mathieu** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 12:29 pm

The Mitt wrote:So tell us about the climb. Where, what's its name, Grade stuff like that. I'm interested, looks like a cool route.

Sean

check x-img

by **mitchleblanc** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 6:20 am

The Teth wrote:I like having the words with the number. It is easier for me to decide whether a photo is Good or Very Good versus deciding between a 5 and a 6. However, moving to a rating out of ten rather than a rating out of seven might make more sense.

...

It would allow for more of a spread and result in less tied scores.

Done and done! Thanks alot for the feedback everyone, keep it comin'.

Mitch, lord and master of the x-img team. Which has just one member.

by **mitchleblanc** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 7:09 am

I've made some changes, namely added some options such as persistent logins and some faster "redirections" (moving you to the browse page when you login) .. Keep visiting and letting me know what annoys/pleases you. I'm going to work on 'ranking' the users soon, and also wallpapers, archiving photos and feature photos... Will keep you posted.

Your lord and master, (of x-img.com) Mitch.

by **mike** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 7:15 pm

2 words....

Sweet site.

by **mitchleblanc** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 9:39 pm

Nice photos mike.. good work.

Glad you like the site. Am slowly working on it for a full "release" soon, so hopefully can start spreading the word and getting more photos up there.

by **rendog** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 9:55 pm

sweet site mitch!

I'll get some shots for ya here soon enough

by **mike** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 9:20 am

Mitch,

My only suggestion would be to add a 'return to browsing' button.

After adding comments to a pic you need to press the back button twice to get back to looking at pics.

I might have missed something, and while typing this note, I realize that I'm very lazy, but hey- just thought I'd add my 2 cents.

Mike

Climb Eastern Canada

New image sharing site: Online for 2005!

New image sharing site: Online for 2005!

Great idea

Re: Great idea

Thoughts on money.

story often told

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