Will personal albums ever return?

[Sanford]

6 minutes ago, WJT said:

Yes, this is true. Your photos must be in an album for the arrows to function as you expect. So, create an album and put your photos in it; the arrows will maintain the view within that album. I agree that this is not an ideal method but it is what it is (for now).

How exactly do I do that. Do all my photos automatically go into that album? I have in the past used 30 categories, will they all just be mixed together now? I've uploaded dozens of photos since the "Migration" and they always ask for a category, is this what you are referring too?

[Sandy Vongries]

When photos are in your album, the arrows will take you through just the photos in that album.  If you are in a gallery category, they will take you through just the photos in that gallery.  If in your attachments, the arrows will take you through just those, your attachments. Photos need to be freshly uploaded to albums, and cannot be moved from Galleries to Albums at this time.  Though I am not yet certain, I believe all pre relaunch gallery organization is gone, though the photos remain in nearly all cases.  

[Sanford]

So it's Flickr, Zenfolio, or SmugMug. I'll get around to it someday soon.

 

[Sandy Vongries]

10 minutes ago, RobertWPillow said:

Has anyone been able to successfully create a new album and then load his existing content on photo.net into that album?

 

The test Album I created required me to upload photos from my computer. At this time I have not been able to load from gallery to album.

[samstevens]

On 1/14/2023 at 10:47 AM, Sandy Vongries said:

If like Sam, you would report actual experiences vs. previous conditions or problems, I will be able to provide feedback on the work.

Today, I no longer have the option to EDIT posts on iPhone or iPad. Still there on iMac, but limited to an unspecified duration of less than an hour. 

[PapaTango]

Sam, it seems that editing time is limited to 15 minutes.  For a while it was unlimited.  That's not really a good thing--as I saw people go back in days later and "massage" their posts.  Three cheers to the admin crew for fixing this.

I don't have any Apple stuff myself, but have you tried clearing your browser cookies/sessions, logged out, and then back in?

[samstevens]

1 hour ago, PapaTango said:

Sam, it seems that editing time is limited to 15 minutes.  For a while it was unlimited.  That's not really a good thing--as I saw people go back in days later and "massage" their posts.  

I agree and prefer a limited editing time as well.

[mikemorrellNL]

On 1/15/2023 at 6:49 PM, Sanford said:

I can find nearly 300 pages of my "Content". Here's the problem, when I click on a photo to see a larger version of that photo and the click on the left or right arrows on THAT photo, eventually it opens someone else's photo.

One problem I see is that you have some 7500 'migrated' photos. I have no idea how the arrows work on migrated (and otherwise unorganized) photos because my 'old' PN photos were not migrated. There is a gallery 'category' "Converted Albums" and it's just possible that your migrated photos have been migrated (by default) into this category. But this category also contains about 7500 photos in total and I can't find more than 1 of your photos in this category. So it's maybe worth checking a couple of your photos to see whether they've been assigned to a Gallery category.

As a general forum (including one or more 'personal galleries), my impression is that the Invisioncommunity - the new PN platform - (including one or more 'personal galleries') works fine. But my impression is also that it was never designed or developed to 'host' or organize hundreds (or in your case thousands) of photos in one or more 'Personal Galleries'. 

The Invisioncommunity platform 'Gallery'/Photo facilities are rather limited. So there are, for example, no facilities for creating sub-galleries (in a hierarchy) nor user functions to 'move' existing (migrated) photos to a personal gallery. So - as far as I, as a member, can see - there is currently no way for members to 'reorganize' their migrated photos into Private Albums. Whether Admins might be able to do that 'behind the scenes', I have no idea. But even then, you'd have 7500 photos in one or more 'personal (non-hierarchical) galleries'

My personal suggestion is that you 'cull' your 7500 photos into somewhere around 100 photos that you want to present via the new PN. Others you can store/share/organize via other photo platforms.

 

Mike

 

[Sanford]

The old gallery suited me well enough but I realized a long time ago I had to come up with something better, more reliable, just too lazy to get around to it. I've been researching Flickr/Zenfolio/SmugMug, don't see a clear winner, any other website creation suggestions? Cheap & Easy with a personalized address.

Edited January 18, 2023 by Sanford

[John Peri]

2 hours ago, mikemorrellNL said:

 

My personal suggestion is that you 'cull' your 7500 photos into somewhere around 100 photos that you want to present via the new PN. Others you can store/share/organize via other photo platforms.

 

Mike

 

Admittedly, I am a little mystified by your recommendation. So you mean that 20 years work (which is the case of some of us) should just be erased?

[Sandy Vongries]

1 minute ago, John Peri said:

Admittedly, I am a little mystified by your recommendation. So you mean that 20 years work (which is the case of some of us) should just be erased?

IMHO, he was making the assumption that Everyone would have multiple places where they stored their photos in addition to Photo.net, and by following his plan, current functionality might improve.

[samstevens]

39 minutes ago, Sandy Vongries said:

IMHO, he was making the assumption that Everyone would have multiple places where they stored their photos in addition to Photo.net, and by following his plan, current functionality might improve.

Yes. Certainly both a reasonable assumption and a wise suggestion. 

[Wayne Melia]

3 hours ago, Sanford said:

The old gallery suited me well enough but I realized a long time ago I had to come up with something better, more reliable, just too lazy to get around to it. I've been researching Flickr/Zenfolio/SmugMug, don't see a clear winner, any other website creation suggestions? Cheap & Easy with a personalized address.

I use adobe portfolio

[John Peri]

12 hours ago, Sandy Vongries said:

IMHO, he was making the assumption that Everyone would have multiple places where they stored their photos in addition to Photo.net, and by following his plan, current functionality might improve.

 

Not to keep all one’s eggs in one basket is a reasonable suggestion, to keep only one photo our of every 75 on PN seems like an overreach. You would need 74 more photo sites to spread the work evenly .. : -)

[samstevens]

2 hours ago, John Peri said:

 

Not to keep all one’s eggs in one basket is a reasonable suggestion, to keep only one photo our of every 75 on PN seems like an overreach. You would need 74 more photo sites to spread the work evenly .. : -)

Photos needn’t be stored on photo sites. Most photographers store their photos on hard drives or cloud drives. All high resolution versions of photos can be stored on those drives. PN is not intended to be a storage device. It is intended to be a place where one can showcase a portfolio, preferably using low resolution versions of representative photos simply to give others an idea of one’s work, not to invite people to view one’s entire catalog of photos or even a large sampling of it. Regardless of how PN was used in the past and what the gallery capabilities were, those days are gone. A representative portfolio of 75-100 photos is currently a reasonable one. In this day and age, web hosting is cheap enough that those who want thousands of their photos available to public view would do best to pay a small monthly fee for web hosting and display there, not on a site that is now primarily forum rather than photo driven.

[John Peri]

 For 2O years, PN had been my most trusted storage place. Having individual galleries was particularly useful as I was able to refer to those for different purposes, showing the whole range of my work in a particular area. Others will have different objectives and should be free to arrange their portfolios accordingly with respect to their needs.  

[Sandy Vongries]

3 minutes ago, John Peri said:

 For 2O years, PN had been my most trusted storage place. Having individual galleries was particularly useful as I was able to refer to those for different purposes, showing the whole range of my work in a particular area. Others will have different objectives and should be free to arrange their portfolios accordingly with respect to their needs.  

Unfortunately, due to the nature of the platform, there is no going back. There may be other sites that meet your particular needs, but would certainly hate to see you go.

[John Peri]

14 minutes ago, Sandy Vongries said:

Unfortunately, due to the nature of the platform, there is no going back. There may be other sites that meet your particular needs, but would certainly hate to see you go.

Thank you Sandy, but I'm not going anywhere .. and frankly, I really wouldn't know where to go. 

[PapaTango]

4 hours ago, samstevens said:

....PN is not intended to be a storage device. It is intended to be a place where one can showcase a portfolio, preferably using low resolution versions of representative photos simply to give others an idea of one’s work, not to invite people to view one’s entire catalog of photos or even a large sampling of it. Regardless of how PN was used in the past and what the gallery capabilities were, those days are gone. A representative portfolio of 75-100 photos is currently a reasonable one. In this day and age, web hosting is cheap enough that those who want thousands of their photos available to public view would do best to pay a small monthly fee for web hosting and display there, not on a site that is now primarily forum rather than photo driven.

Not for high-res originals, at least--nor EVERYTHING someone has...

The last fully working version of PN that I remember was the one we had for many years prior to being bought by NameMedia.  We had "Picks of the Week", Editors Picks, critique galleries, and a rating system that even generated academic controversy.  Here is a dynamite read about the old PN:

https://reagle.org/joseph/2013/photo/photo-net.html

The thing is that all of that version of our home back then was custom programmed from scratch.  As Sandy wrote, there is no going back.  But the fantastic part about now is that we have Albums in addition to Galleries and the ephemeral forum board postings.  I note that some (including myself) are curating collections.  Folk are catching on to the fact that they suddenly have the ability to make them.  Those and the Gallery lot have a rudimentary comment and review system.  This may be as far as it ever goes, but at least it's something we have in hand.

I have always understood that PN had two distinct sides; the visual and the textual.  We have members that rarely move from one to another.  And then those part of both.  While the textual has remained intact over the various muddled migrations, our visual side has suffered.  Perhaps we are seeing an effort to stimulate and rebalance that side?

 

Edited January 19, 2023 by PapaTango

[John Peri]

4 hours ago, samstevens said:

 PN is not intended to be a storage device. It is intended to be a place where one can showcase a portfolio .. 

 

Semantics ... we store, we show 

To my knowledge, the new ownership has not attempted to define the purpose/use of Photo net.

In the meantime, it would be rather presumptuous for any of us to say what should or should not be done here. At best, we can try to fit in our individual needs to what is available and then try to assist in change, where reasonable, through our suggestions.

[samstevens]

11 minutes ago, John Peri said:

Semantics ... we store, we show

I have been surprised to learn over the years that a not insubstantial number of PN users have, in fact, stored the only copies of their photos on PN. So, when you said “stored” I assumed that’s what you meant. In today’s vernacular, “semantics” is quibbling about something irrelevant. That’s not the case here, since the idea of storing photos on PN has a factual history and can be a disaster for the user. I was trying to forestall such a disaster for you, not quibbling with something irrelevant. Please don’t take my suggestion as telling you how to use PN. Take it in the spirit it was meant, trying to save you the loss of thousands of photos by warning against storing them in a place not meant for storage. 

[PapaTango]

Does anyone truly remember a time in the last 20 years when PN actually billed itself as a "storage" site?  The best I can come up with is a limitation to the quota/size of the main image gallery/portfolio by subscription level.  That was the presumption at one time for the PhotoNet Pro member group via our subscriptions. 

But nowhere did it tell me I could use PN as an Amazon S3 bucket...

Edited January 19, 2023 by PapaTango

[PapaTango]

59 minutes ago, John Peri said:

....To my knowledge, the new ownership has not attempted to define the purpose/use of Photo net.

In the meantime, it would be rather presumptuous for any of us to say what should or should not be done here. At best, we can try to fit in our individual needs to what is available and then try to assist in change, where reasonable, through our suggestions.

For at least 15 years, this motto greeted every visitor--new or old:

Quote

“a site for serious photographers to connect with other photographers, explore photo galleries, discuss photography, share and critique photos, and learn about photography”

Now it's been replaced with a generic tagline that tells us we inspire each other.  🤡

I suppose so, and that's the honest truth and that's why we stick around.

Since no one told me at any time the original spirit and 'mission statement' has changed--nor has new ownership made any declaration of other intent--I am sticking with what I have been doing for 20+ years.

That has been enjoying good company, getting help and helping others, commenting on stuff when I should be doing something else, and posting images.

I have albums, galleries, and forums.  I will make the most out of that, and store my images on hard drives... 😇

Edited January 19, 2023 by PapaTango
My cat Bear suggested it

[samstevens]

36 minutes ago, PapaTango said:

Does anyone truly remember a time in the last 20 years when PN actually billed itself as a "storage" site?  The best I can come up with is a limitation to the quota/size of the main image gallery/portfolio by subscription level.  That was the presumption at one time for the PhotoNet Pro member group via our subscriptions. 

But nowhere did it tell me I could use PN as an Amazon S3 bucket...

PN never has billed itself as a storage site but that hasn't stopped some people from using it that way. When PN portfolios have been lost in various redesigns, several users complained that this was the only place they had a coherent storage of their photos and the loss was fairly devastating for them.

What's happening to the site now and what happened even during the last redesign is a good reminder that our own galleries here are precarious, even as a presentation mechanism. Each of us will determine how much time and energy we want to spend on that presentation given the limits of our control over what will happen here tomorrow and in the weeks and months to come.

For on-line presentation, I literally pay a couple of dollars a month to a web hoster and about 15.00 a year for a domain name and that gives me a stable, user-controllable mechanism to present my photos. Of course, I haven't kept up with that web site since I started it, so it has none of my more recent work. Once I started having in-person shows of my work, printed and hung on the wall, the idea of presenting photos on line lost much of its luster.