Thanks Ben
As you say I am sure most people know all this and probably bores the
pants off many of them too, but if someone gets a little tip out all my
rambling then all is good with the world.
The Boss...he's never been a fav of mine, maybe the odd song over the
years but I certainly read that his live concerts are worth every dollar
spent, so glad you got your money's worth.
cheers
David
Sales did previously state on 27/02/2014 1:01 PM:
David
Once again your posts are of great value to many. I am sure some
already know what you are saying but I think many others will take
away many of these valuable tips.
On another topic……..I went to see Bruce Springsteen last night. He
sang his old songs, new songs (which were great), he sang songs from
AC/DC with the lead singer from Pearl Jam, 'Just like Fire Wood' from
'The Saints' and more. So much that he was on stage for nearly 4
hrs!!! Not bad for a bloke that is in his 60's. He crowd surfed,
climbed thru the crowd and sat amongst them. One Girl even slipped a
mobile phone into his pocket which he only discovered when he got back
on the stage which he said “now that’s a first”. He had up to 10
people on stage from the audience dancing with himself and the muso's
at the same time. Audience connection was amazing!! Ages were from
Teens to Retirees, a real tribute. He said he at the end of the night
"Australia, I'll be back with the E-Street Band" so will I when he comes.
Clearly I like his music.
Have a good weekend to you all…
Regards
Ben
All About Movies Pty Ltd
Movie Memorabilia - Original Vintage Movie Posters and Lobby Cards
Website: www.allaboutmovies.com.au
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_Contact Details_
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*From:*MoPo List [mailto:mopo-l@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU] *On Behalf Of
*David
*Sent:* Wednesday, 26 February 2014 9:18 PM
*To:* MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
*Subject:* [MOPO] A Few Words About Your Poster Images On Our Internet
Hi All
In keeping with the teach a man to fish saying here’s another article
I thought I would put together for those of you who have an online
movie poster store, might be a good idea to grab a coffee and a
notepad, there will be a test later…
Movie posters are a visual thing, it's probably the one thing that
sets them apart from most other products you can buy online – you
don’t have to try them on, you don’t have believe they will peel the
potatoes better or faster, and you generally don’t find they enlarge
anything -so it probably makes sense that how you visually deliver
them to the internet is just as important as what you price them at,
right?
Damn Right!
I would like to offer a few tips on Types, Size and SEO when it comes
to images
--------------------------
*Types*
There are three main 'types' of images used on the internet. jpg (or
jpeg), gif and png.
JPEG - This is the most common used and probably the best to use for
most colour and/or detail images. The main reason is you don’t lose
much detail and quality when you reduce the size.
GIF – These are good to use for icons and single colour images but not
so for colour ones, this is mainly because reducing the size (kb) and
maintaining quality is nigh on impossible.
PNG - A good option - there are two version png-8 and png-24, the
latter is great for logos and images the former is lighter (kb). But,
they tend to be heavier (kb)
Personally, unless you have the program (like Photoshop) and you know
what you are doing, stick with jpegs.
--------------------------
*Image Size*
So, how big should your image be when clicked on (to be enlarged) on
your website?
This is a personal preference - but you have to bear in mind screen
size, with the exception of a few dealers (who do it for quality of
their sales) Supersize is probably not necessary.
First up - I recommend uniformity - it simply good design on a website
and secondly the first image seen should be a thumbnail.
A thumbnail is actually a reduced version of the bigger image – it is
a SEPARATE image to the big one – too many people simply make the big
one small in size but it’s actually still a full size image and weighs
a lot (takes a long time to load).e.g. (and we all have seen it) an
image takes forever to load on a website yet it’s quite small in size
– why it that? Simply: you've not change the weight of your image, you
just told your web page that when it shows this picture here it should
be ‘pretend to be smaller’ size. In other words you’ve made the surfer
look at your elephant through the wrong end of the binoculars but it’s
still a full size elephant!
Now, as to ideal size of your larger image, well that’s up to you but
I recommend around 800-1000px (long side) x whatever the ratio is on
the short side.
Unfortunately, that’s just half of it - making your image smaller
isn't always making it lighter (less kb), you also NEED to optimise
your images too - if you have Photoshop (or similar) then you probably
already know what to do.
If not…
Just as the size of your image is important (width x height) equally
so is the 'weight' of your image (kb); in an ideal world for our hobby
you should have an image that is (say) 800px X 530 px and is less than
100kb.
/With mobile phone surfing prevalent these days it's more and more
important to optimise your images as a courtesy to your client. /
//
So, optimise your images - either invest in a program or there are
free ones out there (search:
https://www.google.com/webhp?tab=ww&ei=KBQNU4SbH5DqrQf8lICICA&ved=0CBEQ1S4#q=image+optimizer)
Here's some free online ones you can try that I have already tested
for you (I liked the first one)
http://jpeg-optimizer.com/
http://www.imageoptimizer.net/
http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/imageoptimizer/
Of course the next step is to make your poster image into a
thumbnail…and that depends on the type of web site you have and can be
discussed another day.
Note #1: If you are simply displaying your pictures in a gallery (like
Photobucket) then it will auto resize and optimize your images for
you, you can even set the size parameters in the settings – but I
digress, this discussion is about those who have their own poster
website (selling etc).
Note #2: How long it takes your images to load is directly
proportional to how long you will keep a surfer on your website.
_Longer to load less time and money spent._
CHECK your load time – there is a number of websites who will tell you
how fast/slow your website takes to load, trust me, looking at your
website from your own computer is no test: http://tools.pingdom.com/
http://www.webpagetest.org/
**
*SEO – Image Search Engine Optimisation*
Almost every single image on the internet is spidered (looked at) by
search engines, but the search engine doesn’t actually know what it is
a picture of, so simply posting a picture of the poster you are
selling won’t help your website, you have to give it some ALT tags.
An ALT tag is a description of the image which is ‘hidden’ in the code
of the website but is there for search engines to find them, eg when
someone searches for “Mr Music Daybill Movie Poster” (without the
quotes) in say Google, guess who’s top of the list? Go on try it, I’ll
wait. Click the first result and let me know…it won’t be a multi
choice question. In other words – be relevant in your ALT tags. But
please don’t think you can populate the ALT tag with lots of keywords
– won’t work, search engines will ignore it. Remember, you aren’t that
smart – Mr Google is.
Examples…here’s some ALT tag examples I have extracted against one
image on some major player’s websites
EMP - alt="6d001 DELIVERANCE New Zealand daybill '72 Jon Voight, Burt
Reynolds, Ned Beatty, Boorman classic!"
This is actually pretty good. In reality the only tags that matter are
‘DELIVERANCE New Zealand daybill’ the use of the actor’s names and
“Boorman classic!” won’t improve the result any better than the
aforementioned words/phrase, nor does the product code doesn’t help
either, probably and overuse of relevant words but still: Very Good.
--------------------------
HA: alt=”Movie Posters:Horror, 13 Ghosts (Columbia, 1960). One Sheet
(27" X 41") Ghost ViewerStyle. Horror.. ... Image #1"
Not good at all. Think like a real world internet user, at best the
consumer is going to search for “13 Ghosts movie poster” – all the
rest of the information ensures any chance this site and this poster
is found is next to none. Poor.
--------------------------
MPB – I am aware this site is new and still being tweaked so I won’t
be too hard, much…No Alt tags on any image and all images are titled
by the item number and not the poster title and type. Very hard to
know it will generate a search engine result for the poster title “The
Big Heat” when iot is called “sale_293a_031” – I understand the
reasons why but: RFI – Room For Improvement.
--------------------------
Now for those of you who have hundreds, or even thousands of posters
that you are suddenly thinking “oops, better rename them” there is a
number of good bulk rename programs out there – I have used “Bulk
Rename Utility” for years but it is a step learning curve so unless
you are confident find something else!
As I have said before, and told many clients and anyone else who will
listen (carpark attendant, coffee barista, mystery lady who leaves us
a packet of Tim Tams every week) – having a website is easy, making it
work for you is a lot of hard work – do the basic early and it gets
easier and the results do get better, exponentially.
This has really just scratched the surface but I hope it has helped
someone.
Any questions, just ask
David Rew
Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com
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