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Show HN: Dofsome.com - Chrome-less photo hosting

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Re: Show HN: Dofsome.com - Chrome-less photo hosting

#41

Post by supo »

donniefitz2 wrote: post #25

I really like this. Great idea. The main issue I see is pricing. I would offer a yearly option. Also, creating a Lightroom plugin would go a long way with more serious photographers.

It is one thing to write the price on the homepage (it seems to me that a monthly smaller price is easier on the eyes than the yearly lump) and to actually charge, where you can offer a monthly and a slightly discounted yearly option.

LR plugin or really any kind of uploader would be nice, I'll definitely look into how hard it is to do the plugin. General desktop syncing with a full-blown GUI seems much harder.

Re: Show HN: Dofsome.com - Chrome-less photo hosting

#42

Post by supo »

epa wrote: post #27

I think your pricing per month is a bit too high. Looks like a good service though.

We are still trying to figure it out, but based on the feedback we got here we will probably bring it down a bit. I'd like to avoid multi-tiered pricing if at all possible.

What would be an acceptable price from your point of view? (it would also help to know a bit more about your relation to photography ;-)).

Re: Show HN: Dofsome.com - Chrome-less photo hosting

#43

Post by vhf »

supo wrote: post #35
e12e wrote: post #33

Nice, looks like you've been annoyed at some of the same things I have for a while. A couple of questions: 1) Unlimited. So you will keep a copy my 1000s of 10-20mb RAW files for 8 USD/Month ? 2) Unlimited part two: How about a x/dollars/month > N xGB of storage (Where N is magic:)? IE: Some transparency towards your margins? And accounts for those that don't need quite 100USD/Year worth of service? I absolutely see…

Hi, 1) At the moment we only support jpg and png. So a copy of your 1000s of avg 10MB (max worst case global image size average, probably lower). Which is fine. 2+3) Our motivation with single tier was simplicity. Simplicity of the homepage, simplicity of thinking while you read something before you hit that 'Try' button.. I am not sure if a general user thinks about our margins and I can be wrong, but I think we sho…

Good questions and great answers !

About 5), (and possibly last paragraph of 2+3)), I would like to see all RAW files supported. You mentionned DNG, I guess you're a Nikon user. I'm not. And I'm right your target user : (I'm Swiss,) not a pro, not looking for an on-line portfolio, but former photographer now doing it as a hobby. When not shooting film I only shoot RAW, and mine are .cr2, not .dng.

Long-term archiving of my digital pictures (be it png, jpg, cr2, png, scanner raw format) has been a concern for quite a long time. I have been a paying flickr user for a few years now but it doesn't fit my needs as I cannot store there my RAW files. I would definately pay 8$/m to have a safe backup somewhere, and your display / scaling / serving service would be a huge +. :)

Re: Show HN: Dofsome.com - Chrome-less photo hosting

#44

Post by morsch »

supo wrote: post #39
morsch wrote: post #28

I'd like a way to be able to access a full-resolution version of the image. (Fwiw I didn't watch the video.) I couldn't zoom in the image with with browser zoom (ctrl-+/wheelup), it breaks badly when I do that (Firefox nightly Ubuntu).

Actually at one point I had a branch with a 1 step zooming functionality in the slideshow (basically a 2x zoom with a huge image download and 'follow-cursor' panning). But I abandoned it to improve focus and simplify the UI. Zooming on the client brings no additional details, so I doubt is very useful. Care to share a use-case for this?

Zooming in makes it easier to discern certain details. This is true, to a point, even if it increases the zoom beyond 1:1. This is increasingly true as the screen DPI get higher, and you can't make out individual pixels. Even zoomed in to 200%, a photo displayed on a "retina" iPad doesn't look jagged, it's just bigger. The same is true on a regular TFT viewed from a few feet away.

Apart from that, breaking browser zoom is just rude. It's a standard feature of the browser and apps/pages should never mess with it. I'm not saying you must have an application level zoom (e.g. by hooking the mwheel events), but breaking browser zoom is just not okay.

Re: Show HN: Dofsome.com - Chrome-less photo hosting

#45

Post by e12e »

supo wrote: post #38
e12e wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your clear answers :-) I absolutely see the simplicity argument. Personally I'm not sure if 8/month is too high though. I'll have to think about it -- with the (very swift) scaling on the server, I see more what you offer -- not sure if you really fit my use case though. But you're much nicer IMNHO than flickr/picasa. I recently priced some storage and found that Amazon/Rackspace are at around 10 cents/GB/…

Thanks for the compliment :) The focus of the service has to do with the focus of the interface, that is why community based services (500px, flickr, social networks as such) will always have a polluted interface (comment widgets, buttons etc) because they need to generate engagement around user content. I could be wrong here about the extent to which this pollution actually matters for users. With dofsome we are try…

The reason I mention DNG is because it can be used as "superset" archiving format. It should be feasible to accept pretty much any kind of RAW in, archive a copy of the raw in the DNG (or just trust the conversion) -- and so let the users have an original on your servers. Again, not sure if you want to be a backup/archive for images, or just a point of publication (for me that is all that jpeg/png will ever be -- and it's not really something I am interested in paying for -- I would still have to deal with the headache of "publishing" from my Digital Negatives -- and maintaining that collection).

As camera technology continue to improve and storage continue dropping in price (at least on the camera end, flash cards etc) I suspect more and more low end cameras will support some form of DNG-format.

Re: Show HN: Dofsome.com - Chrome-less photo hosting

#46

Post by e12e »

supo wrote: post #36
zmmmmm wrote: post #34

Is your target professionals or consumers? As a consumer I'm always incredibly wary of things that seem too good to be true. I don't understand how you can scale the economics of $8/month with unlimited storage. When I see that it induces scepticism that you'll be around for the long term, and one thing I really do not want is my lifetime archive of photos suddenly disappearing on me one day. A second point - for me…

Hi, zenfolio.com and similar cater to a professional market where people shoot photos for a living, e.g. events like weddings & ceremonies and they upload lots of big files. And they offer an unlimited account for $50/year. In this case it is always important how the average volume amortizes across a big user base. Yep, an uploader would be neat but it gets really ugly really fast with many different platforms to thi…

  > an uploader would be neat but it gets really ugly really
  > fast with many different platforms to think about.
Support webdav (or sftp). There are good free dav-clients for windows now (and all the other os' have supported webdav for years). Webdav should be easier to integrate with an existing infrastructure based around http.

edit: You might even easily create your own webdav-client for windows (the black sheep when it comes to dav-support), either working off existing dav-libraries, or possibly by throwing some money at an existing free/shareware project.

Re: Show HN: Dofsome.com - Chrome-less photo hosting

#49

Post by Gmo »

supo wrote: post #48
Gmo wrote: post #47

Maybe that's too late for you to see it, but it would be great if there would be other login possibilities than google.

Any other authentication provider you had in mind, or just a direct login?

Hum, even less likely you would see that one, but I meant direct login (or Mozilla Persona)

Re: Show HN: Dofsome.com - Chrome-less photo hosting

#50

Post by epa »

supo wrote: post #42
epa wrote: post #27

I think your pricing per month is a bit too high. Looks like a good service though.

We are still trying to figure it out, but based on the feedback we got here we will probably bring it down a bit. I'd like to avoid multi-tiered pricing if at all possible. What would be an acceptable price from your point of view? (it would also help to know a bit more about your relation to photography ;-)).

Have been into web photography for around 5 years, past flickr pro user. Finding a upload service that accepts large (10 mb) photos has been tough. I just think the price is too high and $5 a month would be my target.
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