New fotoLibra
July 30th, 2010
by Gwyn Headley
Managing Director
Say hello to fotoLibra 4.1!
As well as being faster, it’s got a host of new features:
• autoFocus is a rolling newsfeed with all the top stories to interest photographers and picture buyers
• You’ve all been asking for it — the Recent Sales tab shows a random selection of recently sold images so you can see what the market is buying
• Our new Thumbnail Size option allows you to view Thumbnails 400% larger than the default size
• The Latest News tab now sits at the top of the page so you can access it immediately without digging down deep into your Control Centre
• Your Hide Sidebar feature lets you view five thumbnails in a row — more pictures per page
• You now have the data option of flipping between Thumbnail and Records View, which will show you the photographer, pixel dimensions, caption and reference number for every image
• At last (many members will sigh) you can see if one of your images has been selected for a lightbox. As far as we’re aware no other stock agency / picture library offers this feature — but there is no guarantee that this will lead to a sale.
There are many other enhancements such as a speedier registration page — new members can sign up in seconds. Little things like the transition when you submit an image to a Picture Call have been smoothed out. You will notice several other detail changes.
BROWSERS: However you won’t notice any of these enhancements if you are using Internet Explorer 7 or earlier as your browser. You will see doughty old fotoLibra 4.0 chugging away as normal. Speedy new fotoLibra 4.1 works best on Windows, Mac and Linux platforms using Firefox, Safari, Opera, Chrome and IE8. Even Microsoft is recommending you should upgrade from IE7: please read this.
We recommend that Windows users should perform “Windows Update” regularly.
We hope you enjoy the new fotoLibra and find it even easier to use. Please let us know what you think
On behalf of the many who have asked, thanks for the new features.
The site looks good and the new features do not detract from the clean image.
The recent sales will be very useful to prompt my challenges for new images, and the selected for lightbox will give me some positive feedback that I am doing the right thing.
Only one request, can the “selected for lightbox” icon be a slightly different colour so that it stands out a little bit.
Mike
New site is excellent, well done evryone 🙂
These changes are Great,especially the ‘selected for lightbox’.Just one question regarding this is “What is the time period for the display on site of ‘selected for lightbox'”.
These changes help both supplier, buyer and Fotolibra.
John Hill
Can anyone out there write a plugin for Lightroom3 which would enable us to use the Publish facility in order to upload straight to our collections??? Just a thought, if it can be done for Flickr maybe Fotolibra???
Terry Bridle
> Can anyone out there write a plugin for Lightroom3 which would enable us to use the Publish facility in > order to upload straight to our collections?
Jeffrey Friedl ( http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies ) just needs the API and probably a few more hours in the day!!!!! 🙂
I must be thick,but can anyone tell me where I could find the ‘recent sales’ tab?
The previous question regarding the length of time that the ‘selected for lightbox’ was prompted by the time that I tried to delete an image,about a year ago,and was unable to do so as the image was on offer.The same image as got a ‘selected for lightbox’ tab on it now,could this be the same offer?
john hill
I’m glad you posted that comment John – I can’t see a recent sales tab either.
Is it simply the random image gallery tab?
Gary.
I have no problem with the “recent sales” tab which is at the top of the page but I don’t know how to access the” thumbnail size”and “hide sidebar” options.
.I am delighted to see the “selected for lightbox” feature.
Roger May
There is obviously a few teething problems with the software.The ‘recent sales’ does NOT appear at the top of my page,and the ‘thumbnail size’ and ‘hide sidebar’ options,I have not been able to access,as you have not been able to do Roger.
Perhaps it could be browser software,I am on Windows Vista home premium.
john hill
It might be the software; I’ve no idea. However I am on Windows 7 so that would be two programmes not able to cope.
Roger May
I’m on Explorer 8 (IE8), and I get the ‘recent sales’ tab, so perhaps if you don’t get it at the top of your page, you need to upgrade your versions….. which comment is probably no help if you aren’t in a position to upgrade!
Love the new Fotolibra site: at last, at last! the tunnel has some light in it concerning what is selling and what is being looked at of what one has uploaded. I agree that a slightly different colour would make the “on lightbox” icon easier to spot, but what the heck, its at least there now. As has already been suggested, it’d be nice to know when it ceases to be on a lightbox. It will cause confusion in the ranks if its actually no longer being looked at but remains shown as if it is – that’d be unhelpful.
Can anyone tell me why any description I put in the appropriate box in CS4 isn’t brought into the description field in fotolibra when I upload images? Its annoying when a goodly amount of information is pre-typed in to have to retype it under processing after uploading. Keywords happily cross the barrier with no problem.
My software is currently upgraded to internet explorer 8,so it can’t be that.I think we will have to wait until Fotlibra’s technicians can look at these problems on Monday.
john hill
I am on Windows XP SP3 and mainly use Firefox (3.6) as my browser and the “recent sales” tab is there. If I launch IE8 it is not. ( In the location it should be in the tab is marked as “bookmark”…. weird )
As a workaround until they get the software sorted try typing the following url in your browser after you have logged on to fotolibra.
http://www.fotolibra.com/gallery/recent-sales/
Mike
Thanks Mike,but I have opened Safri and then opened Fotolibra under Yahoo and YES it is there’recent sales’,but I still can’t fathom ‘thumbnail size’and ‘hide sidebar’options,and NO ‘recent sales’ is NOT on my main browser,Internet Explorer,as you said FUNNY,weird.I have also tried opening Fotolibra at Google,but NO
‘recent sales’.
john hill
To see if one of your images has been selected for a lightbox:
Control Centre> Portfolio> click on a Collection. A light bulb icon will appear in the row of icons underneath the thumbnails.
Or Collection> View Records. At the end of the record, if the image is in a lightbox, a message will read “In 1 lightbox”.
The downside to supplying the “in a lightbox” data is that buyers who create lightboxes almost never delete them, so even if the project closed months or years ago the image will still be flagged as being in a lightbox.
To the people who use IE8 and can’t see the new features:
can you please make sure you are not running IE in “compatibility mode”? (see http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/features/easier.aspx or http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2008/08/27/introducing-compatibility-view.aspx )
Thank you admin,everything running fine now.
Thanks again
john hill
Thanks gwyn
May I say that I have 28 images and 1 with 2 Flagged as being in a lightbox,but I do not know how many of these are current,which is very confusing.
Perhaps the lightbox should only be current for thirty days and then deleted.
Thanks
john hill
Sorry but I don’t agree with John. I would prefer the lightbox listing to remain as long as possible for a variety of reasons. At least that tells me something, however limited, about the quality of my submissions.
As far as I know the current lightbox holds the image for eighty days…..previous lightbox clients prior to the new Fotolibra site going live may still have those images currently stacked in a lightbox when they should have deleted them.
I agree…… a time limit should be placed on how long a client can hold the image in their lightbox….I also believe when a sale is made the image is not deleted from their lightbox
I cannot view the recent sales tab nor the ability to view the thumbnails at 400%….neither “hide sidebar” option
IE8 not running in compatability mode
I am on IE8, not in compatibility mode but still cannot see the missing options, “hide sidebar” and “thumbnail size” . Where should I be looking?
[…] discovered where to access all the new features. If they still elude you, please check out the comments in the last blog posting, where all is […]
I am afraid all is not revealed. Please – where are “hide sidebar” and “thumbnail size”?
I repeat, I am not running in compatibility mode.
Search for any image. When the results come in, look at the blue bar headed SEARCH RESULTS where you will see
Relevance
Date
Caption
RM/RF
Orientation
Size
Data
Sidebar
The last three options allow you to choose Normal / Large, Thumbnail / Record, Visible / Hidden.
Thank you Gwyn. Got it.