
Photographers: Please Stop Using Flash - ohnoes
http://ohnozen.posterous.com/photographers-please-stop-making-flash-sites
======
geuis
The Posterous team really needs to get their Twitter/Facebook login working
for comments on iOS devices. Tried both to leave a comment on the page but
kept getting a "we think this is spam" error. Guys, if I'm giving you an email
address and two different oauth logins that are validated, it's probably not
spam.

Anyway, here's the comment:

Flash does absolutely nothing to prevent someone from saving copies of images.
With basic knowledge of using the developer tools built into any modern
browser, it's easy to see the urls being loaded for any resource on a page.

Some photographers have this fear of their images being copied. They spend way
too much time concentrating on it. What any successful photographer can tell
you is that most of your time is spent being a business person, not snapping
the shutter. You make money by marketing yourself and growing your business,
not policing the _entire_ internet for errant copies of a photo.

~~~
corywatilo
I run an online portfolio service FolioHD (<http://foliohd.com>) and we get
that question a lot: "Can people steal my pictures?" We've gone the extra mile
to make sure saving pictures is a lot harder than a right-click and Save As,
but it seems like lot of people don't even bother trying that first before
asking. All the while, a simple screen capture of whatever you're looking at
is just as easy, yet no one seems to know about that trick. The assumption is
that Flash is safe, but not even Flash can protect against a simple screen
capture.

~~~
rbritton
I am a photographer and have run into a secondary problem that results from
blocking the easy means of saving an image. Most of our clients just want to
share an image on Facebook and more than a couple have then just used their
camera phones to snap a picture and post that, complete with motion blur and
all.

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georgemcbay
As recently as a couple of years ago I was writing my own custom AS3 based
slideshows for showing off my own photos online.

Back then you simply couldn't rely on a browser to resize a photo correctly
outside of Flash, which made it impossible to support different client
resolutions without storing a ton of copies of the photos on the server or
doing dynamic server-side resampling, both of which had their own drawbacks.

If you left the photo resize up to the browser you'd end up with a horrible
non-resampled mess if the photo was shown in anything other than 1:1, whereas
in Flash it was trivial to display a bilinear resampled version that looked
great at any size up to and including 1:1 of the original photo.

I think at this point the usage of Flash is mostly just inertia... it is done
that way because it was always done that way. But it _was_ done that way for a
purpose. Web browsers sans Flash were horrible about displaying resized images
until relatively very recently.

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overshard
I thought this was a rant on flash photography for a second... was I
disappointed.

~~~
rafamvc
Me too! I thought he was gonna present the best way to use your iso and
available lights... :)

~~~
ohashi
I was also somewhat confused. Just got my first DSLR and was hoping I would
learn a few tricks.

~~~
bborud
I've been taking pictures with a DSLR for quite a few years now and the best
advice I can give is to concentrate on the basics first. Turn off all the
automation and learn how to shoot manual. Then, when you understand aperture,
shutter speed, focal length, ISO, spot metering etc. you can study the manual
and try to figure out if any of the more automated features still make any
sense to you. (To me they don't. I always use spot metering and shoot in
either "aperture priority" or "manual" with ISO manually set).

Shooting good-looking images with flash is surprisingly hard. A friend of mine
who went down that route and spent the better part of a year learning shooting
with flash recommended this book:

[http://www.amazon.com/Light-Science-Magic-Fourth-
Introductio...](http://www.amazon.com/Light-Science-Magic-Fourth-
Introduction/dp/0240812255/)

Also, you should learn how to use Lightroom, Aperture, Bibble or similar for
post processing. (If you understand how the postprocessing tools work you can
shoot with that in mind).

But most important: shoot every day. Practice as often as you can. Bring your
camera with you everywhere. If you shoot a few thousand frames per month for a
year you are bound to learn something.

Peter Norvig has a good summary of the basics on his web page:
<http://norvig.com/dance-photography.html>

~~~
ohashi
Thanks for the info. I've seen Norvig's post before and really liked it, it's
nice to read it again.

~~~
bborud
Btw, for inspiration: here is the link to my friend's Flickr account:

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/fledsbo/>

In 2010 he set himself a goal of shooting one picture every day:

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/fledsbo/sets/72157622990857973/>

That's a good example of how to become a good photographer in just a year. (If
you click through his photo stream you'll find a lot of interesting images
that were shot with flash).

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mgcross
One factor influencing photographers could have been that many of their high
profile clients were (and are) creating and hosting Flash websites. A lot of
ad agencies still espouse Flash websites. Check out thefwa.com or Comm Arts
Interactive awards: <http://www.commarts.com/interactive> for examples.

A bit of a tangent, but many large advertising/"digital" agencies that really
should know better are still serving up all-Flash sites with little or no
fallback: <http://www.firstborn.com> <http://ff0000.com>
<http://www.goodbysilverstein.com> <http://www.toolofna.com>
<http://www.soleilnoir.net> <http://www.toolofna.com/>

Of the above, Red is the worst, offering this one-liner (in #333, no less):
"You need to upgrade your flash." Yes, even on iOS. Other all-Flash agency
sites, like <http://www.ogilvy.com> and <http://www.razorfish.com> prefer to
serve Flash, but manage to offer nearly all information and content in the
absence of a Flash plugin.

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feralchimp
Devil's advocate here:

If you want photographers to update their websites, vote with your wallet.

If you're not a consumer of professional photogs' products or services, you
don't really have a dog in this fight, even if Flash blows.

To those who have used online portfolios to make actual purchasing decisions,
was that a task you want to perform from your phone or tablet, or something
for which you are content to use a larger display?

Absent that, please ready a trove of anecdotal evidence from other
professional photographers, of the form: "I migrated my Flash web gallery to
<insert alternative here> and my business grew by X%"

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callmeed
I co-founded 2 separate companies that have (so far) made Flash websites for
photographers our bread and butter. One serves the wedding/portrait crowd, the
other high-end fashion and commercial photogs. Each does 7-figures in revenue
per year.

We have had HTML mirror sites for smartphones and tablets since the iPhone
existed (+/- a few weeks). Most of our competitors do as well. So the example
in the post is only semi-valid.

Of course I'll be the first in line to celebrate Flash's demise. We're rolling
out all HTML5 solutions now and the future looks good.

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jjcm
Another thing worth mentioning is to stop watermarking your images. No one
wants to see that "RICK JAMES PHOTOGRAPHY(C)" smothered across an otherwise
pristine image. It cheapens the image and doesn't prevent theft. Watermarks
are trivial to remove.

~~~
jemfinch
I'm pretty technically advanced (both with computers and with photos) and I
don't know how to remove watermarks. They prevent theft like the lock on my
front door prevents theft: not by making it impossible, but by making it
harder. They're both fairly unobtrusive ways to prevent opportunists from
stealing.

~~~
rbritton
There's one benefit of watermarks (to the copyright owner) that's often
overlooked. Removal of a watermark makes it much easier to prove willful
infringement in a copyright lawsuit, which has a lot higher penalty. I don't
remember the particular case, but there was one where that was a primary
reason cited in the awarding of a particular penalty.

~~~
jemfinch
That's an excellent point that I wasn't even aware of.

I look at unobtrusive watermarks like I look at the BSD license: you can use
the image, but you're legally bound to preserve attribution, because the
creator released the work for notoriety.

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larrik
No mention of the fact that Flash makes right-click->save as impossible?

~~~
ben1040
I may be mistaken but I thought Safari's "activity" view showed downloads made
by Flash applets. So you just get the URLs for every image served up right on
a silver platter. I'd assume it works the same in Chrome.

You can just as easily deter casual image saving by doing what some folks do
and put a clear image layer above the actual image, so the browser prompts the
user to save a 1px clear png instead. If they know enough to view the source
or use a DOM inspector you can't really stop them anyway.

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davidjade
As a photographer who puts images online I am primarily concerned about visual
presentation. Flash offers one thing that most browsers don't yet - full
screen slide shows without browser chrome or anything else showing. So I offer
a hybrid site to visitors with fallback to browser neutral navigation and
viewing and Flash driven slide shows that allow for the best photo
presentation without distractions.

Until this is solved in all browsers, I am unlikely to ditch Flash for photo
presentation.

~~~
dryicerx
Is there any evidence that customers/clients want or like to view the full
screen version? Everyone I've asked as well as my self find it annoying
(specially the welcome screen directly going in to full screen, along with
playing music automatically).

~~~
davidjade
I offer it as an option but I strongly encourage it, especially if you want to
see a large view.

From an artistic point of view and as the creator of the work, it's my
prerogative to control the presentation of my work. I want to remove
distractions and provide a clean viewing space that doesn't bias how the image
is perceived. To me its akin to not having other stuff all over the
presentation walls. Just the photographs, some space and nothing more.

~~~
stcredzero
_I want to remove distractions_

If you want to "provide a clean viewing space" and "nothing more" then leave
off the music or give me an option to opt-in. Speaking strictly as a consumer,
I don't think of the web as a "push" medium. It should be a "pull" medium. I
want the HTML I ask for. The same goes for audio-visual. I _hate_ it when a
web page imposes a soundtrack and/or video on me. Give me access, but don't
push it on me unannounced and unasked for.

How do you know I'm not listening to my favorite mix on iTunes?

~~~
davidjade
Personally, I don't do anything like that. I don't even offer soundtracks as
an option. I remove as many widgets/options as possible. It all goes back to
my objectives in presenting my photographs.

My main point was, right now Flash gives me more control over achieving clean
full screen presentation, control over image scaling that doesn't destroy
sharpness, and smooth and stutter-free fade in/out transitions.

I can't get that in all browsers and have it be consistent yet. When I can
I'll drop Flash. In the meantime for those users that don't have Flash I'll
offer a fallback view, albeit with not as nice or consistent presentation as I
would like.

------
timjahn
There are definitely better ways to showcase photography these days that allow
cross-device compatibility.

Allie Siarto and Loudpixel have a great Wordpress theme product that derived
from and is targeted to that very need: Whitespace <http://usewhitespace.com>.

------
jonhendry
Sadly the author suggests using Lightbox, which is really aggravating because
it takes over the window and tends to move really slowly with all the useless
animations. Sometimes you spend more time watching the animated resizing than
you spend looking at the images themselves.

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keithpeter
Some of the 'independent photographers'/arts types use indexhibit (a php
script) to manage simple web sites of images, text, sound, and the slicker
commerical photographers have their flash sites that look fantastic on an
iMac. I rather like indexhibit, sort of democratic in a way.

Strange the way technologies differentiate practices. Its years since I raised
a Nikon in anger mind you.

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muloka
For a second (before I read the actual article) I thought this was referring
to people's use of a camera flash.

And in that regard its annoying that a lot cameras have flash enabled as a
default. :(

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karlzt
Ironically, ycombinator uses flash for its photos.

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jsavimbi
I don't think that without knowing why a given person will opt for Flash over
conventional technologies, be it a photographer, restauranteur or auto
manufacturer, it would be impossible to address a solution for them, never
mind require them to abandon the use of a certain technology that many other
[successful] players in their industry are using.

It's not like photographers demanded Flash as a presentation layer from the
begininning. Obviously, they saw something in it that would allow them to
control how the user views and interacts with their work while eschewing
alternatives.

These are people who have invested not just thousands of dollars on equipment,
travel and education, but who have also dedicated their lives and sometimes
livelihoods on their art. To ask them to further invest in the ever-changing
landscape every time a technology falls out of favor may be too much for them
to bear. Just like a simple camera and film, Flash has been there, relatively
unchanged, for many years.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Every changing? We've been complaining about Flash on sites like these for
years. We wanted a way to view their menus on our phones. We wanted to be able
to see their hours without waiting for a 10 megabyte flash object to load. We
wanted to make a reservation online, etc.

I'm not sure why these Flash interfaces exist. More than likely someone who's
good at running a restaurant isn't going to be know a lot of technology and
will get roped into the most expensive flash-based design they can afford.
Items like usability, mobile friendliness, etc never come up because the owner
doesn't know or care about it and the designers are too invested in Flash to
try anything else.

Is this hurting their business? I'm not sure. I never go to restaurant sites.
I visit yelp instead. I only do takeout from places that have good systems in
place. Its a competitive advantage now to take online reserverations and have
a menu I can view on my phone. Considering something like 80% of all new
restaurants go out of business after their first year, it might make sense for
these owners to stop being so pigheaded about technology and ask themselves if
that slow non-mobile $20,000 Flash site is really serving their customers.

This is the same battle we had with restaurants being cash only 15 or so years
ago. The ones that embraced credit cards seemed to have flourished and the
cash-only place is either gone or has degenerated into a dive. I think the
lower tech your industry is, the most room there is for disruption. These
blue-collar places really need to consider the big picture here.

~~~
dlsspy
> I never go to restaurant sites. I visit yelp instead.

I've tried and I let them know when I do.

When I want the experience, I'll go to the web site. When I just want to know
if they have food that fits within my dietary constraints, I'd like to find
out easily. That's not necessarily available via yelp (or whatever is awesome
this week).

~~~
justincormack
It is hard to find the restaurant sites as the flash only ones often have no
content that is indexed by google, like a blank one I visited yesterday to see
if it was open.

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bkorte
Everyone: stop referring to Javascript as Java.

