Impact of Photoline's website

[Herbert123]

This is quite interesting (and troubling) - I happened upon this discussion, and it seems that people new to Photoline, and who have never heard about it, may get a completely wrong idea about its most basic feature set!

OP:

Has anyone heard of photoline or know anything about it. I have read several reviews and they claim it is a decent photo editing software package comparable to photoshop (16 bit per channel processing) but a lot cheaper

Response from one of the forum moderators (after having a brief look at Photoline;s website):

It looks like a very basic "photo tweaker" rather than an image processing suite. Most of its functions seem to be photo-organisation an album creation, the processing part being very much secondary. I may be wrong but that's what I saw by having a quick look at the website. I've never heard it mentioned before either and I'm sure it would have been "discovered" had it been very useful.

Wow. Just wow. I couldn't believe that response, coming from a technical person (astronomy buff), that, based on Photoline's website, Photoline's feature set was so incredibly poorly understood.

What we have here is a misunderstanding of Photoline's identity as a software product caused by the website's information architecture and its visual design. The website actively drives away potential new users - at least, that's how I see it as a professional web developer/UX designer. I also asked my students (consisting of graphic design and web development students) to comment on the website: the graphic design students wouldn't even try Photoline because they thought its website was "laughably bad", so they admitted to thinking that the software must be equally bad, while the web dev students' comments did not really understand how the website was able to sell any software at all.

I tend to agree. Once I demonstrated some of Photoline's unique features, most students were impressed. Asked about whether they would have tried the software based on the website, most said unequivocally "no". So there's a gap between the product and its web presence.

Perhaps we as a community should get together and discuss how we, in close cooperation with the devs, could improve this situation. Look at Pixelmator: they are much younger, the product is not nearly as powerful (though it looks arguably nicer), but the website is very inviting to new users to try it out (and I know why, but let's leave that for later).

I wouldn't mind putting some students of mine to work to design a couple of prototypes as a class assignment. Next week I am starting a new UX Design and Information Archtitecture class, and the improvement of Photoline's website IA could be one of the topics. Of course, Martin and Gerhard would have to agree to this. Or we could get some people together here to see how the web presence could be improved.

What do you think? What do the devs think? Photoline really deserves so much better - in the last two months I have. for the most part, converted to Photoline for most of my image editing work (coming from a Photoshop user since v3.5!)

Open for suggestions!

Oh, btw the original discussion can be found here:
http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/16009 ... photoshop/

[bkh]

This is quite interesting (and troubling) - I happened upon this discussion, and it seems that people new to Photoline, and who have never heard about it, may get a completely wrong idea about its most basic feature set!

Pretty alarming … I wouldn't have expected that (but of course, as a long time PL user, I am prejudiced). It would be really interesting to know what creates the impression. (I'm not talking about the Tutorials or Samples sections here — these certainly don't show PL's photo editing capabilities.)

I wouldn't mind putting some students of mine to work to design a couple of prototypes as a class assignment. Next week I am starting a new UX Design and Information Archtitecture class, and the improvement of Photoline's website IA could be one of the topics.

Sounds like a great opportunity to me, not to be missed.

Of course, there have been loads of discussions about the outer appearance of PL (website, logo, program icon, icons and menus in the program, documentation, tutorials) before. One of the points which seems to be important to developers is that PL isn't "just" a photo editor, but also a vector editor, DTP program and photo organiser, so that's probably a point to keep in mind when drafting a new appearance.

Oh, btw the original discussion can be found here:
http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/16009 ... photoshop/

Yours is a great summary of the photo editing capabilities. Maybe you'd be interested to add some of this to the PhotoLine Wikipedia page? Any suggestions for improving that page are also welcome, of course, because it might be another starting point for people looking for image editors.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[akeller]

I 100% agree to Burkhard's post.

All of my attempts (website, icons) in the past to improve the marketing of PL failed, mainly because I'm not a professional designer.
To avoid frustration I highly advice to contact the developers directly to clarify if they are interested in your help and which changes they are willing to agree to.

I also think that your offer is a great opportunity to improve the representation of PL and looking forward to a new or at least reworked homepage.

As Burkhard, I would like to point to the Wikipedia article of PL. This article is his and my work and we appreciate if also a native speaker could take care.

Andreas

[OldRadioGuy]

...

What we have here is a misunderstanding of Photoline's identity as a software product caused by the website's information architecture and its visual design. The website actively drives away potential new users - at least, that's how I see it as a professional web developer/UX designer.

Before I comment on your contention, let me say that in my view Martin and Gerhard are brilliant programmers who appear to often listen to their customers as they produce an amazing product. But maybe they are satisfied with the status quo. Perhaps they are unconcerned about expanding PhotoLine's customer base. So far, they appear to have offered little public encouragement -- at least in the English-language forum -- for volunteer assistance with marketing-related efforts.

So, from the perspective of an English-speaking user, here's my conclusion: Despite being a good program, PhotoLine is stuck in the 20th Century.

Herbert, you are correct, but I believe PhotoLine's identity problem goes beyond the impression left by the website. It also includes the look of the GUI, lack of automated or simple-to-use tools, poorly-written help files and manuals, few on-site tutorials, the stale look of the program despite new versions, failure to provide reviewers with an incentive to discover the features before writing a review, the dearth of YouTube tutorials to "wow" potential customers, and apparent rejection of social media to reach a new audience.

Do the developers have the time or resources to follow user trends, keep an eye on the competition, and properly market the program? I doubt it. Do they welcome assistance with these efforts? They haven't answered that question.

Bob

[Torsten]

Schade das dieser Artikel in Englisch verfasst ist

Bis denne Torsten

[ellhel]

Schade das dieser Artikel in Englisch verfasst ist

Der Meinung bin ich auch.
Auch ich bin erst nach Jahren auf PhotoLine aufmerksam geworden. Obwohl ich schon öfters Ausschau nach guter Bildbearbeitungssoftware gehalten habe.
Ist schon "komisch" das PhotoLine so ein Schattendasein führt.

LG
Helmut

[OldRadioGuy]

Here is an edited entry from a forum for another photo editing product from a user concerned about the dearth of video tutorials.

I've been using XXXXX in its various incarnations for many years now and as much as I like the software, I have noticed an interesting thing about the market place. While other purveyors of photo and graphics applications have been working to produce video material to support their users and sell their product (consider Phase One, DxO, Serif Software, Xara, Topaz Labs) there seems little if anything from XXXXX.

Go to You Tube and type Phase One. All sorts of very informative video presentations are returned. Do the same for XXXXX and the story seems quite different, at least in my experience. If XXXXX wants to be seen as a serious product aimed at a competitive marketplace, doesn't it make sense to promote it with video and at least give the impression that you're on the same playing field as your competitors? I am sure the same could be said in terms of promoting it to authors who write books and magazine articles about photographic workflow and post processing. It would be nice to see XXXXX included from time to time.

Substitute PhotoLine for the XXXXX, and the critique is applicable to our product.

Bob

[Torsten]

But advertising costs money and has to pay for themselves. If all were willing to pay more in order PhotoLine is known? I do not know ...

Made with Google Translate

So long, Torsten

[Gerhard Huber]

What do the devs think?

I sent you an email about what I think.

Gerhard

[ono]

FYI couple of past topics regarding this subject:

A review of PhotoLine for the Mac
PhotoLine in English Wikipedia
UI Suggestions
Giving PhotoLine icons some touch
New program icon

Many things has changed for better however, we got nice UI updates, notably the toolbar icons, dialogs layout. But there are still things that could change PL existence:

• More cummunity driven (but moderated) website, at least some Wiki as kind of replacement for not really straightforward built-in manual
• A community driven YouTube channel with some tutorials
• A new website look made by some professional designer or volunteer (with PL if possible) -> maybe some PL website contents here in forums

[LightsOn]

What do the devs think?

I sent you an email about what I think.

So is it a secret? Why don't you tell us open heartedly what you think about it? Gerhard let me tell you, that's not the way to make professional business!

[hanoldc]

+1

[Herbert123]

No worries guys, we are going to work together on getting the website a refreshed look. Ideas are welcome, and I will keep you updated - it's just that I will do this in my free time, and the upcoming two weeks are a (traditionally) very busy time for me due to the end of the year.

[toyotadesigner]

Wow - I almost spilled my coffee reading this post. Tataaaaa - it appears to me the PL web site will be connected to the future by next year.

If you should plan to implement some customer reviews/ratings, count me in.
If you set up a reference list, feel free to link to my web site. People love to see that professionals use the software.

Let the good times roll - PL deserves it.

[Juan]

Let the good times roll - PL deserves it.

Quote of agreement .

Cheers,
Juan