www.makeovermagic.org critique

[makeovermagic]

www.makeovermagic.org


**EDIT: 6/8/06 SITE HAS BEEN COMPLETELY UPDATED.**

[PatrickB]

Ok, two things:

Most important for you: The meta-tags are missing. I mean, the first page is the most important for a website, it's the one completely indexed by the search-engines. You got a splash-page (oh I don't like em ) which basically has nothing in it. I'd put up a splash-page, if you need one anyway, with a lot of text to be indexed.

Second one is a little lazy-guy thing. In your galleries, I'd prefer to have a mouse-over instantly, without a new page. You use a lot of javascript on your page, which is a cpu- and memorykiller anyway, but I'd include something that changes the picture if you hover over the thumbsnails and changes before/after when hovering over the big image.

And sorry, I couldn't resist to put a hand on this awesome beauty in your gallery. Happen to have her phone-number?

[makeovermagic]

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p.s. don't have her number

[makeovermagic]

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[Akbar Tahir]

Hi My openion is only that you should learn retouching in a gr8 depth you have a beautiful photographs but dinnt beauitfy them at all website is nothing its only a presentation just improve your work its constructive criticism..

[NancyJ]

Meta tags are really unimportant with todays modern search engines, the only one you might want to consider is description - a lot of search engines will use this as the 'blurb' about your site in the listings, if provided.
eg.
<meta name="description" content=Breif blurb about your site here" />

Your home page looks good - despite being an unecessary splash page, but it goes downhill from there. Center aligned text doesnt look good - it makes the content of your page look slap-dash and disorganised.
The gallery is terrible in firefox - your bottom text overlaps the images and it jumps around all over the place. As a web developer I had to have ie on machine too so I checked how it look in that. Page transitions are BAD, like really 1997, ditto with the gallery transitions, they're proprietary (non-standard) code that only works in ie.

Overally I'd say the graphic design (only really apparent on the first page) is greatly improved but the design still needs more structure and thought into layout - and less IE code.

[makeovermagic]

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[shellby]

The most important thing here is the actual retouching. You need to tone down a bit. Some of the eyes are not looking realistic. Back things off a bit. Less is more. Try not to add in lens flare effects as this can be seen as cheesy. It looks like pageant style retouching - is this what you want to achieve? Keep doing tutorials and learning loads from this site. It really is a great place to keep on top of things.

[Legacy~Art]

Just a thought...

I looked into your source on your webpage, and it looks like you do have a meta part but you have not added info thats needed for the search engines to pick up. You have added your words but not in the right places, and your using a very old frontpage, and frontpage can add alot of html thats not needed, but at least your learning, and thats the good thing eh! Your at least having a go, i admire you for having a go!!!

I have frontpage too but the newer version, and it does cause some html problems sometimes, especially with different servers. I opened the source up and saw you had alot of spaces that i removed, if you want the new source for you to add to your splash page, then email me...I havent done the meta for you, i think you need to google and find the info for yourself, but your on the right lines.

[makeovermagic]

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[Legacy~Art]

Your welcome Martha i just emailed you back. Hope it helps!

[twinkissed]

For being a begginer, you seem on the right track but here are some things I noticed. One, I'm not real keen on the click on the picture to return to the gallery thing. It would be nice if it went to the next picture in my own personal opinion. Then again, others may like that go back to the gallery thing. Second, I agree with toning it down but for me it was the backgrounds etc. Some of the edging is too sharp, too cutout and some of the backgrounds don't seem to match the brightness of the photos. Also, on some of the photos where you painted in the makeup... the makeup is much darker than even the pupils of the eyes which makes it look like someone took a marker to it. Some of the photos I think you did well on. Trust me... I'm still looking at some of the beginning photos I did and telling myself what I should have done. It's all a learning experience. I try to keep in mind when making my page to keep it user friendly but also try to maintain a very professional look. I think people tend to feel more comfortable purchasing something from a site that looks very professional and well established and if it's easy to navigate that helps too. Best of luck to you.

[makeovermagic]

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[KVK]

Originally Posted by makeovermagic

OK, i'm ready for a final critique on my website that i designed myself; please comment on overall design and content.

What immediately drew my attention is your gallery. The "after" image is before "before" image. There is a very good reason to reverse it. When you say it, it is more likely to say "before and after" then "after and before". As your target audience most likely to use left-to-right languages (are they?) it is natural for them to have after later. There are lots of theories behind this, but to keep it short: before and after, start to finish, from the beginning to the end, take photo then retouch.

best of luck!

[NancyJ]

You should also get permission before using other peoples images.