e-xposure design

[e-xposure]

Hi,

My name is Todge Sutkowski. I have just started a new business with photo restoration, web design, and graphic design. I would like everyone to come and view my web page. I am looking for some constructive response concerning my photo gallery from what my piers think in this community. You can reach the address at this url:

www.e-xposuredesign.com

You can also email me at this address:

todge@e-xposuredesign.com


Thank you!

Todge Sutkowski

[DJ Dubovsky]

Hi Todge
Welcome to Retouch Pro. I'm not exactly sure how to use the poll you set up but I did visit your site. The gallery is excellent. You did a good job on the site. It's fairly straight forward and easy to read. I think the only thing I would do is bring in some color to help break up the black and white wording. (But I am no web designer so take that for what it's worth.) All in all, you should do will with it. Good luck.
DJ

[Doug Nelson]

Well, I don't know about what that poll is meant to accomplish but I did visit your site. Your restorations are very good, and I wish you all the luck.

I must comment on the design of your site, though. Some of the pages took a very long time to load, and your restoration page is not visible to me without sideways scrolling (and I work at a relatively high screen resolution).

But the main thing I feel obligated to address is all the hidden text on your main page (down at the bottom, white text on white background). This is a very poor scheme, and could very well backlash on you in the long run. It immediately made me suspicious of your motives (though with exploration that was mollified, but you can never completely change a first impression). Plus, many search engines are smart enough nowadays to recognize this trick, and will simply skip indexing your site.

Ditch the hidden text, make your site a bit friendlier to browse (faster, narrower) and I think you'll have an attractive site that I hope will generate a lot of business for you.

[e-xposure]

Doug,

I did not design the web page. I will make sure that I inform my web department about this issue. My motive is to get back feedback from this community.

Business Integrity is an important part of what I believe in.

Thanks

Todge Sutkowski

[G. Couch]

Originally posted by e-xposure


Business Integrity is an important part of what I believe in.

hmmm.... One of those images in your restoration gallery seems strangely familiar. 3rd one down...I hope you got permission to use that.

The hidden text is tacky. Why does clicking on the logo open another copy of the home page? That makes no sense.

I know I am starting to sound mean, but you are advertising graphic design and yet your site is an exercise in bad design.

[Ed_L]

I went to the site, and after a very long time I still did not see the first image. It was longer than I was prepared to wait for, so I can almost guarantee that the general public won't wait for it either. But I'll probably go back if for no other reason but to see the third image down.

Just got back from the site. That image looks very familiar to me too!

Ed

[Doug Nelson]

I must also object to referring to your company as "your sole source for preserving those family memories". Since there are thousands (or more) of us out here, that would be less than true.

[DJ Dubovsky]

The image is from Katrin Eismann's book on page 34 and 35.

I never noticed the invisible text until you mentioned it. I did think it was funny that the page end was so far from the last item. I gather that is where you put your key words? No wonder why my site is so far down on the search engines.
DJ

[G. Couch]

I was going to give Mr. ex the benefit of the doubt in regards to using an image from Katrin Eismann's book. Heck, for all I know he got permission to use it. (although I doubt it). If you do not have permission to use her image, then I would suggest you quickly remove it. I know a lot of people on this website respect her work and would not hesitate to contact her.

[Bob Walden]

I liked the site. Easy to read and good restoration examples and explainations. Really liked the pronunciation of Giclee.

However, as you are also selling web design services I would have little confidence because with a quick look I found three major problems. Under "Scanning Services" "Iris/Giclee" and "Web Design". Someone was not doing their job proofing.
The restoration part I thought was great, design not so great.

Bob

[Bob Walden]

Went back to check out Katrin's example and found three more text mistakes.You did ask for imput.

P.S. I did not see your name in Katrin's contributor's list. Many of use consider her book our Bible for restoration. Also Katrin has helped many of use, myself included. An explaination coming from your side?

Bob

[Bob Walden]

Originally posted by Bob Walden
Went back to check out Katrin's example and found three more text mistakes.You did ask for imput.

P.S. I did not see your name in Katrin's contributor's list. Many of use consider her book our Bible for restoration. Also Katrin has helped many of us, myself included. An explaination coming from your side?

Bob

[e-xposure]

There is no doubt that this image is from Katrin Eismann book. I am a big fan of hers. I open to admit that this image is from that publication. Please also let me tell you that this company is not operational and this page has only been shared with friends, family, and those in the idustry that are willing to share advice which is why I have come to you. There has been no submission to search engines for this page at this time. When you make your self open to the public then I will be concerned about this issue. There are more samples dealing with hand coloring that will follow in the next couple of days that will take the place with some of these photos.



I appreciate your concern about this issue.

regards,

Todge Sutkowski

[Sanda]

Can I ask why are you using URLs in that hidden text? Are they there to try to fool the search engines? These URLs are not yours, Doug's site is even listed and even knows who else's is there. I've seen the practice of using keywords at the bottom of the first page to try to fool the search engine spiders but I don't understand the uses of the URLs. Please tell me what the reasoning behind it is, I'm confused

[G. Couch]

Originally posted by e-xposure
When you make your self open to the public then I will be concerned about this issue.

[high horse mode on] You made it public when you posted your site here, as well as when you posted your business information in the classifieds forum. It may not seem like much to you, but if you want to be perceived as a professional, then you need to understand and respect copyright laws. [/high horse mode off]

[Vikki]

No sense in sugar coating it....
I found a few things that I didn't care for:

You have no examples of any other work, except for the restorations, and your own logo. Why you chose to use someone else's work is beyond me. Have you no work of your own?

Your text on your Corporate page doesn't ring true. Your own logo doesn't "clearly communcate your corporate message". You aren't even capitalizing it the same way in the same paragraph.

Check out the restoration pricing page. Your layout has forced a page break between the dollar sign and the amount ($35).

Check the grammar on your first page. The last sentence doesn't seem right.

I can't say that I'm impressed by your restoration work. They are basic fixes that just about anyone can do.

Finally, I think the hidden text thing is awful, desperate, and sneaky.

If you really are concerned about integrity, you should spend more time with your website developer.

[Ed_L]

Todge,

Let me first make it *very* clear that I am speaking as an individual, and I am not representing RetouchPro.

I find it very disturbing that you would use an image that you have no right to use on your website. You come across as someone who is *much* less than professional, and someone who is using the talents of people on *this* site to further your abilities to draw people to *your* site in hopes that they will *pay* for your services. I wonder how many other images you are displaying illegally. Admittedly I know nothing much about website structure, but it seems from other posts that you have put things into your site that are somewhat less than truthful. And if your website lacks professionalism, how are your other services? The mere fact that you put the image on there opens it up for the general public to see. Like Vikki, I wonder why you don't use your own images? Do you actually have the skills to be a professional restorer? IMHO, I doubt it.

Apologies to all for my ranting. It's just that sometimes things get to me. Once again, these are my own sentiments, and they have nothing at all to do with RetouchPro.

Ed

[e-xposure]

Ed,

All of the images that are posted were done personally by me. This of course is minus the photo in question where I did the lesson. The rest of the photos were done for my family members. One of which is my father. Ease up! All graphic images were done by a very close friend that is a graphic designer. The photo in question will be taken down by the web designer within the next 48 hours.

Todge Sutkowski

Originally posted by Ed_L
Todge,

Let me first make it *very* clear that I am speaking as an individual, and I am not representing RetouchPro.

I find it very disturbing that you would use an image that you have no right to use on your website. You come across as someone who is *much* less than professional, and someone who is using the talents of people on *this* site to further your abilities to draw people to *your* site in hopes that they will *pay* for your services. I wonder how many other images you are displaying illegally. Admittedly I know nothing much about website structure, but it seems from other posts that you have put things into your site that are somewhat less than truthful. And if your website lacks professionalism, how are your other services? The mere fact that you put the image on there opens it up for the general public to see. Like Vikki, I wonder why you don't use your own images? Do you actually have the skills to be a professional restorer? IMHO, I doubt it.

Apologies to all for my ranting. It's just that sometimes things get to me. Once again, these are my own sentiments, and they have nothing at all to do with RetouchPro.

Ed

[CJ Swartz]

Todge requests: I am looking for some constructive response concerning my photo gallery from what my piers think in this community.

Then Todge responds: Ease up!

Todge -- you asked for constructive responses; you received constructive responses -- your website contains copyrighted images that are not your own, spelling errors, and design errors.

Now it's up to you...

[airubin]

Hi Todge,

You certainly are doing some very interesting work.

Your website looks very good. My comments reflect my personal approach to websites and are not any criticism of what you have done.

I would like to see the shadow in your logo to be more transparent. It seems to block out some of the other elements of the logo. Also, the white in the x might be toned down a little.

The description of your services in the text on the home page is duplicated on another page. You might want to put the three links; web design, graphic design and photo restoration on the same line and not have the text on the same page.

These are just some quick thoughts.

Alan

[G. Couch]

Well, at least he removed the image.

[e-xposure]

Are there any comments about the photo that has now been posted? Maybe we can get back to the subject about photos.

Originally posted by G. Couch
Well, at least he removed the image.

[G. Couch]

The photos are fine, it's just nothing extraordinary. Most of the tone correction is the kind of thing anyone can do in a matter of minutes.

Take a look at some of the work that has been done in the challenge section of this site. Take a look at Doug's website, or DJ's, or Sam's. Better yet, contribute some work to the challenge section of this site!

The subject of your thread was "some constructive response concerning my photo gallery from what my piers think in this community" As far as I can read you have received plenty of constructive responses.

[paulette conlan]

Took a look at the site and would like to make the following comments:

Rather like the starkness of the site.Very refreshing change.The rollovers were a nice touch. I'm getting turned off by sites that look like a 3 ring circus.

Only got to view a few images on the restoration page because I got tired of waiting for it to load.Much to slow and I was motivated to wait.I suggest that you should either curtail the examples or compress them further. Although I haven't tried it yet there is a way to load 1x1 pixel images on the main page(provide enough of interesting stuff for the viewer to read while they load to the hard drive) and supposedly when you go to the image page the image appears.In the spirit of full disclosure I read this in "The Non Designers Web Book p237-pre-loading graphics. The quality of the restoration examples I viewed were satisfactory. Take a look at some of the restoration challenges on this site if you want to see some examples of creativity. Think that we're becoming the benchmark for the profession here!

Re the hidden text-well you learn something new everyday.I guess that if you look at the source code it's there. But I am curious however if it's discernable without viewing the code?

Paulette