Samples View

[Vikki]

I was just curious about viewing preferences when viewing restoration "before and after" examples.
I'm leaning towards a mouseover for "before and after", and considering changing my website to this format.
What is your preference?

[Hankster65]

Personally, I love the mouseover. You can keep your eyes positioned and focused on one area of the screen and quickly flip flop between before and after. Results in a very impressive effect.

[jeaniesa]

Vikki, I haven't voted because for me "it depends." I do like mouseovers, but only in situations where the before/after is the same size, rotation, crop, etc. so that I can keep my eye on one area and see the diffrence (as Hank mentioned.) However, I have seen a lot of mouseovers where the "before" picture is what appears to be the raw scan from a scanner which has not been cropped or straightened (or an image which simply needed to be cropped to meet today's "standard" sizes). This sort of thing drives me crazy since it is very difficult to concentrate on the restoration/retouching work when the mouseover also causes what appears to be a "zoom" of the photo. I want the image to be "static" and only the damage (or colorization) to change during the mouseover. Does that make sense?

Because I think that cropping can improve a photo (sometime dramatically), I like to show the before version without any cropping and the after version with cropping. Hence, I've chosen side-by-side comparisons for my own site out of necessity (based on my "hang-up" mentioned above.)

I didn't vote b/c I'm not sure how to.

Jeanie

[Vikki]

Jeanie, that's an excellent point, and I know exactly what you're talking about.
Darn, I was all set to change things, and now I'll have to rethink that.

[jeaniesa]

Vikki, If you really want mouseovers (they are cool ), you might consider offering something like "click to see side-by-side comparison." That way you have the best of both worlds, though it is a bit more work.

Jeanie

[roger_ele]

My answer is more side by side, but not exactly...

I have done side by side with side by side detail sections, since all the work is in the details, and until someone sees the little stuff I don't think the amount of work is recognized.

I just did a certificate as part of a promotion, it is attached ...

Here is the same image restoration on our web site;

http://www.eleakis.com/Copy/Gallery/BalingHay/BalingHay.htm

(I do agree, mouse over looks cool, but if the person has dial up they might click on it and nothing happens if they don't wait ...)

Roger

[jeaniesa]

Good points Roger. I too include some "detail sections" of my restorations. And good point about rollovers and dial-up!

Jeanie

[Vikki]

Roger, that "Yearbook" photo is a great example. Excellent job on that!
These are all good arguments against the mouseover.....
I will most likely keep mine as is.
I really appreciate the participation in this thread, it's just what I was hoping for.
Thanks all.

[Eric Polsinelli]

I have to agree with Roger with "but if the person has dial up they might click on it and nothing happens if they don't wait ..."...

Other things such as popup stoppers may also cause problems with mouseovers, since it's based on java script (most of them anyway), and this 'blockers' may stop it from running java.

[ajcutler]

There have been a lot of good points made so far regarding the benefits and drawbacks of the mouseover approach. The mouseover technique can be pretty dramatic at times. I do like Jeanie's suggestion of providing both side by side and mouseover.

But if only one approach is taken, I still favor side by side because I feel that you can see and study the differences between the before and after better this way.

Alan

[Hankster65]

Good points all. One more small point...I think you have to consider your target audience. Its not made up of folks who routinely enhance and restore photos. Those of us who do, might very well prefer side by side so that we can really study all the small differences and closely analyze the work done. Those who know nothing of Photoshop, etc., might be more readily impressed by the quick flair that the mouseover produces.

[Robt]

I'm not as fast as the fast links so I tend to like to see images side by side.

[jjmead]

Rollovers

I hate rollovers. Especialy with images. Popups are worse

[JustChecking]

Side by side... mouseover's not bad, but i like side by side (provided that both fit to my screen :-S), as i see both pix at once and the comparison can be finer (esp. when the colours or contrast etc. have been changed or something)... maybe also it's that i can squint that well ;-) :-D

[heathrowe]

sidexside for me
much easier for comparing results

heathrowe