Welcome to Beader's Showcase, one of the premier websites for artists working with beads, polymer clay, PMC, lampwork and much, much more.

We have artists with skills including stringing, embroidery, weaving, clay work, lampwork, silversmithing and loom work. But it doesn't stop there.

You will be amazed at what our artists can do with some of the most basic materials. Given a few glass beads, some wire, a little material, a feather, a couple of silver or even pewter findings, they will create a masterpiece.

Please enjoy, and if you are an artist come join us.

Jeff & Ann

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Beader's Showcase

"A Place for all Beaders to Showcase their Creations."

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Why is it important to you to be able to upload photos?

UPDATE - Thank you all for your comments and helping us decide future directions of Beader's Showcase.

Uploading photos to our main photo showcase is a very important part of Beader's Showcase, and that is not a surprise.

However, we have so many photos submitted that the task of approving them is becoming very time consuming. As this site is totally free and run by just Ann and I (Jeff) we do need to streamline this process in some way. We need your help with feedback.

We are asking everyone, even if you don't upload and only admire,  to tell us what the photo showcase means to and where you would like to see it go in the future.

Please take a few minutes to post your comments here as we really do need your feedback to keep Beader's Showcase a great place to be.

Tags: photo, showcase

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Marian on January 28, 2010 at 7:35pm
Photo's of peoples work gives me lots of inspiration and makes me want to achieve more.

Unfortunately I'm one of those who don't post enough pictures but I will make more of an effort shortly.

Marian Pearce
Permalink Reply by Iris Hörler on January 28, 2010 at 8:19pm
I love to see photos of other peoples work. Sometimes I take some of the details, color combinations, themes or whatever whit in my work. It gives me a lot of inspiration and ideas.
Permalink Reply by Patty on January 28, 2010 at 11:05pm
I have only uploaded one photo, but I always admire the jewelry and LOVE the email to check out pieces Jeff features. As a mom of a 4 year old, with a full time job that keeps me super busy, and a hubby who works full time and is going to school to finish his degree, I find that I often get into a beading "slump". Looking at all of the beautiful work seems to get the creative juices flowing and pumps me up to get out my supplies and get over the slump. I don't have any solutions on how to make the "photo" job easier, but my main draw to this site is the photos -- there are some very talented people on here!! And again, the emails to remind me to check out the featured pieces are wonderful. Before seeing this thread, I had already decided to let you guys know how much that I enjoy those. Thanks for all of your self-less, hard work so that we may enjoy and reap the benefits! Patty
Permalink Reply by georgia grisolia on January 29, 2010 at 12:31am
Did you state the Title of the piece and give a bit of info about it like size, the origin of the pic or idea or.....
I think that is all that is needed. They don't want unnamed and totally free floating pics there. You might try that and see how it goes.
Georgia
Permalink Reply by Jeff on January 29, 2010 at 4:28pm
Hi Diane

It is never based on our opinion of your work. It is always based on the guidelines which are easily summarized into -

1. A name for your piece.
2. A good description of your piece, why you made it, your inspiration etc.
3. Must have tags.
4. No commercial promotion.

These are all for very good reasons and based on the concept of 'showcasing' your work. Ideally, you want a catchy name, not just 'Blue Necklace' or worse a filename. You want to talk about why you made it and more to engage the viewer, and you need tags and good keywords in the description so you can be found with our search engine amongst the 13,000+ photos we have.

We approve for the reasons you mentioned and when we didn't have it, even though we still had guidelines, they were blatantly ignored, or more likely never read anyway.

Our platform is limited to jpg, gif and png file formats and a 100mb size, but that is clearly mentioned on the photo upload page.

And don't forget, you can always post to your blog and include photos or start a forum discussion and include photos to get members opinions. The main photo showcase is not the only way to show your work.

Hope this helps clarify a bit better.
Permalink Reply by Jeff on February 1, 2010 at 8:57am
Hi Diane

Unfortunately, I can't do anything about the file types. The platform we use for the site is limited to the file types I mentioned - jpg, gif and png. I assume they don't accept bmp types because they tend to be very large files.

There are a number of sites online that will convert your photos or have software you can download. Here are a couple that I found by searching on 'convert bmp to jpg'.

http://www.coolutils.com/Online-Image-Converter.php
http://www.pictureresize.org/online-images-converter.html
http://www.graphic-converter.net/
http://www.go2convert.com/

I haven't tried any on these so I suggest give them a try and see which works best for you.

Hope this helps.

Sincerely
Jeff
Permalink Reply by georgia grisolia on January 29, 2010 at 12:29am
Without photos the site would not be a lot of fun and be lacking important information.

You might wish to streamline your approval. Set the guidelines at the top of the upload page in a strong font, very plain and simple, state that any photo found in noncompliance will be removed and perhaps go check the new pics once a week or something and do what you threatened. People will not be able to quibble if they get a "stock" email stating why and that shouldn't take you very long at all. Folks will get used to the parameters set and comply or just not post.

Hope that does not sound mean. It is meant to just be 'the way it is'. Either comply or your photo is gone with an auto email.

Other sites do not let one bend the rules. If we are all truly grownups we will deal with the rules.
Georgia
Permalink Reply by Jeff on January 29, 2010 at 4:32pm
Hi Georgia

We already have, in bold type, at the top of the photo upload page a statement that it is essential members read our guidelines and mention that if photos don't comply they will not be approved.

Unfortunately, there isn't enough room to actually list the guidelines in detail.

But I will certainly look at what else can be done to make it more obvious.
Permalink Reply by Mortira on January 29, 2010 at 1:19am
Because I'll be meeting mostly other jewelry designers and bead artists here, I think of the photo album on Beader's Showcase as a sort of portfolio. When you meet someone in the forum, or a group, you can see their work and get an idea of what sort of beader they are.

If there were to be, for instance, a monthly limit on uploads, it wouldn't affect the way I enjoy the site. I really like the fact that photos are approved by hand - it keeps the albums neat and a joy to browse through.
Permalink Reply by Jeff on January 29, 2010 at 4:36pm
Hi Mortira

Viewing your uploaded photos as a portfolio is exactly what we would like members to do. If they viewed it that way they would realize that more attention to presentation can only be a good thing.

And then using the embeddable slideshow, that is available to all members, on other sites is a great way to present your work.

A monthly or weekly limit is something we are considering but as yet not sure about how well it can be implemented.

Thanks
Permalink Reply by millie yawn on January 29, 2010 at 1:20am
The photo's mean alot to me, I can see the how much talent evryone has.
Permalink Reply by Arlene Steinberg on January 29, 2010 at 1:26am
Hi Jeff,
Without photos then this site really has only a little to offer since beadwork is visual. I'd say the majority of us come here not only for the camaraderie of people with the same interest of ours, but also to get inspired by other's work. How exciting to view a color combination, a stitch, or the way someone else has taken the same elements I have used and use them in a new and exciting way.

Frankly, owning and running my own site, I've marveled how you're able to keep hand approving photos. It's a huge job! I realize that you want to avoid spam, porn, etc, but why not do what we do on my art forum? We let people upload photos themselves and our policing is mostly done by those on the site plus a couple of "moderators." The moderators are people we chose who volunteer to help make sure that we don't have people spamming, etc. Our members tend to make the moderator's jobs easy and self police. We have a "button" for the members to push if they see something not in keeping with the rules of the site. And yes, members do push that button! Then when it's reported or a moderator sees it, it's removed.

As for worrying about uploading, our uploader is built to reject photos over a certain size (600 x 600 pixels) and our interface won't allow certain words, titles that are too short, etc. Frankly, when people forget to post the size, paper, etc they used to create their art, our members are quick to ask. Couldn't something like that be created for here to lighten your load?

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