TGP Tutorials & Articles
Gallery Thumbnailing Suggestions
by TGPFactory Staff, June 30 2006
Volumes could be written on thumbnailing galleries properly. I'll outline a few of my personal preferences and tips here.
- Know your audience.
If you are feeding your site with cumshot traffic, have imported hundreds of blowjob/cumshot galleries, and setup trades with TGP's in that niche, make every effort to conform to that niche! There is no need to crop a nipple or a thong if your visitors are there to see the nastiest creampie cumshots they can. This is probably the number one problem with thumbnail cropping, especially for webmasters who have sites in niches they aren't particularly familiar with. Don't think about what you would want to see, think about what your potential customers would want to see.
- Use graphic design software.
I cannot stress this enough. I don't care how proficient you are with the Comus thumbnail cropping tool or MS Paint; nine times out of town you'll still end up with a thumbnail that is second-rate when compared to thumbs made in Photoshop, ImageReady, or even Paint Shop. The limitations of Unix/Linux GD libraries just won't allow you to create flawless thumbnails via a web script.
- Offer some variety.
Don't use the same shot for each thumb: your visitors can only see so many cleavage shots before they die of boredom. Try to find a unique and sexy image from each gallery and create a thumb.. not every thumbnail has to be of a face, a bare chest, or a thong being pulled down. Get creative and explore different angles, white-space options, and the like.
- For God's sake don't over-do it in Photoshop.
Many newbies (and hell even old-timers) have just begun to find the Surface Blur filter and Brightness/Contrast tools in Photoshop. I certainly don't see any problem in touching up thumbnails to remove blemishes, adjusting levels to achieve the best color balance, or using surface blur properly and on occasion to give that 'glamour shot' look. But there is no need to use these tools on each and every thumbnail you create.
- Think BIG.
Gone are the days of 640x480 screen resolutions, 8-bit graphics cards, and dial-up connections. Don't skimp on quality by giving your visitors 88x88 low-res GIF thumbnails. With the advancements in technology in the past several years, it's foolish to have thumbnails smaller than 110x150 in size. Even if the page loads a bit slower, it will be worth it: visitors are immediately attracted to larger thumbnails.
