bummer, looks like sublime is changing format and script

[Bill]

I love sublime, and get listed there all the time.

Now it looks like they are going to madtgp and a thumb preview format.

It's like the death of a grand old lady.

[Cleo]

I use to always get listed there and then one day I was told that I had been banned. I never did find out why and just moved on.

[Bill]

Yes, they are very picky and kind of cranky, only about 40% of my gallerys have the sponsors and structure that they require, so I end up subbing to them only once or twice a week.

But if sublime goes to thumb preview (right now they seem to be saying "it helps to get listed if you have a 88x88 thumb", not "you MUST submit with an 88x88 thumb") I guess I'm going to have to surrender and start making preview thumbs for all my galleries. Great, another way to kiss tgp ass.

My guess is that they banned you because you have those "surfer scraper" links to your hubs on your pages. That pisses them off. Do it twice and they'll ban you.

It's nice traffic tho. sorta like the good old days.

Now to find a quick and compact way to make sharp 88x88 thumbs.

[Cleo]

Yeah I think it was when they added the no "surfer scraper" links rule is what they shit listed me since I never changed the way I built. Sometimes old time submitters can get a little leniency sometimes not.

Kind of a shame, the "surfer scraper" links often bring in more sales then my main sponsor link. Guess this is why I just moved on and never tried to do anything.

I actually still get a small amount of traffic from their archives. They do have lots of traffic.

Well rules are rules and everyone has the right to make their own rules, shouldn't be any other way.

I fucking hate making up thumb previews. I've only done it a few times and I keep on asking myself if it was worth it. Since I haven't done them on any of my latest galleries I guess I've decided it isn't. I mean at some point to have to look at your bottom line and ask yourself if you time is better spent doing other types of things to generate traffic.

[Ramster]

[i]My guess is that they banned you because you have those "surfer scraper" links to your hubs on your pages. That pisses them off. Do it twice and they'll ban you.

It's nice traffic tho. sorta like the good old days.

Now to find a quick and compact way to make sharp 88x88 thumbs. [/b]

Fuck, I gotta change those sample galleries I sent them. BRB. LOL

[Ramster]

All Fixed. They don't like the links like that huh? I use a 2257 link that works decent rather than directly to my hub sometimes.

Bill, I make an 88 thumb with every gallery now as I already submit to sites that need one like madthumbs for example and many others especially when doing a pornstar gallery. PaintShopPro is the easiest way I find to make the thumbs. Choose a pic, crop it into a folder and open my thumbs maker setting it at 88x88. Done.

[GeorgeTH]

Originally posted by Ramster
PaintShopPro is the easiest way I find to make the thumbs. Choose a pic, crop it into a folder and open my thumbs maker setting it at 88x88. Done.

So that's the reason why I get so many 'bad' thumbs?

With the proliferation of thumbnail TGPs it's worthwhile putting some effort into the creation of a thumb. With the big guys it can mean all the difference of getting listed or not, and a good thumb entices more clicks, which with the Madthumbs script gets you higher up their listing, in return you get less skimming and more traffic. I manage quite often on Madthumbs' sites to slip into one of the top 5 positions (only thanks to a good thumbnail) where many sites skim less than 20% - that can be easily twice the normal traffic...
If I have too many submissions at picxs I check the thumbs first and shitty ones get binned straight away, with good thumbs I check the gallery and decide from there. I waste too much time re-making thumbs (10-25 per day!) as it is.

re. Sublime - they were always a little strange I found. For long periods I got almost everything listed, then suddenly I was on their blacklist, and then again lots of my galleries received traffic from them - all pages they harvested from other tgps (not submitted since I was blacklisted)... And I would have never thought they need harvesting...

[Bill]

Ramster, it's good that you took those links off because they really don't like them.

One thing I'm wondering about is why is Sublime changing format? Their old system worked pretty well to stop cheaters. The benefit of the thumb preview model is that it increases productivity on trades. I had heard that sublime was slipping in rank, but I hadn't thought it was so bad as to force a format change.

George, what do you suggest to make 88thumbs? Photoshop is kinda cumbersome for it, and a bit of a resource hog.

Like Cleo, I haven't been doing thumbs, it's kinda like adding insult to injury, not only do you want me to spend valuable minutes making a specialized thumb, but by doing so I participate in a system that generally reduces traffic to gallerys and the number of gallerys any TGP can display.

But if sublime wants them, I guess I'll do them.

[Bill]

BTW, how do you guys handle hosting 88thumbs, you put them all into a special directory with no htaccess, or what?

What percent of thumb preview TGPs host the thumb for you, if any?

[matt]

Originally posted by Bill
What percent of thumb preview TGPs host the thumb for you, if any?

As far as I know they all do. I just upload the thumb from my HD when a script asks for it.

[Allan]

I just called the webmaster at Sublime Directory last week and he told me they aren't looking for new submitters but I think they are just being picky.

Since we are talking about submitting... if anyone here runs a tgp let me know and I'll sign up for a partner account.

[Bill]

Yes, I'd heard that sublime hasn't been accepting new partners to it's old submission system for a number of months.

The new partner submit request form might not be so restricted, I can't know, altho it "feels" like a clean slate.

It also feels like the script has some bugs left still. I submitted a gallery with an 88x88 thumb, and it rejected the thumb, saying it wasn't 88x88.

I think this is 88x88:
http://www.wet-pussy-sex.com/thumbs/lace004-88.jpg

Yeah, I need to go around applying for more partner accounts too. Not my favorite thing to do. ;-}

[Allan]

Hey Bill.
What niches do you promote? Maybe we could exchange tgp submit lists.

What is the url to sublime's new submit form? I'll try and see if I can submit there.


If anyone doesn't feel like it's worth the time to make an 88x88 thumb (or you can't), I could exchange my time for some cash. Hit me up on icq.

It's worth it to get listed on thumb previews because any traffic is good traffic.

[GeorgeTH]

Originally posted by Bill
George, what do you suggest to make 88thumbs? Photoshop is kinda cumbersome for it, and a bit of a resource hog.

Sorry - Bill!

I missed that question (like answering some emails) - just too busy!
I'm submitting to thumbnailed sites since August last year and in the beginning the traffic and the sign-ups were excellent (just ask Jim - he will remember from Flashcash)! Some have dropped me now in favour of paid listings and a few 'buddies', but in general when I get a listing I still get fairly high up the list - so my thumbs must be right

I make mine with Paintshop Pro (the discussion was on the the Knowledge board a while ago), for galleries mostly with 7, when I review always with 5 (already 4 had all functions I will describe) because it's very lean with easy to access screen capture - anyhow: both serve me fine!

I have been thinking about writing a small tutorial, mostly for my submitters since I get so many shitty thumbs, but never found the time. Here we go with a short version:
start with an uncompressed image from the set you bought, take a 'Selection' (I prefer rectangular, kinda easier) from a picture where the girl looks into the camera. With 'Hardcore' it's a little more difficult: some request action, some still want to see only the girl's face.
Next resize it so that you roughly get something like a passport photo (I usually resize to something like 92 pixels on the short length of my rectangle), then crop it to 88x88 (Paintshop has a function called "Canvas Size"; from the re-sized image I get a better idea where I have to drop some pixels, and Paintshop 7 leaves a slightly feathered edge from cutting, which is not good).
Never or hardly ever cut off the girl's chin - looks rather ugly - you can cut of a fair bit of her hair and upper forehead, the more of her face and less background the better!
My next steps are usually 'reduce GAMMA' to something like 88-94% (to archive a little more contrast), 'Adjust Brightness / Contrast' - contrast usually set to '3' (more looks terrible) and brightness depending on the image (3-8).
I go through these two steps (Gamma + Brightness) because when you resize a large image to such a small thumb you're losing a fair bit of contrast and they usually look too dark or dull (I make a 100x100 thumb for another site with lower settings - this little difference in size seems to make a huge difference in loss of contrast).
My final step and a little secret is 'Unsharp Mask' set to something like '0.70 Radius', '70% Strength' and 'Clipping between 10-16' to sharpen the image slightly - usually makes the eyes shine and, if she smiles, her teeth sparkle... Save with NO BLUR and around 15% compression - gives you a file size of ~3000 bytes.

Since I do this all the time most settings are pre-set (at least in Paintshop 5 which I don't use for much else), so it's only a question of pressing the right shortcut keys - it usually takes me 5 minutes to make 6 thumbs: 2x 88x88 (different requirements for different TGPs - LOL!), 2x 90x120 for another group of TGPs, 1x 100x100 for a friend's site, 1x 80x80 for one other particular site...

Have a look at my site - probably 70% of all thumbs were made by me!

[Ramster]

I make the 88x88 thumb for many sites. When doing a pornstar gallery the total is about 10 TGPs wanting the thumb. Also jpeg4free wants a 90x120 which I also do.

It really only takes a few minutes tops.

[Bill]

Thanks George, I'll have to take a look at PSP5. What I want is something that opens and closes fairly fast and runs without wasting too much space.

Anybody else have methods for making 88x88 thumbs?

Hello Allan, I mostly do hardcore, in the anal, oral, cum, interracial, and teen niches. It's what I understand, so it's what I sell best. I also do a little fetish, probably should do more, since the return is usually pretty good, but it doesn't always get listed as easily.

Do you know sublimes old submit page? The link to the new forms is off the bottom of that page. Let me grab the link, it is:
http://www.sublimedirectory.com/submit/submit.htm

Thanks for the comment matt, when I first started looking at thumbpreview TGPs, I got the impression about half of them expected you to host the thumb. I think at tgpsoftware's preferred submit form they expect you to host the thumb- they will at least reject it if it is in a htaccess protected directory.

But I really don't know much about it, when the big move to thumb preview TGPs happened I looked at the trend and said "No thanks, I don't think I want to endorse your business model". As far as I could tell, it was a gimmick to force trades, and the gallery poster got the shitty end of the stick.

More traffic for you guys, right? ;-}

[GeorgeTH]

Bill - you're wrong with this assumption: not a single thumbnailed tgp (...I know of - and I know a lot: http://www.picxs.com/thumbtgp.html ) requires that you host the thumbnail on your server.
What might have confused you is the fact that some ask for a thumb URL to RETRIEVE a thumbnail from your site - but it's still saved at the script end...

Ramster had another method to make thumbs with ThumbPlus; if you're using it do a search on this board (it's posted here somewhere).

Good luck

G.

BTW: I have a Fetish section to submit to!

[Dravyk]

There is nothing simpler than using Irfanview http://www.irfanview.com for a one-thumb creation.

Small, powerful program, load it in, click "Resize/Resample". Once you know it, which will take less than two minutes, it will take you about 15 seconds. Because it began as a viewer only, need to remember to "save", else it's just doing "it" temporarily.

[HornyHeather]

Damn, When I saw this post I jumped over there, and they did change it, They always posted my galleries, I just all good things come to an end sometime...

[Bill]

Heather, do you have a Shemp account? That's pretty much the easiest way to get a sublime (now nastynet I guess) account.

It looks like you've got exclusive content, so you should be able to get some decent accounts. You have to build 15+ pic galleries tho, thats pretty much the standard for most places these days.

My sublime account came thru, which is cool. I guess we don't have to put the sublime advertising link on our galleries anymore. At least I can't see anyplace where they are asking for that...

After a few days of experimenting I've come back to using photoshop to make my 88x88 thumbs.

[HornyHeather]

Bill, No I dont where do I go for that? I dont mind building galleries I have a little proggy I use that does most of it for me even my color and links, so I dont mind!

No Advertising links now? Now I am really bummed, I only had one gallery on the hun when I submitted and it said it wasnt there, but it was!

[Ramster]

Bill, I also got my account yesterday.

You're right it doesn't say anything about the advertising link but I put it on there anyway to be safe. Don't want to lose an account I just got. LOL

[HornyHeather]

Shit, Nevermind on the Shemp account, I put in for one yesterday, I have been to so many tgps I forgot I did that one! LOL

[Bill]

Ramster, I took the chance and subbed a gallery without the advertising link, so if I post here saying "boohoo, I lost my account", you will know you did the right thing, ha ha!

I looked over their pages pretty closely, and decided if they wanted the link, they would say so, and they have definitely removed the pages discussing the ad links.

[Ramster]

Bill, where's the tgp with the thumbs?