New website - anyone care to critique it?

Factory settings do not equal the best setting. Remember, alot of it is personal preference.

Are you using an XP system or Mac?

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "Pam" :

]I hope it didn't seem to imply that I was saying you had a clunker - I just ]meant to say I was able to look on another monitor and see that it did look ]purple and not as nice as it does on the machine I made it on. The photos ]didn't look as good there either. :(

no - i knew that - honest! and on mine, your pictures are nice and sharp and clear. it's just the colors that are slightly off. - but only on the web graphic - not the jewelry!

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

it's XP and I'm still getting used to it. Maybe things are a bit lighter on this machine after all.... I'll look for gamma settings too then. Thanks for the tip :)

Go into Start|Settings and you should have a folder called Adobe Gamma. Select the Wizard and see if that helps.

I love it!! Being on a very slow dial up it loaded pretty quick.

and my new graphics program ROCKS (Photoshop Elements 2.0 - about $120) s

I have this too - and am having problems with SCANS being slightly grey or hazy cast.... you having that problem? I'l wondering if I need to switch my background.....

Cheryl last semester of lawschool! yipee! DRAGON BEADS Flameworked beads and glass

Thank you - these instructions worked perfectly... now if I can only figure out how to change the color of the drop shadow! There are lots of cool effects in that drop down menu - this tool is really great :)

oh good news - thank you!

Sorry, have not scanned anything - I have a digital camer instead.

You can - I did it once. Let me see if I can repeat it.

Well, I like nerds, so.... :) I should like nerds - I am married to one. I think I am one as well.

I really, really like it... it's simple, clean, extremely professional (your Web design experience shows) and showcases your work. I think your "About Me" has exactly the right balance of personal get-to-know-ya and resume brag sheet.

I don't think the photos are too big, but I do have cable. My complain with most web sites is that the "close-up" pics are usually too small, and I can't see the detail I want in order to decide whether to spend my hard-earned dollars.

Nice work! I'm looking forward to seeing more of your beads.

-Kalera

Pam wrote:

Picture sizes can be far to big. The ones on this website load quickly but on a dial up connection I have seen eBay pages with one picture that take over 10 minutes to load. It's much better to put a small picture on a website linking to a big version of the same, rather than a huge picture on the page with lots of others. This website is really speedy for me which is great but I find many US sites (especially shopping ones) take ages.

Charlie.

Personally, I like it the way it is. Drop shadows can make things look over complicated and hard to read - especially on a thin font like Papyrus.

Charlie.

but that's my FAVORITE, that periwinkly color. All shades of it--I love it. And your site looks very good in it!

here's one thing I would change and why...and its just a grammatical editing thing. I would take out a couple of commas and the word "me" to keep the focus of this sentence smooth. You don't want people to STOP in the middle to point at you; they are supposed to be paying attention to the artist all along and you don't want to interupt that train of thought. The other aspect is that people get more immediate respect when they are not talking about *themselves*, so 3rd person publicity is often the way to go. . Also, you don't absolutely need to repeat the word jewelry twice, so I took it out for this comparison. Anyway--see how it reads to you this way-- ( the original quote's at the bottom)

"Discover the beautifully handcrafted jewelry and bead art at The Blue Between, created by designer and lampwork glass artist Pam Brisse."

instead of: Discover the beautifully handcrafted jewelry and bead art at The Blue Between, created by, me, jewelry designer and lampwork glass artist, Pam Brisse. Sarajane

Sarajane's Polymer Clay Gallery

Me too! I definitely am one, and so's DH.

-Kalera

Kandice Seeber wrote:

I LOVE the color you used and the photos are great. Small photos of jewelry ads drive me batty; yours are nice and clear. Very nice work!

Best, Deborah

Hi Sarajane - thank you for your comments. I'm so confused. I HAD it the way you suggested for several months. Thought it was perfect. But when it came time to write my "About the Artist" I kept getting stuck in the 3rd person - it felt kind of creepy writing about myself that way. So I asked on wetcanvas about voice and everysingle one of them said to do it in first person - otherwise it would look like I was full of myself or worse yet lying.

So... can I have 3rd person on one page and 1st person on another?

Thanks for the color comments too - I'm going to leave it for awhile as I don't have the energy to do it all over again anyway. If I don't get too many snarky comments about it not being "blue", I may just leave it that color all together ;) After all, the sky does come in many shades of blue....

Pam

Oh thank you Kalera :) I am really happy that my photos are coming out nice - I do have a really nice digital, but was never really happy with the photos - I guess it was my old computer that was messing them up.

I too can't wait to see more of my beads ;) I have a 3 year old so finding the time to go out there without interuptions has really been a challenge. Now that this site is off my back though... one less thing to worry about, I hope.

Thanks again :) Pam