When browsing the gallery thumbnails? Are it special characters, styles, colors, more males or females...? Do you like to see little or much of the image in the thumb? I think I most often go for thumbs that show enough of the image to know what it's about and they should have good contrasts and light. If the thumb shows only a tiny fraction of the image or is all dark or otherwise undefined, it's likely that I don't click. Also I notice a slight preference for not overlooking images featuring males.

Message edited on: 08/08/2004 10:11

If the logo, or sig on the thumb covers up more than half the image, forget it. There are too many thumbs that are like clicking on a brick, and finding a castle underneath. Oh, and a castle that's sitting two inches off the ground that doesn't cast shadows and that's been blurred to death.

Well, yes, I would have skipped that one, Xantor, but I would have clicked on "The Boy". I think a thumb should give the viewer a certain hint what might await him. It seems that extreme cropping and even thumbs with no information about the image at all are a specialty of Poser galleries. In the photo gallery you see most often thumbs that are miniatures of the whole photo. So the viewer can quickly decide if it's worth clicking on the thumb.

Bekaval, with my picture, a thumbnail of the character would have spoiled the surprise.

I enjoy making interesting thumbnails. Sometimes I zoom in on a really close part of the image, sometimes I am zoomed almost all the way out. But I like finding the "sweet spot" in my image that I feel justifies the rest of the thing. What makes me click? It's easier for me to say what makes me NOT click. I generally avoid giant chrome logos. Blank stares. Lips that could suck the paintjob off a new Ferrari. Don't get me wrong, Angelina Jolie has a nice mouth, but I've seen some V3s with lips that rival California in sheer land mass. JPEG artifacts. Insanely large breasts. Most toony things don't really float my boat (though I do have a GIRL render in mind, and have looked at several GIRL pieces since she was released). Hmm. What makes me click. I like dark, moody images, with good contrast. (An image can be dark but still contain a full range of tonal values.) I like thumbnails that show care with cropping and presentation. I don't mind if you show only part of an image or the whole thing, as long as the choice accurately represents what's on the other side. I dislike those joke thumbs that show a giant breast shot and you open it up to find Untextured Don floating in mid-air. That sort of thing. :)