Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi everyone;
Need opinions on my web-site, www.coveysacoustic.com.
I attempted this on my own, after getting a little feed-back on it here.
I am still having issues with my photo quality, but take a look and hit me again with what you think.
The photos were much clearer before they were published, I think it's partly the host. (mostly me though).

If I get a lot of negative votes, I will just go to a pro.

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Nehemiah Covey
www.coveysacoustics.com

Nehemiah your link doesn't work in the post. But I went to your site from the link in your signature. Looking now.

OK, nice revisions on your site. The pictures are pretty bad though (sorry)

I would also loose the italics and bold in your "guitars" section. Might also want to think of adding a bit more space between each of the models or a separate page for each.

One thing that's a bit distracting is going from one page to another, there is to much change in style/color between them for me.

Other than that it's a nice looking site. Simple and to the point.

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My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Thanks Rod;

Don't be sorry, I will address the issues you pointed out. I'm just glad to hear some opinions.
I don't have any of the instruments currently on the site, so my next batch will have to make up for the bad photos. i even had a friend photo-shop them for me to enhance the resolution, didn't seem to work.
I've got 3 that should be ready for pics soon, so I'll just have to live with these for now.
Took me 12 hours to attempt this "up-grade"????
Best quote I've gotten so far from a pro was $1300

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Nehemiah Covey
www.coveysacoustics.com

I totally suck at website stuff. Honestly I don't even know where to start. I traded a guitar to a friend who is a graphic artist (he paid the materials) to make and manage my website and all other graphics. To me it was well worth my labor for the trade. Might be something to consider or not.

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My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

The trick to getting photos to look good on a website (actually, on people's browsers) is to make sure that they are stored as 72dpi and are resampled to final size in the files that you link to on your web server. If they are stored as higher resolution (e.g. 600dpi) and/or larger than final size, then the viewer's browser will ruin them when it tries to resize them. It looks like your photos are all too low resolution though - not even 72dpi - what makes you think your web hosting service is to blame?

I see that you used "Homestead Sitebuilder" to generate the web code. I don't know anything about this code. Is it WYSIWYG? I've used many different s/w packages to generate websites in the past, but have stuck with the same one now for the past few years since it just works great and is very easy to use. I use Web Page Maker. There's a freebie version, and the full (no adverts) version is only $49 - well worth it IMO.

HTH,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

Looks like a pretty good starting point. I like the contrast of the top row of pics vs the rest of the home page. Maybe make them a little bigger and more of a glamor shot kind of feel. All the same background (preferably not taken in a busy shop), lots of pretty close-ups demonstrating your talent in general and not any specific model that you make. Everybody likes rosettes, backstrips, bridges and pretty wood, show some close-ups and make them "clickable" if possible. I agree with Rod about making your pages more uniform in appearance, but this one is much easier on the eyes than your old site. Lastly, I think the meet the builder picture is a little, uh, creepy. I know you mean it to be artistic, but I would put up a normal picture or none at all. If you really like that picture, use it somewhere, but I personally feel it's like shaking hands with someone who refuses to look you in the eye - if that makes any sense.

All around thumbs up.

Thanks everyone for being straight forward and honest.
It isn't easy to make your own site, but I thought I'd try. Part of it is asking for opinions before it has had a chance to be veiwed by the masses.
The "meet the builder" pic is a water color portrait from my wife, I guess I should have added that. Noted for future reference.
I'll try to make adjustments one more time, after that , I guess it's out with the old and out with the checkbook.

-- nehemiah c.

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Nehemiah Covey
www.coveysacoustics.com

I like your website. The only thing I would suggest is that you very carefully examine all of the writing. There are numerous punctuation and grammatical errors. It's just a pet peeve of mine, but I think web-sites come across as much more professional when the language is correct. Other than that, I'd say your site is very good.

That's a very nice painting. I thought it was just something done with photoshop. In that case, I'd keep it and I'd certainly give credit to the artist.

Well, I did use spell check before I posted any pages, so wording should be spelled right. Other than that I probably didn't punctuate correctly or double check that. Grammatically though, I am from the south, I just dint learnt gooder.
Thanks Banjo, I'll look into it.

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Nehemiah Covey
www.coveysacoustics.com

Hi Dave;

I will check to see the dpi info on my photos, not really sure what they have been saved as.
A friend of mine went thru them all and used his software to enhance and they looked much better up until I published them, what makes me think it's the host (homestead) is the pics on the left side of any page are blurrier than the right side, but I could be mistaken.
Again, thanks and I'll look into it more thoroughly.
--Nehemiah

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Nehemiah Covey
www.coveysacoustics.com

Hi Dave;

I will check to see the dpi info on my photos, not really sure what they have been saved as.
A friend of mine went thru them all and used his software to enhance and they looked much better up until I published them, what makes me think it's the host (homestead) is the pics on the left side of any page are blurrier than the right side, but I could be mistaken.
Again, thanks and I'll look into it more thoroughly.
--Nehemiah

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Nehemiah Covey
www.coveysacoustics.com

I agree with most everything above. Even though your wife painted the picture it just doesn't fit with the rest of your site and looks out of place. I noticed a couple of errors in the text as well. On that subject, I recommend that you not use the centered formatting or the italics. Those are fine as headings but when used in the body of the copy it makes it hard to read. I would not use white type over a black background for the same reason. You want to make your site as simple to read as possible.

Your site has come a long way. Good design looks easy, but it is quite difficult to accomplish.

George :-)

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George :-)