New circle mask on directory photos

I see someone at the church decided to tweak the directory photos. Now all our photos have a circle mask applied to them. I also see this change has distorted the heads of several people so we have a ward with several alien beings now who have exploding or smashed heads.

Yes, it looks very bad. Obviously they are not only using a circle mask but also transforming the image.

I also noticed that the circle version is used inconsistently. For example, if you click on a circle in the Leadership section it shows the original normal picture in full size. But if you click from the household view it shows the distorted circle in full size.

I'm going to submit feedback that they should ditch the circles. I see no advantage of having them. And if they do keep them, they need to make sure it's a pure mask and not a transformation.

As noted in another post in the LCR forum, this change may be responsible for the absence of the Email function....

I also see distortion with the Circle mask for the photos that I can see. I am missing MOST of a 3500 person Stake. If I reload my own Ward, I can see each photo that
I re-upload, BUT that is 450-500 people. OH PAIN!

I have the same picture for household and individual. They circled my individual picture but not my household picture. The individual picture looks so ridiculous that I will probably need to take it down until they resolve the problem. If they circle my household picture with the same result, I will also need to take it down.

I sure hope someone fixes this soon. It's hard enough to get some of the sisters to put up their photos. Now some of them look terrible, overweight, distorted, etc. It could hurt self esteem, etc. Even some people in pictures that weren't distorted now have their heads cut off with the circle thing. I submitted feedback, but haven't heard anything yet.

Amen to the Sisters problem! Let's not go live with a radical departure from the good old system that was working. This needs expert attention NOW. Thanks

Wayne, you are right. They did an upgrade but it has problems that they are working to fix. They didn't give an estimated time to resolution. (From a foirmer employee)
OUCH!!!

mevans wrote:I submitted feedback, but haven't heard anything yet.

I did. Yes, they are taking a look at this problem. Yes, you should be able to reupload to fix.

I uploaded my picture again a few minutes ago, approved it, and it no longer displays with the distorted circle.

I got feedback that it wasn't supposed to distort the photo. They're checking into that. However, I think the circle frame makes certain assumptions about the photo that may not be valid unless all the individual photos are mug shots.

I've looked at several ward member photos and I don't think I've found a problem with any pictures I've taken and uploaded. But, when I take a picture, I try to crop it to somewhat of a consistent head size and also crop it to a square, so I think that's why the circle mask works on those. I think several of the distorted photos were a rectangle in portrait mode. I agree with russellhltn that the circle makes certain assumptions. I've definitely seen people with their heads cut off by the circle mask.

Yippee. Circle Masks are gone. Pictures Back. Look OK. Thanks!

Thanks to those who put in the extra time to get this fixed now. I wasn't expecting a fix until next week.

They must have done a roll-back, because the email options returned. I doubt if things will stay this way.

WWS36 wrote:Wayne, you are right. They did an upgrade but it has problems that they are working to fix. They didn't give an estimated time to resolution. (From a foirmer employee)
OUCH!!!

From a former employee – is the "former" anything to do with the circle problem?

You can get to the circle directory here:
https://www.lds.org/betadirectory/
Note: I'm not sure if the beta directory saves changes to the current directory, so continue to use the current directory.

Regarding re-uploading, from what I understand, the new directory (along with the update to LDS Tools) will have a new image service that will allow higher-quality images. So if you have originals, you will probably want to re-upload when the new directory is fixed and released again.

The updated directory seems to have been released again today or yesterday, with circle photos for individuals (keeping the rectangles for household photos).

Yup. Seems like they've fixed the problem where it was distorting the photo.

I'm still not sure why it was done. Perhaps to nudge people into understanding the difference between "individual" and "family" and framing the shot accordingly.

But I'm still missing Photos. So do you suppose they will send out any guidance or Status???

I hope they'll let us know when they've finished transferring the old photos over, so we can know that if we upload new photos they won't be overwritten – since they're switching to a new photo service.

At least the photo distortion problem is gone, but I was really hoping the circles would disappear and never come back. I still have several heads cut off due to the circle mask. The problem is the worst on people who had photos with a portrait orientation instead of a landscape orientation. Typically, the head isn't centered in this orientation. Some of these are people who uploaded professionally-taken work photos that looked great and now their heads are cut off.

In several circumstances, I've taken and uploaded the photos and I try to crop them to a square when I do this. Those come out okay with the circle mask, but that's certainly not everyone. Can't they just leave this alone? I see no absolutely no benefit to the circle mask.

I also have some photos uploaded recently that have revered to a previous photo. One newly-baptized family doesn't even show the address. It just shows their names and spins forever trying to upload their address, phone, email, pictures, etc. I don't know if that's because I had uploaded their photos recently, too, or if it's an unrelated problem, but it's not good that ward members can't see their contact info now.

I just checked LCR for the family I mentioned previously that does not appear in the Directory. They show up in LCR with their photos there. I don't know why the directory is hung up on them.

The circle thing often misses the face in the photo so that you get 2/3 of a face or it is so zoomed it is pixelated (source was probably poor). If a face in a photo is off-center (which many photographers intentionally do for aesthetic reasons), the circle misses. I can't find any way to edit the alignment after the fact to find the face (especially when the member uploaded the photo themselves I don't have the source).

On a personal note, I think the circle looks silly.

If the photo is uploaded again, when the clerk approves the photo they can position the circle.

CrockettDR wrote:If the photo is uploaded again, when the clerk approves the photo they can position the circle.

It's hard enough to get them to upload it the first time.... I'm not going to spend time trying to get them to upload again so I can fix the circles. I'd rather spend my time on those that don't have a photo.

Newly uploaded photos are also able to be higher resolution than were previously supported.

sbradshaw wrote:Newly uploaded photos are also able to be higher resolution than were previously supported.

This is great news! (Now if they would just get rid of the circles.)

chriswoodut wrote:This is great news! (Now if they would just get rid of the circles.)

Nothing like a good game of peek-a-boo to liven up the directory search, is there?

CrockettDR wrote:If the photo is uploaded again, when the clerk approves the photo they can position the circle.

The can, but will they? It would be better to allow the person uploading the photo to position the mask. That way it would get done. This would avoid he frustration by members who will upload a photo only to have the administrator who approves the photo do nothing to reposition the mask and only approve the photo with the mask cutting off the top of the subject's head once again.

An even better option would be to permit the mask repositioning at any time after the photo has been uploaded by either an administrator or authorized household member with edit permissions.

jdlessley wrote:

CrockettDR wrote:If the photo is uploaded again, when the clerk approves the photo they can position the circle.

They can, but will they?

Yes. I've approved a few since the change and I was presented with a mask adjustment before finalizing the approval. I really don't want people's heads cut off.

jdlessley wrote:It would be better to allow the person uploading the photo to position the mask. That way it would get done.
<snip>
An even better option would be to permit the mask repositioning at any time after the photo has been uploaded by either an administrator or authorized household member with edit permissions.

Good ideas. Feedback time?

If the circle mask will remain forced upon us, I agree that we need the option to reposition the circle. I'm not about to download a bunch of ward member photos from LCR just so I can re-upload them and crop them.

But I'd still prefer to see the circle mask go away entirely.

mevans wrote:If the circle mask will remain forced upon us, I agree that we need the option to reposition the circle. I'm not about to download a bunch of ward member photos from LCR just so I can re-upload them and crop them.

But I'd still prefer to see the circle mask go away entirely.

Downloading and uploading again will also degrade quality... I just got a message from our stake clerk with the following info:

Brethren, I have learned that since the upgrade to LDS.Tools several of of our ward members's pictures have dropped off LDS tools. I called head quarters and leaned that the sync feature with LDS.org is not working properly. I found that the best way to get the picture back is to upload it in "tools" A person can call up their name and click on their picture then they can click on Edit in the upper right corner and a menu comes up that so they can upload their pictures.
It is really nice to have pictures of everyone so please encourage ward members to up load their pictures.
Hopefully this helps. Thanks brethren for all you do to keep things running smoothly in our wards.

I'm surprised to see as many bugs as there are when the release process is relatively slow. Now, that's my impression, I don't know if it is really slow or not. I'm making that comment based on the 1 yr it took to address the image quality problem. If the release process is quick like the "release early, release often" software development philosophy, then having some bugs pop up isn't a big deal because you know they'll get quickly addressed.

It was hard to test photo uploading during the beta period because the change involved a switch to a new photo service that didn't communicate with the old one. If you uploaded a photo with the beta version of the site or app, it wouldn't show up in the released version and would have been deleted at the end of the beta period – so not a lot of people uploaded photos during the beta. Then they had to time the scripts to copy all the old photos over to the new photo service at the same time the updated directory and the updated LDS Tools app were released, which is difficult to time perfectly – impossible when you consider the window of time while scripts are running and people are still updating their apps.

I'm surprised headquarters would recommend to have members re-upload their photos. In my experience, very few members upload their own photos. Our ward has many photos, and most of that is because I and a few others took pictures and uploaded them. If we waited for the members to upload them, we might only have 10 families in our ward with photos.

I'm also surprised that they would recommend that the members upload their photos again, as I thought we were told that the church was working on fixing the problems of missing photos. Does that mean they are no longer working on that problem? My unit did not experience any missing photos that I am aware of, but I know others mentioned the problem.

I agree with mevans. We REALLY need some help in the area of getting the members to take photos seriously. I think it is HIGH time that photos are required on Temple recommends. The Temple is probably the highest security place the church has. A photo is definitely needed there!

WWS36 wrote:We REALLY need some help in the area of getting the members to take photos seriously.

Some people don't want their photos on the website. And given the different privacy options for different countries, you probably can't force them.

russellhltn wrote:

WWS36 wrote:We REALLY need some help in the area of getting the members to take photos seriously.

Some people don't want their photos on the website. And given the different privacy options for different countries, you probably can't force them.

I don't think that's the main reason people don't do it. They have pictures all over facebook but can't be influenced to update their pictures in the directory. I think the new ability to take a photo from the LDS tools app and update it that way is a big step in making it as easy as possible for people to do it.

I keep thinking I should be able to get the youth to use their parents cell phone to walk around their house taking pictures of individual family members and update their family photos. For example, one of our counselors in the bishopric has no photos of his family. I asked and it isn't intentional -- they just haven't gotten around to it.

chriswoodut wrote:I keep thinking I should be able to get the youth to use their parents cell phone to walk around their house taking pictures of individual family members and update their family photos.

With a parent's permission, of course. Otherwise the child is busted and on probation for a month.

I agree with you that the usual reason is that members just haven't gotten around to doing it. But there are exceptions as pointed out by russellhltn.

When I ask if I can take photos of families and individuals, I've found a few people who clearly don't want their photos posted, and I ask them to forgive me if I forget their preference and I ask again later--they're usually pretty understanding. The best way I've found to get photos is with new move-ins or convert baptisms. For new move-ins, I make it part of getting their records. Usually people are pretty cooperative. With convert baptisms, I tell them about the church directory and that it's there to help them get to know others and others to know them.

Even when people can upload their own photos and you tell them they can do it from their phone, etc., it usually doesn't happen, despite the best of intentions. And sometimes when members do post their photos, I get photos that aren't too good, or they're wearing sunglasses and you can't see who they are, etc.

Funny thing is that some ward leaders who don't want their photos posted are pretty appreciative that I have the photos of others.

I will say we have quite a few photos. I would guess 60%-70% have photos. The challenge with youth is they outgrow their photos. Maybe I'll ask the exec secretary to take a new photo as they come in for annual birthday interviews.

I know it's a few months away and it has been suggested here previously, but I found tithing settlement to be an excellent time to get photos.

Does anyone put a 'logo' in the place of a photo, in case a member says, "I don't want a photo" or "I don't want any contact from the church"? I have used a couple of logos so that I don't 'bug' the members further. I have a member that called me down on that. Is it offensive? It just gives me a reminder not to continue efforts to put photos in for that member.

WWS36 wrote:I have used a couple of logos so that I don't 'bug' the members further. I have a member that called me down on that. Is it offensive?

It depends on what it/they say. I prefer to leave the mysterious shadow when there is not a photo.

If your logo says the member desires no contact, then it violates both policy and privacy guidelines.

If your logo says I don't want my picture posted, then it is at least tacky and at most insulting. On the other hand, if you put up a logo that says my employment does not allow the posting of my picture, then you have flagged the member almost as if you actually had posted a photo.

All of which is why I just leave it alone if there is not a photo available. I have found that those who do not desire a photo are very few in number, and I keep a short list elsewhere so that I do not bug them. In fact, I can remember most of them.

WWS36 wrote:Does anyone put a 'logo' in the place of a photo, in case a member says, "I don't want a photo" or "I don't want any contact from the church"? I have used a couple of logos so that I don't 'bug' the members further. I have a member that called me down on that. Is it offensive? It just gives me a reminder not to continue efforts to put photos in for that member.

We had a membership clerk that did this in a previous ward. He just used an alternate generic shadow photo so he could tell he tried and failed. It wasn't obvious to anyone else.

I wouldn't put it in first person ("I don't want"). Nobody likes to have words put in their mouth, even if the sentiment is accurate. Instead, a generic image that says simply "No Photo" or something like that is better. Even a solid gray square would work. Then communicate to anyone else who might add photos what to look for.

chriswoodut wrote:We had a membership clerk that did this in a previous ward. He just used an alternate generic shadow photo so he could tell he tried and failed. It wasn't obvious to anyone else.

I think that is an excellent idea.

lajackson wrote:

chriswoodut wrote:We had a membership clerk that did this in a previous ward. He just used an alternate generic shadow photo so he could tell he tried and failed. It wasn't obvious to anyone else.

I think that is an excellent idea.

Just make sure that other clerks or website administrators who might try to upload a photo are aware so they don't get confused.