This was a great read, I to find Substack a bit challenging in navigating certain features. Currently I'm trying to figure out how to get the TTS play button on the right hand side, but I can't find anywhere detailing how to get this. Just to say, bit frustrating
Thanks! Hope it helps (a bit). The TTS play button? You mean when you have an audio version of your posts? I never used that feature, so I can't help you with that.
Thanks for getting back to me! That’s interesting to hear because the TTS feature is actually enabled on this post, maybe it’s something that gets added automatically?
Regardless, what you’ve written was really helpful. In the few days I’ve been on this platform, I’ve really enjoyed discovering posts that are insightful and engaging
How does this TTS feature work? I really have no idea 😂 It sure is not something I set up deliberately. Anyway, good to hear you enjoy your stay here at Substack, it sure is a nice online place to be (not something you can say often these days)
When I stumbled upon Substack last week, my initial impression was that it was a bit robust and overwhelming too! This was a GREAT crash course so thank you for writing this!
Thanks Ronald, a useful reminder. I found a really good YouTube video when I was first starting out explaining, line by line, what to think about before you start a publication and then how to do it. I’m not sure I’d have managed otherwise.
One thing I’d note is that draft posts have a habit of disappearing. My first post took me several days to get to the point where I was about to press send. Then it vanished. The chatbot was very polite, assured me someone would look into it, and I never heard a thing. So now I type everything up on Word, and paste it in when I’m nearly ready.
Haha, thank you very much, really appreciate it :) Well, I can't stop you from (right-click > save image as). But I'm also curious how the second one (the very minimalistic photo) would look like on paper).
I wouldn’t of course, but the choice of paper would be crucial. White snow is never actually white, and papers can be all shades of white too, so a bit of experimentation would be needed. I’m thinking Fotospeed NST Bright White would work as long as you had a good border around it.
Thanks for your insight. Printing is still a pretty much uncharted territory (apart from printing occasionally at a third party printing company), but it is something I want to do more in the future (so any insight/experience is appreciated)
If you still have the link to that Youtube video, feel free to share it here. Luckily I never experienced disappearing drafts, but I am thinking of making a more regular backups elsewhere ("offline"), even for my drafts. I'm also not sure how to properly backup "The Photography Community On Substack"-list/page/post. I now have multiple copies of that post as drafts, just in case.
Thanks so much for creating this - I find this platform to be potentially very powerful and useful, but very poorly designed. I recently retired after over 30 years as an app developer, and my rule for interface design was if you need to explain an interface to the user, you've done a poor job designing it. My big complaint is that the mobile app is so different from the website and doesn't allow me to manage my publication at all. Or at least I couldn't figure out how to do that through the mobile interface...
Hi Ken, thanks for your insights. And yes, that rule is Rule #1 in interface design. Somebody remind Substack maybe? ;-) Like I said in my post, I don't use the app (companies want you to use apps for everything these days), but it seems I'm not missing out.
A nice overview Ronald. I changed a few settings as a result of this article so thank you. I never noticed the categories scroller across the top of the Substack Homepage at https://substack.com/home? because I hardly ever go there. I mainly use a bookmark to my publication to get to Substack. I tend to use my Notes tab on my publication page (created as you have shown) to view Notes. Looking at the scroller at the top of the Substack Homepage, I notice a Photography category in the list and it leads to https://substack.com/home/category/76747 - I wonder what you have to do to get included in that list? Think I'll bookmark that category anyways.
You're welcome John! Well, I was aware that there is a - sort of quasi-hidden- Photography category, but in my view / on my substack account I don't see that Photography category in that top scroller/list! I think it's only available for selected users maybe? 🤔 But if you can see a Photography category, can you also set it in your Publications' Settings page? Otherwise, what parameters does Substack use to determine if a post should be linked to the Photography category?
No, I still can't select Photography in Settings and like you, I've chosen Art & Illustration.
Parameters? Well looking at what shows up in https://substack.com/home/category/76747 it seems using Photo, Photographer, Photography or Camera in your post headline or subhead seems to get you in. Most seem to get on the list by having it in their subheads. Looking at the few that don't have either, they seem to be sprinkled throughout with these words.
Thanks, Ronald! This article was very useful. I will change some settings directly in my account. Another thing that still confuses me is the difference between a follower and a subscriber (when I receive a new post in the app and not by email)….
Thank you Leon! I don't use the app, so I can't help you with that. AFAIK a follower just follows your personal (user) profile, not your publication. And thank you for your compliments on my photo's!
Thanks Ronald - I have had to work out a lot and now you’ve helped with a lot more. I always wondered what category to select and then how photography pages still get bundled together. It’s s journey! And nice photographs too.
Ha yeah, it's quite weird that there is a sort-of-hidden photography category feed, but Substack doesn't want to actually incorporate it in the menus/selections. Ah well, it's a journey yes :) Thanks for your comment!
Thank you Ronald. I was thinking I was the only one who was finding navigating through substack confusing. Your post was able to help me understand several things better & learn a few new things. Thank you again for that. I also find your winter images peaceful. -Bryan
Don't worry, I'm sometimes (still) just as confused as anyone else 🤣 Glad my post makes sense and thank you very much for your kind words on my photos!
This is such a helpful article Ronald - thank you...and that is a lovely set of winter images, I find the second one quite mesmerising!
Substack for new users is a bit of a maze but I've got used to a lot of it now. I'm glad you mentioned uploading photos though...I've been wondering whether I should be optimising any I upload using TinyJpeg...I did try asking the chatbot and it said that Substack does this automatically, yet they seem to come up so large. I wondered if you do this or is that what digiKam does?
Hi Lin, thank you for your comment. The second one is indeed one that maybe raises more questions than it answers (something I quite like in photography). It's a whole lot of nothingness :)
Btw, I'm sure Substack does "optimize" images (as in: scale them to whatever is required to show in browsers, the app etc), but I simply don't want them to do that for me. I want to keep some sort of control over what happens to my files. So I will never upload (full size) high resolution files, unless absolutely necessary (say I want an online service to be able to print them for me, then obviously I have to).
TinyJPG can optimize your files, but then you have to upload your full size files to that website (assuming you mean https://tinyjpg.com?). Are you sure they are going to delete the original after you've done? That's why I opt for a simple "offline" program. digiKam can do this too but this is more of a "photo manager". Irfanview can resize images (https://www.irfanview.com), or Converseen (https://converseen.fasterland.net).
Thanks for the recommendations Ronald - I hadn't thought about TinyJpeg holding onto files, what you say makes sense. I like the look of both of those programs for resizing so I'll give each of them a try.
Yeah give it a go! I use digiKam mainly for "photo management" (of my final, edited, published work) but also to resize them. But I think Irfanview might be a bit easier. Converseen I did not use before, but looks the easiest?
This is helpful and appreciated. Thanks for posting. Maybe I missed it in your post but one thing I can't wrap my head around is the "Notes". By that, I mean why do our publications have a note tab but any note we publish only appears on our personal page? The Note tab on our publications shows that our publication "hasn't published any notes yet". Seems odd to have a Notes tab on our publication if we can't publish directly to it.
Hmm .. it's odd that your Notes-posts don't show up on the Notes-tab. On the settings page of your Publication, under "Privacy" do you have "Allow cross-posting" enabled? And I guess under "Notes", "Enable notes tab" is enabled, right? Other than that I have no idea (again, I'm often just as confused as anyone else ;-) Thank you for your kind words!
Just glad it was that simple :-) Not that makes sense that you can add a Notes tab link to the menu bar, but have this setting turned off so that you don't see your notes 🤦♂️
This was a great read, I to find Substack a bit challenging in navigating certain features. Currently I'm trying to figure out how to get the TTS play button on the right hand side, but I can't find anywhere detailing how to get this. Just to say, bit frustrating
Thanks! Hope it helps (a bit). The TTS play button? You mean when you have an audio version of your posts? I never used that feature, so I can't help you with that.
Thanks for getting back to me! That’s interesting to hear because the TTS feature is actually enabled on this post, maybe it’s something that gets added automatically?
Regardless, what you’ve written was really helpful. In the few days I’ve been on this platform, I’ve really enjoyed discovering posts that are insightful and engaging
How does this TTS feature work? I really have no idea 😂 It sure is not something I set up deliberately. Anyway, good to hear you enjoy your stay here at Substack, it sure is a nice online place to be (not something you can say often these days)
When I stumbled upon Substack last week, my initial impression was that it was a bit robust and overwhelming too! This was a GREAT crash course so thank you for writing this!
Awesome, happy to hear it's useful! If you still have questions, just post a reply ;-))
Thanks Ronald, a useful reminder. I found a really good YouTube video when I was first starting out explaining, line by line, what to think about before you start a publication and then how to do it. I’m not sure I’d have managed otherwise.
One thing I’d note is that draft posts have a habit of disappearing. My first post took me several days to get to the point where I was about to press send. Then it vanished. The chatbot was very polite, assured me someone would look into it, and I never heard a thing. So now I type everything up on Word, and paste it in when I’m nearly ready.
Btw those photos are really nice, the 2nd and 7th ones especially. I’d steal those and put them on my wall 😂
Haha, thank you very much, really appreciate it :) Well, I can't stop you from (right-click > save image as). But I'm also curious how the second one (the very minimalistic photo) would look like on paper).
I wouldn’t of course, but the choice of paper would be crucial. White snow is never actually white, and papers can be all shades of white too, so a bit of experimentation would be needed. I’m thinking Fotospeed NST Bright White would work as long as you had a good border around it.
Thanks for your insight. Printing is still a pretty much uncharted territory (apart from printing occasionally at a third party printing company), but it is something I want to do more in the future (so any insight/experience is appreciated)
If you still have the link to that Youtube video, feel free to share it here. Luckily I never experienced disappearing drafts, but I am thinking of making a more regular backups elsewhere ("offline"), even for my drafts. I'm also not sure how to properly backup "The Photography Community On Substack"-list/page/post. I now have multiple copies of that post as drafts, just in case.
I’m away from home this week but I’ll look when I get back. Remind me if I forget!
Yeah ... but who reminds me? ;-)
Thanks so much for creating this - I find this platform to be potentially very powerful and useful, but very poorly designed. I recently retired after over 30 years as an app developer, and my rule for interface design was if you need to explain an interface to the user, you've done a poor job designing it. My big complaint is that the mobile app is so different from the website and doesn't allow me to manage my publication at all. Or at least I couldn't figure out how to do that through the mobile interface...
Hi Ken, thanks for your insights. And yes, that rule is Rule #1 in interface design. Somebody remind Substack maybe? ;-) Like I said in my post, I don't use the app (companies want you to use apps for everything these days), but it seems I'm not missing out.
A nice overview Ronald. I changed a few settings as a result of this article so thank you. I never noticed the categories scroller across the top of the Substack Homepage at https://substack.com/home? because I hardly ever go there. I mainly use a bookmark to my publication to get to Substack. I tend to use my Notes tab on my publication page (created as you have shown) to view Notes. Looking at the scroller at the top of the Substack Homepage, I notice a Photography category in the list and it leads to https://substack.com/home/category/76747 - I wonder what you have to do to get included in that list? Think I'll bookmark that category anyways.
You're welcome John! Well, I was aware that there is a - sort of quasi-hidden- Photography category, but in my view / on my substack account I don't see that Photography category in that top scroller/list! I think it's only available for selected users maybe? 🤔 But if you can see a Photography category, can you also set it in your Publications' Settings page? Otherwise, what parameters does Substack use to determine if a post should be linked to the Photography category?
No, I still can't select Photography in Settings and like you, I've chosen Art & Illustration.
Parameters? Well looking at what shows up in https://substack.com/home/category/76747 it seems using Photo, Photographer, Photography or Camera in your post headline or subhead seems to get you in. Most seem to get on the list by having it in their subheads. Looking at the few that don't have either, they seem to be sprinkled throughout with these words.
Yeah I assume they just scan the posts for words like "photo" etc. and have this collated into a feed.
Useful and reassuring.
Thanks! :)
Thanks, Ronald! This article was very useful. I will change some settings directly in my account. Another thing that still confuses me is the difference between a follower and a subscriber (when I receive a new post in the app and not by email)….
Compliments on your winter photos—I like them! 👌
Thank you Leon! I don't use the app, so I can't help you with that. AFAIK a follower just follows your personal (user) profile, not your publication. And thank you for your compliments on my photo's!
Thank you so much for this, Ronald!
You're welcome Hans :)
Thanks Ronald - I have had to work out a lot and now you’ve helped with a lot more. I always wondered what category to select and then how photography pages still get bundled together. It’s s journey! And nice photographs too.
Ha yeah, it's quite weird that there is a sort-of-hidden photography category feed, but Substack doesn't want to actually incorporate it in the menus/selections. Ah well, it's a journey yes :) Thanks for your comment!
Thank you Ronald. I was thinking I was the only one who was finding navigating through substack confusing. Your post was able to help me understand several things better & learn a few new things. Thank you again for that. I also find your winter images peaceful. -Bryan
Don't worry, I'm sometimes (still) just as confused as anyone else 🤣 Glad my post makes sense and thank you very much for your kind words on my photos!
This is such a helpful article Ronald - thank you...and that is a lovely set of winter images, I find the second one quite mesmerising!
Substack for new users is a bit of a maze but I've got used to a lot of it now. I'm glad you mentioned uploading photos though...I've been wondering whether I should be optimising any I upload using TinyJpeg...I did try asking the chatbot and it said that Substack does this automatically, yet they seem to come up so large. I wondered if you do this or is that what digiKam does?
Hi Lin, thank you for your comment. The second one is indeed one that maybe raises more questions than it answers (something I quite like in photography). It's a whole lot of nothingness :)
Btw, I'm sure Substack does "optimize" images (as in: scale them to whatever is required to show in browsers, the app etc), but I simply don't want them to do that for me. I want to keep some sort of control over what happens to my files. So I will never upload (full size) high resolution files, unless absolutely necessary (say I want an online service to be able to print them for me, then obviously I have to).
TinyJPG can optimize your files, but then you have to upload your full size files to that website (assuming you mean https://tinyjpg.com?). Are you sure they are going to delete the original after you've done? That's why I opt for a simple "offline" program. digiKam can do this too but this is more of a "photo manager". Irfanview can resize images (https://www.irfanview.com), or Converseen (https://converseen.fasterland.net).
Thanks for the recommendations Ronald - I hadn't thought about TinyJpeg holding onto files, what you say makes sense. I like the look of both of those programs for resizing so I'll give each of them a try.
Yeah give it a go! I use digiKam mainly for "photo management" (of my final, edited, published work) but also to resize them. But I think Irfanview might be a bit easier. Converseen I did not use before, but looks the easiest?
Thanks for the info! I'm trying out this Substack thing.
You're welcome, I'm sure you'll get there :)
Thanks that helped a lot!
You're welcome!
What a great post! I will surely play around with the settings. I didn’t know you could block videos etc. Will do that right away!
Auto play videos annoys the crap out of me. Such settings should be off by default :)
This is helpful and appreciated. Thanks for posting. Maybe I missed it in your post but one thing I can't wrap my head around is the "Notes". By that, I mean why do our publications have a note tab but any note we publish only appears on our personal page? The Note tab on our publications shows that our publication "hasn't published any notes yet". Seems odd to have a Notes tab on our publication if we can't publish directly to it.
Hmm .. it's odd that your Notes-posts don't show up on the Notes-tab. On the settings page of your Publication, under "Privacy" do you have "Allow cross-posting" enabled? And I guess under "Notes", "Enable notes tab" is enabled, right? Other than that I have no idea (again, I'm often just as confused as anyone else ;-) Thank you for your kind words!
You beauty! It was the bloody “Enable notes tab” that was turned off. Cheers for that Ronald. I can’t believe I didn’t notice that.
Just glad it was that simple :-) Not that makes sense that you can add a Notes tab link to the menu bar, but have this setting turned off so that you don't see your notes 🤦♂️
It was partially my partner Lucy Lumen she made a a few YouTube videos about Substack for photography also an article in digital photography magazine.
Ah okay, cool :) Good to know!