tadaa - what's your view?

FAQ

My tadaa always says “This photo is too small” when I try to select something from my Camera Roll. Why?

In the last release, we changed the minimum size for photos to be posted on tadaa to be “bigger than 640×960 pixels”. That is the screensize of an iPhone 4 and we thought that would be a good minimum size. Another reason is that 98% of all stolen photos that get posted on tadaa (from wallpaper apps etc.) are of that size or smaller. Anyway, we understood that this is a problem and changed this rule back — the update is already in Apple’s Review Queue and should hit the App Store shortly.

I use Dropbox to put big JPG files into my Photo Library. I still get the “photo is too small” alert. What is wrong?

Unfortunately, the Dropbox iOS App is now scaling down any photo you are saving to your phone to something smaller than 640×960 pixels (the iPhone 4 display size). There is nothing we can do about that. We encourage you to sync Photos to your phone with iTunes or an App that does such things until Apple has approved our update.

tadaa no longer saves photos to my Photo Library! Help!

This is happening due to new Privacy Settings in iOS 6. It is easy to fix though:

• Open the Settings App
• Tap Privacy -> Photos
• Scroll to “tadaa” and enable the switch again.

This allows the App to write photos to your photo library again.

Liking is too complicated!

Did you now you can double-tap the + symbol to like?

How do I find my friends on tadaa?

That’s easy. Go to the People Tab and tap the “Find Friends” Button in top right. You can use facebook, twitter or your address book to tell us who you know. After a while, you will see recommended People in the “People you may know” List. The “Invite Friends” Button allows you easily to get your friends on tadaa.

How do I reply to a challenge?

That’s easy! Just open the challenge topic (the topmost photo in the Challenge Feed) and tap on the “+” at the bottom of the screen. Now tap on the little camera symbol to add a “Photo Reply”. This associates your photo with the challenge. After sending your photo, it might take a couple of minutes until it appears in the challenge feed.

How do the “Awesome” Feeds work?

We currently have six “Awesome Feeds”. They are a looking glass into the amazing world of tadaa and should help you to explore stunning photos by fantastic photographers. You can do a lot of pearl-diving here and find great people to follow! Let’s briefly describe them:

1. TRENDING – shows photos that recently got a lot of attention and thus are worth to get some more exposure
2. FEATURED – is a selection of photos and people we really really like. This set is pulled together by a team of freelance editors that have a great sense of finding out what is hot.
3. FILTERNAME – is featuring one of the tadaa filters every day. Photos taken with that filter in the past 24 hours automatically get in there. They are sorted by number of reactions received.
4. CHALLENGE – is there to inspire you. Our Challenge leaders Mike and Anne start a new challenge every 2-3 days. Follow the user “TadaaPhotoChallenge” if you want to get notified about new challenges as they open up — and send a photo reply if you want to join. There is nothing to win but fun and exposure. 🙂
5. 24H CHARTS – list the photos of the past 24 hours that got the most reactions and have a certain minimum size. This is not the place for front camera duckfaces. 🙂
6. NEW USERS – shows pictures of new tadaa users — those that don’t have many followers yet. This is a great place to explore and discover the most awesome photographers of tomorrow. If you find a gem here, repost it and make them famous!

What are these t points for?

At this point, they are like game credits, reflecting your activity on tadaa and how much people liked your contributions. Watch this space.

How can I configure Push Notifications?

There are three places to fine-tune Push Notifiaction Settings:

A: Inside tadaa, open the “Settings” Tab. You can chose what kind of Push Notifications you want to receive here. You can also enable and set “Quiet Hours”: During these, we will not send you anything that makes sound.

B: In your iPhone’s Settings App, go to “Notifications”, scroll down to “tadaa”. We recommend to leave “Badges” enabled, this will only keep the number on the tadaa App Icon updated.

C: You can also unsubscribe from a particular user’s Push Notifications, but still receive their photos in your Newsfeed. Just visit their Profile, tap the arrow box in top right and disable “Receive Pushes”.

Can I change my username?

Yes, you can! Just do so in the Settings Tab. However, you can only do this once per month, so decide carefully.

Help, I forgot my password!

No worries, that happens to the best of us. This is how you can reset it:

• Open tadaa
• Go to Settings Tab
• Tap “Log Out”
• Attempt to Login with your username and a WRONG password
• This reveals a “Reset Password” Button
• Tap that and you will get a link where you can change your password.

If you don’t receive the email, check your Spam Folder. If you still don’t find it, ping us on [email protected] and we will help you out.

What does Reposting mean?

If a photo gets reposted, it is inserted into the Newsfeed of all the followers the reposting person has. You should repost a photo to show it to your followers. When you get reposted, your photo will be seen by lots of new people that would otherwise have missed it.

If you repost a photo, it will be only shown to users that haven’t seen it in their feed in the past 1-2 weeks anyway. This avoids that photos are shown again and again.

Isn’t it violating my copyrights if someone reposts my photo?

No. The photo will always be displayed as yours — with your username, your caption and all the data you entered. All comments and likes go to you. The reposting users do not get any credit, they just helped you becoming more visible.

How can I delete a photo?

Open the Photo in full-screen and tap the arrow-box in bottom left. Select “Delete Photo”. It might take a few minutes until the photo is entirely removed from the system. Since you own your photos on tadaa, we do not keep a copy — make sure that you have your photo in your camera roll or a backup before deleting it. Gone is gone!

If you also uploaded your photo to facebook (optional), you have to delete it there as well. We unfortunately can not delete photos on facebook for you.

How can I delete a Repost?

Open the Photo you reposted in full-screen and tap the arrow-box in bottom left. Select “Delete Repost”. It might take a few minutes until the Repost is entirely removed from the system.

I saw a photo that made me wonder if it is appropriate for tadaa. What kind of content do you allow?

Check §4 of the tadaa Terms & Conditions. The minimum age for tadaa is 14 years. If in doubt, consider what a 14 year old person is allowed to see on TV, advertising or at the movies. That’s not a bad guideline.

I saw copyrighted material / porn / violence on tadaa. What can I do?

You can help us with filing an abuse report. That’s easy: Open the Photo in full-screen and tap the arrow-box in bottom left. Select “Report Abuse”. The reported photo will disappear from your feed and will be inserted into our content review system, which we review and check constantly to take appropriate action. Your abuse report is anonymous. We will contact the originator of that content, but never mention your name or identity.

What does the Smiley mean?

It means 🙂

It is used to be astonished, amazed, surprised, perplexed, stunned… all these emotions where “like” alone does not really fit. It is not a negative thing nor a “super like”. If you broke your leg and show of your cast, you don’t want to receive likes, do you?

Is there anything like Hashtags?

We do not have #hashtags in tadaa yet — since they are too often irrelevant and get abused for getting attention. Ideally browse around, follow people you like and comment on others to get followers — that makes the best experience! (This does not mean #hashtags won’t come to tadaa ever — we just want to do build them the right way from the beginning.)

Are you uploading my address book to your servers?

No! We don’t do such nasty things and never did. We only generate a “checksum” for each email address we find in your Contacts and send only that to our servers — and only if you asked for that. This checksum can not be traced back to the contact or email address it was generated from. It still allows us to suggest you people that you know. Kinda magic, isn’t it?

Can I set privacy options for my photos?

At this point, everything on tadaa is public. Similar to twitter, tadaa is a broadcasting service — those that “tune in” can receive your program. If you do not want a photo to be visible for the public, you should not post it on tadaa. We are considering tighter privacy rules for the future, though.

How do Photo Replies work?

On tadaa, you can reply to a photo or a text comment with another photo and so on. Just tap on the “+” next to the photo (or the comment). Now tap on the little camera symbol to add a “Photo Reply” and post a photo as usual.

What is that with Facebook? What does “Facebook Album” mean?

Tadaa gives you two options of sharing your photos on facebook. You can configure these in the Settings-Tab under “Share my posts”:

• “Facebook” means that you are sharing a link to your photo on your tadaa blog, the same as if you would post a link to that in a facebook status update.
• “Facebook Album” means that you are uploading your photo to facebook to an album called “tadaa”. This makes photos appear bigger in your facebook timeline and in your friend’s Newsfeeds. However, at this moment Facebook’s terms & conditions apply. Check §2.1 on https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms if in doubt.

Can I change the Location Information of my photos?

On tadaa, sharing the location of your photo is optional. Just before you post your photo, tadaa will determine your location (if allowed) and suggest a nearby venue. You can tap on that venue (marked with the green POI symbol) and select something else nearby. If you chose “Hide my Location”, your photo will be posted without location information.

Once your photo is posted, the associated location information can not be changed, but deleted. If you want to remove the Location information of a photo that is already posted, open it in full-screen, tap on the arrow box in bottom left and select “Remove Location”.

What does “Apply” mean when editing photos?

The “Apply” Button renders all the Editing you made (Contrast, Saturation, Claritym Tilt-Shift, Filter etc.) and lets you edited the result again (and again and again). Mixing filters and effects brings fantastic new effects. Try the “Lucy” Filter, Apply and add “Beast” — totally different results than either alone!

How can I crop or rotate my photos?

After taking or selecting your Photo, tap the Crop Button in top left. Here you can

1. zoom in and out with two fingers
2. Change the aspect ratio (buttons at the bottom)
3. Rotate free (use two fingers and rotate them)
4. Rotate in 90° steps (button in bottom left)
5. flip the aspect ratio (tap the buttons at the bottom twice)

Confirm your crop and rotation and you will continue with the made selection. Cool, eh?

Is tadaa really free?

Yes. Tadaa is free and has no hidden cost.

Can I @mention a user?

Not yet — this is on our to-do list, though.

Is there an iPad version of tadaa?

Not yet. We absolutely want that, too and love the iPad — but we are a tiny tiny team only and can only do three things at a time. It is on our list of things to do though. In the meantime, we made sure that at least the full-screen photos as well as the maps are rendered in high resolution.

Is there an Android version of tadaa?

Not yet. The Android platform unfortunately brings a lot of fragmentation, which makes developing and especially testing very resource intensive. We absolutely want to support tadaa on Android as well, so it is just a matter of time when we will get this done.

Is there a version of tadaa for Symbian, Blackberry, Windows Phone?

Nope, unfortunately not yet. maybe this changes one day — we actually want to see tadaa everywhere. We even want your digital SLR to have a tadaa button one day. Imagine how cool that would be!

Is there a tadaa version for Windows/Max/Linux?

Not at this point. While our API would make this pretty simple, we do want to be a platform mostly for mobile photos. We do not have anything against edited photos or photos you took with your DSLR, but we do not want to become an all-purpose image hoster. We’ll see what the future brings.

Do you guys have a public API?

Not yet. While our API is really simple and yet powerful, we have not opened it up at yet to the public. If you have a compelling plan what you would want to do with it, let us know at [email protected] . Maybe you convince us? 🙂

What is Bokeh?

Bokeh is a japanese word describing the aesthetic quality of blur. While actually everybody wants crystal sharp photos, you do not always want to have everything sharp. A portrait looks much better if only the face is sharp, and highlights in the woods or on the water can make beautiful “bokeh discs”. All Tilt-Shift apps on the market just apply a cheap “gaussian blur”, which looks like opal glass, not like actual blur. tadaa simulates the real, optical blur (and bokeh) of a complex, optical lens. Well THAT is unique!

How can I delete a comment?

Just swipe over it with your finger, from left to right — this will reveal a “delete” Button. If you don’t like a comment on a photo made by someone else, you can delete it the same way.

How does blocking a user work?

You can block users in two ways:

A: Go to their profile, tap on the arrow-box in top right and enable “Block User”

B: Go to the List of people following you and swipe over their name. This reveals a “Block” Button

When you block users,

• they do not get notified of being blocked
• they can no longer follow you
• they can neither like your photos or comment on them. Their input never makes it into the system

Can I log in with multiple devices?

Yes. You can use your account simultaneously on your iPhone, your iPad, your iPod and your secondary iPhone. 🙂

Help! I don’t want to get all these reposts!

If one of the people you follow reposts a lot, or simply too much for your taste, just go to their profile, tap ono the arrow box in top right and disable “Receive Reposts”. You will still get their own photos, but not their reposts anymore.

Is tadaa localized to German/French/Italian/Tagalog/etc.?

Not yet. This is definitely on our agenda though.

Why are the photos saved “only” in 2048×2048 pixels?

tadaa uses OpenGL to render all the fancy filters and effects. This is why tadaa is so fast. Some filter’s algorithms are so complex that Photoshop would render minutes on a decent desktop machine — and your iPhone does this in milliseconds!

The only drawback is that the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 Render Buffers are “only” 2048×2048 pixels, so this limitation is not invented by us. Fortunately, iPhone 4S and iPod 3 have bigger render buffers — we can not fully leverage them yet due to memory constrains, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Anyway, 4.2 Megapixel is still a lot and we use highest quality downsampling algorithms to keep as much data as possible. Also, you can always save the full res original photo (without filters) from the tadaa light-table.

I don’t see any editing controls on my iPhone. What is wrong?

You are probably using an iPhone 3G (not 3GS) or an old iPod touch. So sorry, but you need to have an iPhone 3GS or newer for the filters to work. The reason is that tadaa uses the internal graphics card for the filtering (which makes it very fast), and the 3G devices just do not have these capabilities.

My camera is starting so slow. Can you make it faster?

Sure, we can optimize it a little further. But you can make it faster, too! How? Just keep your light-table clean. If you keep many dozens or hundreds of photos on your light-table, the camera might start slower. Don’t use the light-table as a replacement to your phone’s camera roll, and it should start fast again. 🙂

How can I save originals?

That’s easy:

1. Open tadaa
2. Open the Camera
3. Enter your light-table via the thumbnail in bottom left, next to the “Close-X”
4. Tap on the Arrow-Box in top right
5. Mark the photos you want to save
6. Tap on “Save Original(s)” at the bottom

This saves the unfiltered, full size photos to you camera Roll — as if you would have taken them with Apple’s Camera App.

I took multiple shots at one scene. How can I compare them quickly?

Open one of them from your light-table. Now use two fingers to flick left and right — voilà! You can quickly skip through them to decide which one is the best.

How do I use Tilt-Shift?

The Tilt-Shift Tool has quite some knobs to twiddle, since it is so powerful. First of all, you can chose between a linear blur (box icon) and a elliptical blur (circle icon). You can now move and rotate these lines (or circles) around with two fingers.

• The inner area marks what should stay absolutely sharp
• The outer area marks where the blur has maximum value
• In between these two line, the blur will accelerate. This allow you to simulate real depth.

With regards to the sliders:

• Radius – This controls the distance between the sharp area and the fully blurred area
• Blur – This sets the maximum amount of blur to be applied
• Highlights – This makes the beautiful “bokeh discs” appear where your photo has highlights
• Vignette – This allows making the blurred areas brighter or darker

Play around, you will figure it out!

My facebook/twitter does not work. How can I log in now?

Contact us at [email protected] and we will send you a password.

What are “Quiet Hours”?

If you enable and set Quiet Hours (your local time zone applies here), we will not bother you with Push Notifications while you sleep. This is really useful if you follow people in other timezones.

Some photos don’t load for me, I only see the Hat Symbol. What can I do?

This can happen sometimes if the internet connection was flaky or your client crashed. It is only affecting you — your photo definitely made it save and sound to our servers. If you want to get rid of this, tap “Clear Caches” in the Settings Tab. You need to login after that, but no data will be lost.

Can I edit my comment? I made a bad typo.

Nope, that is not possible for technical reasons. However, you can either delete your comment and write it again — or just add another, correcting comment.

How can I save all my tadaa Photos to my Mac or PC?

tadaa saves all photos to your iPhone’s Library (as soon as you tap the “Save” Button). If you want to backup all the (unfiltered) original photos from your tadaa light-table, you can do that with “iTunes Filesharing”. Just connect your iPhone with iTunes, go to the “Apps” tab, scroll down and select “tadaa” in the list of Filesharing-capable Apps. The Folder “Lighttable Originals” is the one you want to save.