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Thread: Image Gallery Options?

  1. #1
    David J. Heinrich
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
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    575

    Image Gallery Options?

    Hi all,

    I'm planning on putting my best images up on an personal website registered to me.

    So, I'm writing the forum to ask for suggestions regarding gallery formats. Here are several professional galleries, or gallery demos, that I very much like:


    Darlene Almeda : Photoscapes.com


    Great photos. Re the gallery, it is a nice layout; I like how it is integrated with ordering prints, if you just click on a thumbnail. I also like that you can direct-link to the larger photo's page. However, one thing that I don't like is how there is no photo link. You cannot link directly to the photo. This was probably a conscious decision, but it has the effect of de-google-izing your photo. Consider the photo, "Awakening". Try Googling it, even restricting the Google to http://photoscapes.com. Nothing shows up. In fact, Googling for images on photoscapes.com produces only 2 results. But there are probably 100 photos on the site!

    I of course understand the desire to protect your work from external linking without permission. But the photographer name is watermarked on he lower right hand portion. So at least if it was linked to, there'd be a copyright notice. So maybe it makes it more difficult to link to, but still not impossible; a determined person could just copy the image and host it themselves, even crop out the watermark. (I wonder if it might be a good idea, for legal purposes, to create several "invisible" diagonal watermarks with your name and copyright for images on a site; i.e., with a 1/255 difference in darkness. Invisible to the naked eye (most of them), but provable.


    Jeremy Cowart Photography

    I like the way the gallery is, how you can slide from one image to the next, and how images are large. But it's in Flash. Flash is awful, imo. And nothing on the webpage resizes to my attempts to enlarge text. I'm not an old man, but I like to have my text large. Also, the website is completely unusable if I shrink my browser down to 3 x 3 inches. I do however like the option to pull up a thumnail list.

    Navigating the images is a little slow compared to the galleries above and below, though.


    MooFlow Gallery


    This is just a demo gallery. But imo, it's a "wow". Look how fast you can scroll through the images with cover-flow style; using either arrow keys, scroll-wheel, or mouse clicks. Double-clicking on the image brings up a larger version. Also checkout he "fullsize viewer" (click on "Another Gallery" to get something more interesting than Apple logos). You can click a button to maximize the gallery to your display, and then click on the little magnifying glass buttons to get larger images.

    It also links to direct images; although google search of the site for images produces no result, for some reason.

    I really like the presentation of images on that gallery, if only for the speed with which you can navigate through it. Although I prefer the larger image presentation of Cowarts site. I presume that can be changed by a few simple settings. More complicated is if this image gallery javascript can be integrated with ordering prints, as is Darlene's gallery. Not just technically, but also from a "does it make sense to the user" pov.

    Thoughts?

  2. #2

    Join Date
    Feb 2009
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    Payson, AZ
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    Re: Image Gallery Options?

    If you can afford it, I'd recommend Foliolink.com. I have been using it for about 6 months and it's a great service. Many templates, both Flash and HTML, to choose from and very easy maintenance from a browser.

    They have several price levels depending on how many images you wish to show. Do the trial and see how you like it. If you need more capacity you can upgrade later.

  3. #3

    Join Date
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    Re: Image Gallery Options?

    Take a look at Todd Dominey's Slide Show Pro.

    Very configurable, you can easily customize it for whatever look and style you're going for.

  4. #4
    David J. Heinrich
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
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    575

    Re: Image Gallery Options?

    Quote Originally Posted by Marko View Post
    Take a look at Todd Dominey's Slide Show Pro.

    Very configurable, you can easily customize it for whatever look and style you're going for.
    It looks nice...but navigation isn't as fast as the sites I linked to (except for the Cowart page). And it uses Flash...Did I mention I hate flash? I use Linux as my OS. I had to install some proprietary plugin to look at flash sites. At least that one scales, which is good; but it is still not standards-compliant (or rather, a proprietary standard), and doesn't interact nicely with Google.

    Many people won't be able to look at anything Flash, for whatever reason. They use Linux as their OS and don't know how to setup the proprietary Flash software, or don't want to. They have a small mobile device without Flash support; etc. And it doesn't degrade nicely if it can't be used.

    With Javascript around, I don't understand why people use non-standards compliant stuff like Flash.

  5. #5

    Join Date
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    Re: Image Gallery Options?

    I'm wondering how you do other pages besides galleries with SlideShowPro. It looks to be only oriented to producing galleries. Perhaps you need to use other software to create the website itself.

    One thing about Foliolink, though it's more expensive, it's all integrated. And it generates an iPhone version on it's own.

  6. #6

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    Re: Image Gallery Options?

    Quote Originally Posted by Doug Dolde View Post
    I'm wondering how you do other pages besides galleries with SlideShowPro. It looks to be only oriented to producing galleries. Perhaps you need to use other software to create the website itself.
    It IS just a very specific gallery module. It is not meant to be an all-in-one, it does one thing only and it does it well, within its parameters.

    The gallery module lives on a vanilla (X)HTML page, as does all the other regular content that does not need to be animated nor "dynamically presented" in any other way. That makes for lean, standards-compliant and SEO-friendly pages.

    Quote Originally Posted by Doug Dolde View Post
    One thing about Foliolink, though it's more expensive, it's all integrated. And it generates an iPhone version on it's own.
    Yes, it is more expensive and it is "integrated".

    With a properly developed site, you don't need separate versions. And even if I did, I would never trust a program to generate it for me. Especially not one of the "integrated" variety.

    I prefer BBEdit, been using it for the last 10 years or so. But that's just me, I do that for a living - your choice may depend on your expertise and your needs. There is a range of applications designed for everybody, from complete beginners to professionals.

  7. #7

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    Re: Image Gallery Options?

    Quote Originally Posted by dh003i View Post
    It looks nice...but navigation isn't as fast as the sites I linked to (except for the Cowart page). And it uses Flash...Did I mention I hate flash?
    You didn't. If you did, I wouldn't have mentioned anything...

    Quote Originally Posted by dh003i View Post
    I use Linux as my OS. I had to install some proprietary plugin to look at flash sites. At least that one scales, which is good; but it is still not standards-compliant (or rather, a proprietary standard), and doesn't interact nicely with Google.

    [...]

    With Javascript around, I don't understand why people use non-standards compliant stuff like Flash.
    You mean ECMAScript? There are people who have it disabled, either by personal choice or by corporate dictum.

    What exactly do you mean by "it is not standards compliant"? I suppose you're talking about W3C standards. Flash player is an external application, a media player just like Quick Time or any other. W3C standards apply to markup, CSS and ECMAScript. They only govern how an external app is integrated, but do not define the app itself. I am not too fond of Flash either, I try to avoid it whenever possible and practicable, but there are times when it is not and when it's the best solution.

    If by "interaction with Google" you mean it is not search engine-friendly, it all depends on the surrounding markup, but no, individual photographs are NOT searchable and it may be a plus in some instances.

    Quote Originally Posted by dh003i View Post
    Many people won't be able to look at anything Flash, for whatever reason. They use Linux as their OS and don't know how to setup the proprietary Flash software, or don't want to. They have a small mobile device without Flash support; etc. And it doesn't degrade nicely if it can't be used.
    Let's not confuse personal preference with facts, shall we?

    Your choice of OS is a matter of your preference. If you choose to use an OS which was originally written for the backroom and not for the desktop, and then deliberately configure it to prevent Flash from working because you do not want to use Flash, that is the choice you are free to make, but you shouldn't blame Flash for that. If somebody bound your hands and knees together and then pushed you down the stairs, would your failure to degrade gracefully be your fault?

    To be fair, I might probably be using Linux myself if only it could be properly color-managed and if it could run Photoshop, and if... But then it wouldn't be Linux, it would be OSX and that's exactly what I run...

  8. #8
    David J. Heinrich
    Join Date
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    Re: Image Gallery Options?

    Quote Originally Posted by Marko View Post
    You didn't. If you did, I wouldn't have mentioned anything...

    You mean ECMAScript? There are people who have it disabled, either by personal choice or by corporate dictum.

    What exactly do you mean by "it is not standards compliant"? I suppose you're talking about W3C standards. Flash player is an external application, a media player just like Quick Time or any other. W3C standards apply to markup, CSS and ECMAScript. They only govern how an external app is integrated, but do not define the app itself. I am not too fond of Flash either, I try to avoid it whenever possible and practicable, but there are times when it is not and when it's the best solution.
    Fair point about my terminology. I would say, though, that Flash is, unlike Javascript, a proprietary standard. Although Adobe as tried to address those concerns.

    I guess I'm not sure what you can do with Flash that can't be done with Javascript; see the MooFlow javascript/ajax stuff I linked to.

    If by "interaction with Google" you mean it is not search engine-friendly, it all depends on the surrounding markup, but no, individual photographs are NOT searchable and it may be a plus in some instances.
    I'm curious why you think that would be a plus? Digital rights management? You can always put your name and website in the photo.

    Or just people bypassing the rest of your site? Well, if they're coming to it from Google Image Search, they're going to either see our image that way, or not see your website at all. And Google Image does display it in the context of the site.

    Let's not confuse personal preference with facts, shall we?

    Your choice of OS is a matter of your preference. If you choose to use an OS which was originally written for the backroom and not for the desktop, and then deliberately configure it to prevent Flash from working because you do not want to use Flash, that is the choice you are free to make, but you shouldn't blame Flash for that. If somebody bound your hands and knees together and then pushed you down the stairs, would your failure to degrade gracefully be your fault?

    To be fair, I might probably be using Linux myself if only it could be properly color-managed and if it could run Photoshop, and if... But then it wouldn't be Linux, it would be OSX and that's exactly what I run...
    Actually, Linux can use Flash. I have no problem using Flash on Linux. But it is a proprietary plugin. It doesn't come with any distribution by default, while javascript support may. So that may be an issue for some users.

    Then there are also users out there with small mobile devices. Or handicapped users, which Flash also presents problems for.

    And if users have Javascript turned off, your gallery can degrade nicely, and still display something. Flash is just a binary blob. No Flash capability, you just see a gaping hole in the website. See this article on Flash vs. Javascript. That said, one needs to plan for degradation when coding Javascript.

    Although it isn't the fault of Flash per se, it seems that a lot of Flash sites are just awful. Four-Thirds.org is horrendous. Whenever I see a website, like Jeremy Cowart's, where the text does not scale and is fixed point -- or worse yet, images for links -- I think, "insensitive clod". Either that, or the person let too many buzz words get to their head.

    Maybe I'll just end up going with a more simple HTML gallery.

    Btw, I'm going to be writing this myself. I can't stand the over-complex code that website-design software makes. The trickiest thing will be implementing a feature for me to easily add new photos to the gallery without hard-coding them in.

  9. #9

    Join Date
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    Re: Image Gallery Options?

    If you have never written your website with your own content management system then I can guarantee that it will take you a lot longer than you think. Unless you already know about server side scripting and possibly SQL then you are biting off more than you think.

    I'd just go with a package or hosting option and spend your time on SEO for it.

    have a look at: http://www.clikpic.com/

    you get the option of normal html plus flash slideshows if you want but you don't have to use them. Its cheap and has online sales(no charges exept normal paypal) and can be search engine optimised. Also images will seen by google images.
    And think you can add text pages. Check out the free 7 day trial to see if its what you want.

  10. #10
    David J. Heinrich
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Posts
    575

    Re: Image Gallery Options?

    Quote Originally Posted by percepts View Post
    If you have never written your website with your own content management system then I can guarantee that it will take you a lot longer than you think. Unless you already know about server side scripting and possibly SQL then you are biting off more than you think.

    I'd just go with a package or hosting option and spend your time on SEO for it.

    have a look at: http://www.clikpic.com/

    you get the option of normal html plus flash slideshows if you want but you don't have to use them. Its cheap and has online sales(no charges exept normal paypal) and can be search engine optimised. Also images will seen by google images.
    And think you can add text pages. Check out the free 7 day trial to see if its what you want.
    Thanks for the tip, but I'd rather have something that I have more control over (i.e., I want the look of the cover-flow gallery).

    Any suggestions on where to start learning?

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