Gallery opinions

[Mapetite]

I'm going to start an online gallery soon. My questions are:

Is it better to use one of the online galleries (pbase, etc) - or make your own online gallery?
Which do you prefer?

I think I'm leaning towards creating my own because a) It's my own creation. I can control right click/most of the theft, etc. b)Lots of freedom with the look/feel of the pages themselves c)I already have space, so it costs me nothing extra

Also, what software is best for creating an online gallery?

What are some of the big pros (that you feel) come from using one of the other online galleries?
I know your pictures are viewed by more people, but is that basically it?

Thanks in advance :)

[Roger_Cavanagh]

Jes,

I'd say go with doing it yourself - much more fun. That's what I did for some of the same reasons you have outlined.

One word of warning, if you are worried about people stealing your pictures, don't put them on the Internet. There is no effective way to prevent the determined thief, and nuisance tactics like disabling right-click will aggravate legitimate visitors.

Regards,

[Mapetite]

I know it won't prevent all theft, but there are ways to prevent edit - watermarks, etc ;)

Thanks for the opinion :)

[gandini]

I've got to go with Roger on this one. I have had a personal website with photo gallery for nearly 3 years and don't care that people might steal my photos. I truly believe that it's paranoid to worry about photo theft, and probably reflective of placing way too much emphasis and worth on one's images. Of course, if you're doing photography commercially, and want to earn income from your photos then they are worth something. If not, then ask yourself why you are putting your images on the Internet. If it's to share, then be content with the motivation and don't worry about what happens after you've shared them. If it's not to share, then what?
I am frequently asked about my photos and whether they are for sale, and how much do I charge, etc. I usually offer some canned response about one-time non-exclusive use permits for $X and these people go away. I usually give away my photos for use by non-profit organizations or educational institutions. Given the interest in my photos, I'd say some have been stolen, but that's life. The largest image I have posted (apart from some cool wallpapers for the Dell D800) are 600x800 pixels. These would print like crap at anything bigger than a couple of inches, so what are the thieves going to do with them?

And regarding my web gallery--I started off coding with MS Front Page, but got sick and tired of all the code it added. Now I just code by hand, using some ASP and Java scripts. Take a look at some web galleries to see what "look" you like. There are many to see, but I'd suggest you view Don Ellis' Kleptography site for the simple yet elegant look. Check out Pekka's Exhibition Engine if you want to see what way too much web programming skill can buy you.
I personally think most personal galleries look better than pbase, and are more focussed than photoSIG or other postable sites.

good luck,

[Mapetite]

Well. I'm an artist/graphic designer, so I don't believe anyone should take my photos w/o permission - but it won't keep me up at night ;)

MS front page, icky. hehe Thanks for the suggestions.

[rdenney]

mapetite wrote:

I think I'm leaning towards creating my own because a) It's my own creation. I can control right click/most of the theft, etc. b)Lots of freedom with the look/feel of the pages themselves c)I already have space, so it costs me nothing extra

Also, what software is best for creating an online gallery?

What are some of the big pros (that you feel) come from using one of the other online galleries?
I know your pictures are viewed by more people, but is that basically it?


I built my own gallery, mostly to share images with other Soviet camera aficionados. Our crazy cameras are laughed at by everyone else and we tend to stick together, and we like to prove to each other that the cameras actually work by showing some images. (I'm lately somewhat of a rogue on that forum because I bought a 10D, and HORRORS! an L lens). It's much easier to talk about images in forums when you can link them, and I've had nothing but trouble with the links to photos provided by others when they use photo sites like Pbase, Photosig, or Shuttercity instead of their own domain. Domain service ain't that expensive.

The best way to prevent theft is to keep your images small. I use thumbnails in my gallery, but the full-size image is never more than 700 horizontal or 500 vertical pixels. That way, people with small monitors can see them, but they can't make a high-quality print any bigger than perhaps 3x5, or less than 2x3 if they want to screen it for process color. If I was offering them for sale, it would be the larger prints that people are buying, with quality not obtainable with the web image. I don't have much problem with a discreet copyright notice in the lower corner, but I'm not a fan of disabling the right mouse click. Plus, getting around that with a screen capture is trivially easy, and so it's not worth your time.

I use Frontpage, but I need to update my site to the new version. I like Frontpage only because if keeps me from having to make myself an expert on HTML.

I have had my images used commercially (with my permission, of course), but that's not why I put them up. I suppose I do it because it's the only way anybody will likely ever see my work, and we have a need, I suppose, to have our work seen.

Rick "who is way behind on updating his online gallery" Denney

[boyhowdy]

Jes,

I have used several gallery creation tools simply because it takes a long time to code it yourself. I have tried photoshop, photoimpact, dreamweaver, etc. The one I like best, especially when you want to easily ADD more content is JAlbum. It is FREE and completely customizable. You can check it out at
http://www.datadosen.se/jalbum

The guy who wrote this progie was fed up with the complexity of most programs when adding extra content, etc. I have found it to be extremely flexible and easy to customize using CSS style sheets. You might want to give it a try. I use one of the "canned" templates that come with the program; the vertical with pro.css. If you click on the link at the bottom of my post and then select 'webalbum' you can see how it looks. I also have a link to my son Jeff's legacy site. The gallery here was created with PS7 and is a pain in the ass to maintain when I want to add more photos.

Hope it helps....

Patrick

[Mapetite]

Thanks very much :) I will check out the link you suggested!

[gandini]

Patrick: I checked out the Jalbum site. It's cool and I think a wonderful resource for people looking to build web galleries without the headache of learning it all from scratch. I have one question though. What makes you say that it's easy to add new photos. I viewed the source code for the samples and didn't find anything but hard coding (that is, no database lookup, etc.) If you want to add a new photo don't you have to add a new .htm page and then add the thumbnail to the main page, by hand?

cheers,

[jknox]

I have tried many galleries out there. I agree with jalbum. However, I recently redesigned my site using PHP-Nuke, using coppermine as my gallery. If you wish to incorprate something into your existing site try the standalone version of this.

Get it here: http://www.chezgreg.net/coppermine/

It rocks, just upload your pics via ftp and it creates thumbs and resizes them for you. People can rate photos, leave comments, and you can even add a shopping cart if you wish to sell prints. It is all PHP code so it generates pages on the fly. No coding to write. You edit the templates or grab one from their download section. Takes less than 5 mins to get up and running, even if you are not familiar with PHP. My current online gallery has 632 pics, and moves pretty fast. (Server is my prob.) As a size saver I resize in Photoshop to create an image less than 50k to save space on server, and to increase perforamce. (Big File = Less Performace)

This script also has the ability to create watermarks on the fly without editing your orignal photo. If you are conerned. I don't worry about it, I only have a family site.

So, give a try and good luck.

God Bless!

[Guillermo Freige]

I'm using my own gallery, using the Pekka's wonderful Exibit Engine, so if in your server space you have the Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP suite (also known as LAMP), or at least the last three (or probably only the last two), give it a try. You can download freely from Pekka site