Hi aryobarzan,
I'm new to this forum as well. But here's my go at suggestions... (also, senior members...I see a ton of requests for these on the threads, could there just be one sticky to address all image concerns for the web and galleries?)
First, it's my opinion to keep your website's maximum width between 800-1000 pixels wide. (It's alot easier on the visitor because they don't have to continually scroll back-and-forth with the slidebars.
As far as image size, you may want to try to hover between 600-800 in max width and/or height and keep your filesize as SMALL as possible.
The watermark size is solely up to you, the copyright owner. Remember, the smaller the watermark...the easier it is to steal. The more concerned you are about copyright infringment, the more protection your probably looking for. Having said that, your images have the watermark on the corner...nearly anyone with a computer can simply crop the watermark out of the image.
If you're going to sell your images for the web, ie...buttons, banners, etc. Then you'll want a fat copyright symbol on your artwork.
If your target market is high quality blowup printing and framing, then copyright infringment would be a little less of a concern if your images are optimized for the web. For these images, you could have a small thumbnail preview without any watermarks linking to a medium or large image with your logo, website, phone number, name, etc in the center of the photo (large and at a very low opacity).
You could check out www.deviantart.com
to see how people sell their pics through the hosting service or set up a shopping cart through your website hosting service (which can get rather tricky).
Lastly, to show off your image galleries on your website, check out these sites, or Google, for free gallery software and scripts. (Also, Photoshop has a nice gallery creater bundled with the software)
These were saved in my ie Favorites:
http://www.airtightinteractive.com/simpleviewer/
http://www.slideroll.com/index.php
http://www.dynamicdrive.com …icindex4/frogjs/index.htm
http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex4/indexb.html
http://smoothgallery.jondesign.net/showcase/gallery/ (I like this one and it's free with no watermark or link...just don't alter the code copyright)
http://www.24fun.com …rotator/sliderotator.html (It's pretty cool but could quickly get annoying if on every page of your site)
Oh, try not to have so many new windows pop up with each click of the button on your new site.
Remember, if your images are properly optimized for the web, it would be nearly impossible for a person to take your artwork, blow it up to print size, and frame it themselves.
Hope this helps,
--Chris
