photo:webalbums
creating photo albums on the web
Introduction:
Purchase a web hosting account:
Create your web site on your local computer:
in Windows, usually you will create “website” in a sub-folder in the My Webs folder of My Documents
create sub-folders in a logical manner, for example:
use your favourite web page editing program to create your main web pages such as:
consider creating an image file displaying your email address rather than using text to minimise spam to your email address.
Create a Paypal account if you want to sell prints via Paypal:
Optimising your photos for web display:
apart from the usual post-processing to make your photos look good (contrast control, ensure horizon is level, etc), there are several other things worth considering before you create your web albums
choose image format and size:
the most popular format is jpg although a newer format png is used by some people
you the need to decide on what size you want:
although many users have computer screens with resolutions 1600×1200 or larger, it is safer to assume most users will be using more like 1024×768 or 1200×800, thus the largest dimensions should probably be 1000×700 and perhaps even smaller.
although many users have broadband, others will be on dial-up and thus you should consider compressing your files by using a jpeg compression level of 6-8 (about 60%) to give a small file size without creating artefacts in smooth areas from the compression (ie. use less compression if you have large areas of smooth gradations such as sky).
also assume that no matter what method you use to publish your photos, users will ALWAYS be able to have a way of downloading them - even if you disable right-click Save as options. If users can see your image they can download it. Thus if this is a concern then you have two main ways of “protecting” your images:
manage your metadata:
this is the textual information that is embedded in your image file but not visible on your image, there are several main formats:
EXIF - camera settings
IPTC - photographer's details and copyright
Maker Notes - proprietary notes
GPS - location data
ICC profile - colour management
XMP - Adobe's tagging format
JFIF - embedded thumbnail image
GeoTIFF - location data
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most cameras add EXIF data into the images which contain information such as:
date, time image taken (if GPS module in camera then GPS location data may be embedded)
camera type & settings used
unfortunately some image editing programs lose this EXIF data during post-processing when saving to another file.
for example:
if you use Adobe Photoshop's Save For Web function, the EXIF data is removed, thus if you want the EXIF data, alter the image size first then use Save As function.
Adobe's DNG converter (convert proprietary RAW files to DNG) conserves standard EXIF information, but not proprietary information (the Maker Note).
exporting from Adobe Lightroom to Adobe Photoshop often loses EXIF data, try exporting in .psd format, then using PS to save as jpeg, although I have not checked this.
sometimes you don't want this data included and you may have to manually remove it.
sometimes you may wish to add extra data:
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word search tags that can be extracted by your album creation software
IPTC category tags that can be extracted by your album creation software and used to decide which images can be allocated special print options for your shopping cart system.
save the optimised photos to their appropriate folders in your website on YOUR computer:
in Windows, usually you will create “website” in a sub-folder in the My Webs folder of My Documents
under this sub-folder, create another folder such as “photos” and optionally create sub folders in this to help categorise your images so they end up in separate galleries in your web album, eg. “people”, “macro”, “holidays”, or whatever.
under this main sub-folder, I would create another folder to place your automatically created web album, so perhaps name it something like “album”.
Creating your web photo album for your own website:
my current favourite program is
JAlbum, it's free, relatively easy to use, creates classy albums and allows many features such as ability for viewers to order prints via PayPal from you (you still have to respond to the email from PayPal, get the images printed and mail them out but much of this can be semi-automated by using online photo printers and uploading images to them for printing and then they can post directly to purchaser).
JAlbum has many options you can set as well as third party skins which provide a different user interface for the viewer and different functionalities.
there are versions for other operating systems such as Apple Mac.
don't forget to put your PayPal account into the shopping cart settings (or the XML file if using 3rd party skins such as Fotoplayer)
Upload your website:
photo/webalbums.txt · Last modified: 2011/10/02 13:26 by gary