Share your tricks or tips for FLASH PHOTO GALLERY with others!
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Kim
Senior Advisor
2,644 posts
Janys Hyde
Senior Advisor
6,076 posts
Preparing your photographs/images for the gallery
When you prepare a Flash Photo Gallery, prepare all your images ahead, keeping them to a reasonable "size and weight".
I wouldn't suggest any more than around 20 - 30 k per photograph, and about 600 pixels wide.
Put them all ready in a uniquely named folder so that you know where to browse to when you are actually preparing your albums in the gallery.
Remember that there are still a lot of people around with slow internet connections, so to let them enjoy your gallery, it is a good idea to limit the number of albums you put into each gallery, and the number of photographs inside each album. Only trial and error will help you to understand what works best for you. If you are preparing galleries for a family album, you may even know what connections your potential users have, so can make judgements accordingly.
My suggestion would be no more than 4 albums in any one gallery. http://www.venicefromtheinside.com
When you prepare a Flash Photo Gallery, prepare all your images ahead, keeping them to a reasonable "size and weight".
I wouldn't suggest any more than around 20 - 30 k per photograph, and about 600 pixels wide.
Put them all ready in a uniquely named folder so that you know where to browse to when you are actually preparing your albums in the gallery.
Remember that there are still a lot of people around with slow internet connections, so to let them enjoy your gallery, it is a good idea to limit the number of albums you put into each gallery, and the number of photographs inside each album. Only trial and error will help you to understand what works best for you. If you are preparing galleries for a family album, you may even know what connections your potential users have, so can make judgements accordingly.
My suggestion would be no more than 4 albums in any one gallery. http://www.venicefromtheinside.com
Janys Hyde
Senior Advisor
6,076 posts
Changing play/audio/album icons to text
There may be some of you who would prefer to use text rather than icons for a more professional looking photo gallery.
To change the existing icons, you can either change the small images to others of your own choice browsing in your personal images for something or, change the icons to text.
Click on one of the small icons down at the bottom next to the thumbnails.
Over to the right of the window you will be presented with 2 radio buttons for image or text.
Click on the text radio button and a little further down you will see various options for your fonts, and also 2 text boxes. Change the text if you wish, and next to the thumbnails the text of your choice will appear instead of the icons.
http://www.venicefromtheinside.com
There may be some of you who would prefer to use text rather than icons for a more professional looking photo gallery.
To change the existing icons, you can either change the small images to others of your own choice browsing in your personal images for something or, change the icons to text.
Click on one of the small icons down at the bottom next to the thumbnails.
Over to the right of the window you will be presented with 2 radio buttons for image or text.
Click on the text radio button and a little further down you will see various options for your fonts, and also 2 text boxes. Change the text if you wish, and next to the thumbnails the text of your choice will appear instead of the icons.
http://www.venicefromtheinside.com
Janys Hyde
Senior Advisor
6,076 posts
To Buttons or not to Buttons
If you are preparing a single album gallery, you may not want to have the "control"icons visible at all.
In the gallery settings options of the gallery, (one of the tabs over to the right of the gallery maker window), you will see a series of boxes listing each of the various options regarding the control icons......just turn on or off those you wish to appear. As you check off each box for the audio, play and album icons, you will see them appear or disappear according to your choice.
You can just check the scroll button box which gives your user the possibility of scrolling through your gallery images at his own pace.
Don't forget that we have already said that you can substitute icons with text if you prefer (see previous tip)
http://www.venicefromtheinside.com
If you are preparing a single album gallery, you may not want to have the "control"icons visible at all.
In the gallery settings options of the gallery, (one of the tabs over to the right of the gallery maker window), you will see a series of boxes listing each of the various options regarding the control icons......just turn on or off those you wish to appear. As you check off each box for the audio, play and album icons, you will see them appear or disappear according to your choice.
You can just check the scroll button box which gives your user the possibility of scrolling through your gallery images at his own pace.
Don't forget that we have already said that you can substitute icons with text if you prefer (see previous tip)
http://www.venicefromtheinside.com
Janys Hyde
Senior Advisor
6,076 posts
Positioning image boxes and thumbnails
When you have decided on the size you want you gallery background to be, you can then move your thumbnail strip and image box around to suit your content and taste.
Just drag and drop the strip/boxes to where you want them to be.
Here is an animated demonstration (fast connection, open screen)
www.venicedigital.com/coffeecup/drag-and-drop.htm http://www.venicefromtheinside.com
When you have decided on the size you want you gallery background to be, you can then move your thumbnail strip and image box around to suit your content and taste.
Just drag and drop the strip/boxes to where you want them to be.
Here is an animated demonstration (fast connection, open screen)
www.venicedigital.com/coffeecup/drag-and-drop.htm http://www.venicefromtheinside.com
Janys Hyde
Senior Advisor
6,076 posts
Resizing your image and thumbnail "containers"
You can resize your thumbnail strip - that is to say, to control the number of thumbnail images it will contain, by clicking on the thumbnail strip and dragging the vertical edge/border, thus reducing/increasing the horizontal size of the thumbnail container.
In the LAYOUT settings (over to the right of the program window) you will be able to change the size of the actual thumbnails themselves in the THUMBNAIL IMAGES > WIDTH or HEIGHT boxes.
It is possible to change the enlarged image container in the same way, by clicking on the large box and resizing the box to your preferred size dragging the double-headed arrow that will appear on the box border.
http://www.venicefromtheinside.com
You can resize your thumbnail strip - that is to say, to control the number of thumbnail images it will contain, by clicking on the thumbnail strip and dragging the vertical edge/border, thus reducing/increasing the horizontal size of the thumbnail container.
In the LAYOUT settings (over to the right of the program window) you will be able to change the size of the actual thumbnails themselves in the THUMBNAIL IMAGES > WIDTH or HEIGHT boxes.
It is possible to change the enlarged image container in the same way, by clicking on the large box and resizing the box to your preferred size dragging the double-headed arrow that will appear on the box border.
http://www.venicefromtheinside.com
Mark Searson
Registered User
3,694 posts
Get Rid Of That Caption
When you place your mouse over an image in Photo Gallery, you may well see a caption box appear that says 'Enter Your Image Caption Here'. To get rid of that text go into Create/Edit Album, click on the 1st image of the thumbnails at the bottom of the window, then delete the text that appears in the Image Caption Box.
If you do want to have text, then do the same as above, but this time put in your own words. remember though, you must click every image in the thumbnails and enter a caption for each one. Mark Loves CoffeeCup
When you place your mouse over an image in Photo Gallery, you may well see a caption box appear that says 'Enter Your Image Caption Here'. To get rid of that text go into Create/Edit Album, click on the 1st image of the thumbnails at the bottom of the window, then delete the text that appears in the Image Caption Box.
If you do want to have text, then do the same as above, but this time put in your own words. remember though, you must click every image in the thumbnails and enter a caption for each one. Mark Loves CoffeeCup
Kelly Welsh
Registered User
651 posts
Some Flash Photo Gallery options you can change that aren't included in the interface.
When you create an album and the program generates the files you will see an XML file named after whatever you named the gallery. i.e mygallery.xml. This file contains some xml style parameters and you can just edit it in notepad.
To add a background image for the gallery- Inside the tag:
<imagegallery
Find:
bkdoimg="f"
bkimg=""
And change it to:
bkdoimg="t"
bkimg="myimage.jpg"
This is all shorthand style and is the same as CSS is to HTML. bk=background - do=show - img=image. Variables for on, off or show, dont show are t=true f=false
You can also change the hover color for the catagories (albums):
Find:
<catagories
cathlightclr="0xFF0000"
And change it to:
<catagories
cathlightclr="0x990000" (makes it dark red)
Here are the main tags and what they control:
1. <imagegallery
Controls alot of the main movie area including style, size and postioning. captions and thumbnail control.
2. <imagedisplay
Main window where pics are displayed, just about everything you can change here you can change in the program.
3. <thumbnailer
x="11"
y="406"
w="520"
h="80"
This positions and sizes the thumbnail strip. The program doesnt allow you to change the height but you can here. Important, dont edit anything below these 4 options.
4. <button
This controls the buttons and/or text for- play slideshow, music on off and show albums, you can change the buttons and/or text here. There is 1 <button> tag for each button you use. I imagine you could add your own manually here.
5. <catagories
This is the options for the albums display box. I resized my thumbnail images a bit here and changed the hover color. You can also resize and reposition the box here.
Im not sure what every option does so you'll have to play around with the variables. I think most are self explanitory. If you break something like I did just go back to the program and resave the project and it and it will rewrite the xml file. Only problem is it will erase all custom changes you made so keep track of the changes you want to keep in notepad so you can just paste them back in.
When you create an album and the program generates the files you will see an XML file named after whatever you named the gallery. i.e mygallery.xml. This file contains some xml style parameters and you can just edit it in notepad.
To add a background image for the gallery- Inside the tag:
<imagegallery
Find:
bkdoimg="f"
bkimg=""
And change it to:
bkdoimg="t"
bkimg="myimage.jpg"
This is all shorthand style and is the same as CSS is to HTML. bk=background - do=show - img=image. Variables for on, off or show, dont show are t=true f=false
You can also change the hover color for the catagories (albums):
Find:
<catagories
cathlightclr="0xFF0000"
And change it to:
<catagories
cathlightclr="0x990000" (makes it dark red)
Here are the main tags and what they control:
1. <imagegallery
Controls alot of the main movie area including style, size and postioning. captions and thumbnail control.
2. <imagedisplay
Main window where pics are displayed, just about everything you can change here you can change in the program.
3. <thumbnailer
x="11"
y="406"
w="520"
h="80"
This positions and sizes the thumbnail strip. The program doesnt allow you to change the height but you can here. Important, dont edit anything below these 4 options.
4. <button
This controls the buttons and/or text for- play slideshow, music on off and show albums, you can change the buttons and/or text here. There is 1 <button> tag for each button you use. I imagine you could add your own manually here.
5. <catagories
This is the options for the albums display box. I resized my thumbnail images a bit here and changed the hover color. You can also resize and reposition the box here.
Im not sure what every option does so you'll have to play around with the variables. I think most are self explanitory. If you break something like I did just go back to the program and resave the project and it and it will rewrite the xml file. Only problem is it will erase all custom changes you made so keep track of the changes you want to keep in notepad so you can just paste them back in.
Darce Hoover
Senior Advisor
4,316 posts
Link your images to a Website of your choice
Be sure you have selected "Create/Edit Album" where you have your thumbnails. On the tool bar right above the thumbnails are options. Look to the far right and there is an Link Icon.
1.Click on the thumbnail you would like the preview image to have a link.
2. Click on the Link Icon and a window will pop up to enter your web address. When the viewer clicks on the picture in the gallery window, it will go to your web page that you have entered.
Darce Jean
Be sure you have selected "Create/Edit Album" where you have your thumbnails. On the tool bar right above the thumbnails are options. Look to the far right and there is an Link Icon.
1.Click on the thumbnail you would like the preview image to have a link.
2. Click on the Link Icon and a window will pop up to enter your web address. When the viewer clicks on the picture in the gallery window, it will go to your web page that you have entered.
Darce Jean
Rita McClellan
Registered User
17 posts
Optimizing your images in Photoshop or similiar image-editing programs
In Photoshop there is a "Save for Web" button that you click under "File."
If you hit the "Save for Web," and optimize your images there (it's pretty self-explanatory) you can adjust the quality, pixel size, etc. Keep the width to under 600, keep the total resolution weight (this is different from the pixel dimension size) between 20 and 30 K. Then you need to have a folder ready to put the optimized images in and hit OK.
Now, after you hit OK, and the image is inserted into your new folder, it WILL AUTOMATICALLY HAVE A WEB RESOLUTION OF 72 DPI.You don't change this--the process automatically gives it the 72 resolution because this is what looks best on the web and loads without taking a long time. If you play around with this, you will learn it.
What is so great about these optimizational processes, is the fact that you can see the original image and the optimized image side by side. Believe me, Photoshop and other image editing programs are designed so that your images will look good on the web. And with your help, you can make your images look good too (provided they are sharp in the original----and this is important).
If you just change the DPI to say 100 and donT optimize the file in an image editing program, the image may be unsharp. For images from my 10mgp camera, I also had to resize my large images to 4x6s before the optimizational process would accept the image.
Most image editing programs will probably have this optimizational process--though I'm only familiar with Photoshop and FireWorks. The CC Photo Gallery is a wonderful program, but it isn't an image editing program and probably shouldn't be used as such except in an emergency.
Hope this helps.
In Photoshop there is a "Save for Web" button that you click under "File."
If you hit the "Save for Web," and optimize your images there (it's pretty self-explanatory) you can adjust the quality, pixel size, etc. Keep the width to under 600, keep the total resolution weight (this is different from the pixel dimension size) between 20 and 30 K. Then you need to have a folder ready to put the optimized images in and hit OK.
Now, after you hit OK, and the image is inserted into your new folder, it WILL AUTOMATICALLY HAVE A WEB RESOLUTION OF 72 DPI.You don't change this--the process automatically gives it the 72 resolution because this is what looks best on the web and loads without taking a long time. If you play around with this, you will learn it.
What is so great about these optimizational processes, is the fact that you can see the original image and the optimized image side by side. Believe me, Photoshop and other image editing programs are designed so that your images will look good on the web. And with your help, you can make your images look good too (provided they are sharp in the original----and this is important).
If you just change the DPI to say 100 and donT optimize the file in an image editing program, the image may be unsharp. For images from my 10mgp camera, I also had to resize my large images to 4x6s before the optimizational process would accept the image.
Most image editing programs will probably have this optimizational process--though I'm only familiar with Photoshop and FireWorks. The CC Photo Gallery is a wonderful program, but it isn't an image editing program and probably shouldn't be used as such except in an emergency.
Hope this helps.
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