Only a few of the software packages can perform all of these functions, most perform just part of the process. However, there is no shortage of software on offer.
In this section I feature packages that can generate photo galleries and some less conventional image-sharing software. Programs and utilities that can be helpful to the process, such as HTML generators, image editors, and FTP programs are to found on the links and resources page.
Wherever possible an example gallery is included as well as a link to the packages home page.
ACD Systems ACDSee
This is a very capable mid-price digital photo organiser with a basic web photo gallery generator.
ACDSee is very easy to use, and within a few minutes of installation I’d created an HTML photo gallery.
The options for producing galleries are limited,
but if you are after a simple but speedy product this is one to consider.
ACDSee 7 has now been released, with additional functionality.
It is a good product, however it does cost $50.
Example ACDSee Gallery
Adobe Photoshop
There are two versions of this product.
Adobe Photoshop CS2,
which is the professional (and expensive) version,
and Adobe Photoshop Elements.
Although primarily digital image editors, both have web publishing capabilities.
The products can also be downloaded from Adobe for a time-limited trial
(but be warned - the download files are HUGE).
Photoshop Elements can create a simple gallery,
with a degree of manipulation available for formatting and size of images.
A number of different styles are also provided (but avoid “space” at all costs).
There are no facilities for fine tuning the HTML, Adobe recommend using a separate editor for this,
and a utility or package will also be needed to get the pages up to the web server.
Example Adobe Photoshop Elements Gallery
Coppermine Photo Gallery
This is a very grown-up product that produces great results.
It requires a decent web server (such as Apache), PHP with the MySQL database,
and GD (a graphics library) or Image Magik installed,
so this is definitely not one for bargain-basement hosts or absolute beginners.
There are a huge range of features, including user registration, e-cards and a multi-lingual facility.
Indications are that this product can also accommodate a huge number of images (40,000+),
which can be split into various categories and albums, as well as by user.
I’ve now installed this product twice, and I’m impressed.
It gives very helpful error messages during the installation if things are not quite right,
and once it is up and running it works well and very quickly.
There are lots of templates to get the look right, and the support forum is thorough and helpful.
For those that require it Coppermine also works with PHP safe mode "on".
Recommended.
Example Coppermine Photo Gallery
ExpressSoft Thumbnail Creator
This is very quick and easy photo gallery generator, with a good deal of control over the output.
There are a number of templates supplied, and the HTML produced is clear and easy to understand if you need to edit.
This is a mid-priced commercial product, but there is a 30-day trial download.
Example Thumbnail Creator Gallery
Firm Tools Album Creator
An interesting program with some vibrant templates available for download.
There are three versions, the price increasing with functionality.
The templates supplied are a tad specialist (Art Nouveau?), apart from the default,
which I’ve used in the example gallery. Album Creator can also use Flash templates,
but I have not dared to venture there yet.
It also has an unusual thumbnail/big/actual size display in separate windows.
The “actual size” images are the originals,
so upload and download times can be challenging to say the least,
as well as gobbling up disk space on the host. The free download is limited to 12 images.
Example Album Creator Gallery
Galerie
This is an extremely simple but effective PHP script. Extremely minimalist,
it gives a very clean look, and is probably the easiest PHP gallery to install -
It literally is a matter of uploading the single PHP file and the images to a directory on the host.
Free, under the GPL licence.
Example Galerie Gallery
Gallery
A very well featured freeware product, one of the best currently available.
Version 1 requires either Unix or Windows PHP4 enabled server, and version 2 requires MySQL as well.
Interesting in that photo maintenance is carried out on the server after the images have been uploaded.
Good support for creating users.
A little experience of running applications on web servers would be helpful in setting up a Gallery System,
however the documentation is thorough and the support forums are extensive,
so first-timers should not be discouraged.
This is the benchmark against which all the other host-based systems have to compete.
Note that Gallery need PHP safe mode to be set to "off", and that a full-blown Gallery 2 installation is made up of a LOT of files (3000+).
Example Gallery Galleries
Gallery Wizard
An excellent program. Nice simple interface, well chosen default settings,
but with enough flexibility to produce galleries suitable for most images.
There is an image re-sizing capability (which worked very well with the various shapes,
sizes, and orientations of my test photos), a number of thumbnail options,
and a selection of templates for thumbnail pages.
It can also FTP the completed gallery up to a web server.
An ideal product for those starting out,
and also for more experienced users after something quick and easy without frills.
It also worth checking out the author’s web site, which when I visited it, gave,
amongst much else, an insight into his choice of party suits...
All this, and the software is freeware!
Example Gallery Wizard Gallery
Jalbum
A first-rate piece of software.
Easy to install and works on a wide range of platforms (as it is written in Java),
even HP-UX and OS/2. It is fast, and very intuitive.
It can resize images, and produce a wide variety of output styles.
You can design your own album’s custom appearance by creating your own skins via HTML.
It supports EXIF data, image filters, movie files such as mpg and avi,
and it can FTP your finished album up to your host.
It is also careful with your original images, taking trouble not to alter them.
It is still being developed, and getting even better over time.
Highly recommended (its my favourite HTML generator) and also free.
Example JAlbum Gallery
Marginal Hacks Album
One for the enthusiast. It is a single Perl script that runs on Unix,
though apparently it will run under Windows if you install CygWin first.
The output looks pretty good, and there is a wide selection of themes to choose from.
Example Album Gallery
Minigal
Minigal produces clean and neat PHP galleries that are also very fast.
It also has a good range of styles. The product has improved no end with the introduction of MG2,
which now installs easily in an intuitive way.
If you need a simple PHP gallery that does not need a database Minigal is well worth considering.
Example Minigal Gallery
MyGallery
Another useful PHP script for producing clean uncluttered galleries.
It is simple to implement (it consists of just four files)
though some configuration is required.
A useful feature is MyGallery's ability to upload multiple images in zip files.
Nice administration facility.
Example MyGallery
NetObjects Fusion
NetObjects Fusion is a very well featured web site generator. Creating image galleries is only one of its many capabilities, and it does this pretty well. A very good product for creating a web site from the initial design phase (a large number of templates are available) through adding content (including image galleries) right up to ftp-ing the finished HTML pages up to the hosting service. Recommended, especially for quickly fabricating sites that have content over and above just images. Older versions of this product can often be found for "free", given away with magazine software CD's, though be prepared for registration and the subsequent barrage of "update now!" emails.
Photomeister
A capable and well-featured Windows product that does all the usual things,
and in addition it is well suited for panoramic format images.
Another unusual feature of PhotoMeister is that it can create slideshows for PDAs running on PalmOS or PocketPC.
It has been favourably compared to the Mac iPhoto product.
There are various versions of the software, with prices starting at around $20.
Example Photomeister Gallery
PHP Photo Album
This is about as simple as it gets in the world of PHP galleries.
A 3K download of a couple of PHP files and the instructions in a text file.
You have to size the images correctly, as they are just displayed as-is in a new window,
and you also have make your own thumbnails, but it is very very quick.
There are absolutely no bells or whistles,
but it is customisable to a certain extent by editing the album.php file if desired.
Example PHP Photo Album
Trivista Ultimate Online Photo Gallery
A basic inexpensive product that can produce neat results.
It is capable of handling large images as it basically just displays the originals
(but I’d advise reducing them to a manageable size with something like Photoshop,
or the utility “A Smaller Image” included with UOPG).
Unusually it can produce additional frames-based output to cope with older browsers as well as those that are javascript-enabled.
The thumbnail cropping copes well with different image shapes to produce a neat thumbnail page.
There is little control over such things as background colour,
but a trivial piece of post-production HTML editing could easily rectify this.
There is a free trial available, limited to 5 sessions.
Example Ultimate Online Photo Gallery
XOOPS Gallery
This used to be one of my favourites. XOOPS is a content management system, a portal, and a weblog system among other things. It can be customised by the addition of modules, and that is just what XOOPS Gallery was, an add-on to XOOPS. XOOPS Gallery was based on the Gallery product described above.
However, development pretty much ceased a while ago, and XOOPS Gallery remained based on Gallery 1, not the more advanced (and complex) Gallery 2. This was not too much of problem, as the product was very solid. Things move on, and at the end of 2007 two events occured that pretty much doomed XOOPS Gallery. Firstly a SQL injection vunerability was discovered in XOOPS Gallery, and almost simultaneously the xoopsgallery.org website that supported the product vanished from the Internet. Because of this I have rapidly (but with some regrets) converted my final XOOPS/XOOPSGallery site to Drupal/Gallery2.
Other Gallery Software
More products that might be worth considering include:
|
|
|