Archive for September, 2011
Photo album and image galleries are becoming a popular feature for websites. Depending on your purpose, you can simply add a photo album to your website as a sub-page, or make your entire website purely a photo album (such as a photographer website).
There are many software (both free and commercial) for building an image gallery or even flash video gallery. If you are a professional photographer need to display your photos to potential clients, then your requirement for the photo gallery software or gallery website would be very different from an amateur who just need to have fun, or someone who just want to share photos with the social community.
Many business owners need a photo gallery for their website because they are selling service or products — e.g. a photographer would like to demonstrate his previous work online. A real estate website would like to display house for rent or for sale online, etc.
For personal users, there are lots of photo and image sharing sites around which are generally easy to use and you can be up and running in no time. However, many personal website owners also prefer to have a photo gallery on their own website for secuirty and privacy reasons, so that they can display their photos without having to upload the photos to a third part photo sharing website. This is particularly important for webmasters whose photos need to be licensed or protected.
If you are looking for the quick-and-easiest way to build a gallery, a flash photo gallery software should be the best solution. In the old days, programmers mainly use JavaScript and PHP to build photo galleries. However the programming involved is too complex for most webmasters and business site owners.
A Flash photo galleries software can help anyone to build a flash gallery with just few clicks on Windows desktop, and then upload the files to their own hosting account directly. The simplest way to add a photo gallery to your website is to add a new page to your website, and then choose a Flash Photo Gallery Template from your photo gallery software. Most flash gallery software comes with a variety of flash photo gallery templates for you to choose. You can then simply browser to your image folder or image files, to have the photo album software automatically copy and insert the images into the flash photo album.
Most flash image album creator can also allow you to add special animation effects to your photos. It transforms your digital photo collection to a flash photo album with animation effect, music and color theme. You can then upload the flash web album with ftp program to your own website or blog.
Some web hosting companies have free image galleries application included. This makes image galleries applications easy to use. However the disadvantage is that you must stay with the same web hosting company if you want to keep your flash photo album. If you decide to switch your host, then all your flash picture album are lost, and you would have to rebuild your entire flash photo album again.
This is the main reason why you should consider using your own flash gallery software. Which you can install directly on your computer, create a flash photo album and upload it to your own website or blog, and host the files anywhere without depending on your host provider.
It would have been nice, had I recognized my interest in photography when I was a lot younger. Who knows what might have been different. One difference, however, might have been how I went about learning both the craft and its art.
I can only imagine what it would have been like to study photography at any one of the many great schools with a photography curriculum. We read about many of them or see their advertisements in popular photo magazines. I’ve always found the ads for schools like the Rocky Mountain School of Photography or the New York Institute of Photography inviting but have never found the time (or the money) to take advantage of them.
I’ve had the pleasure of working with photographers who studied photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) for example, and I’ve always been impressed by their knowledge.
However, I’ve taken a different route and it’s one I think is quite common. I was first attracted to photography more than 30 years into my career as a custom publisher. While I’d been around photography all my working life, even taking a few photos myself over the years, it wasn’t until I received a subscription to Outdoor Photographer magazine that I caught the bug for nature photography.
By this time I had a career, a business, and a family so the photography education had to be acquired in a less formal manner. I opted for workshops, The Nikon School, a George Lepp workshop at Union College in Schenectady NY, and others along the way… most recently The Barefoot Contessa’s Photo Adventures’ Fall Workshop in New Hampshire re-ignited my interest and I hope my creativity.
Perhaps another opportunity, available to just about everyone, has provided the bulk of my education though – books. Every good bookstore has a large variety of books on photography. I gravitated to those by noted nature photographers and I have a small and growing library of books on nature photography now. I’ve read many repeatedly. Some, like George Lepp’s Beyond the Basics (1 &2) or Michael Busselle’s Better Picture Guide to Landscape Photography, introduced me to the basics such controlling exposure and the importance of depth of field. Others, such as the Center for Nature Photography Series by Allen Rokach and Anne Millman, delved into subjects like zone exposure, the different perspectives provided by lenses of different focal lengths or the use of fill flash, and of course composition.
As my “education” progressed I found myself gravitating toward books with more focus (pun intended) on the art of photography than its craft. I discovered that I really enjoyed books by Freeman Patterson, Tony Sweet, and David Ward to mention a few. Each expanded my horizons and whet my appetite for more.
The Kodak Gallery introduces an elegant line of photo books solutions for their consumers. They set themselves apart from their competition by offering affordable photo storage and deluxe sharing options. They also offer a variety of book finishes that include linen, leather, die cut, Hello Kitty, and even Eric Carle’s World.
Making these digital photo albums is done using their versatile online software that is geared towards the consumer. The software used to create these books is very user friendly and offers the consumer different options depending on their needs. Consumers can select books based on sizes, fabric, and finishes.
Does this product deliver?
Absolutely! This product gives the consumer a diverse number of unique choices to select from when they are designing their book cover and layout. The finalized product is the definition of a personalized photo book!
Any cons to using this online software?
Binding options is a major con for this product. Many of the photo album options are limited to just one type of binding and this restricts the consumer’s choices! Another con is the limited in-book editing options. It is limited to just zooming in and out and a few rotation options.
Overall review of Kodak Gallery Online Photo Book Software
The Kodak Gallery has many positive features that will bring it consumers to their new online digital photo album software. The diverse finishes and sizes are definite pluses while the binding options may make others seek other solutions. Overall, the uniqueness should win over the consumer looking for a beautiful photo book that is easy to create!