Photography

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I’m an avid digital photographer. I’ve tried many online photo storage accounts in the past and finally settled on a Flickr Pro account, allowing me to store virtually unlimited photos at their highest resolution. I also have a number of other accounts, such as Shutterpoint and PhotoBox where people can purchase my photos.

All of these services, whilst good, don’t really offer me the flexibility I’m after, which is why I took a look at Gallery 2. Gallery 2 is a hosted PHP application, so you’ll need your own server or hosting account. I set mine up using my Dreamhost account. Installation was a breeze, as Dreamhost offer a “One Click” installation as part of their standard package. During setup, you’re advised of any potential issues before installation starts. The Gallery 2 web site has a Certified Hosts section, which details those hosts known to work well with Gallery 2.

After the initial installation, I was somewhat bewildered by the array of options available. I had a few specific requirements for my new Gallery as follows:

• I wanted to change the logo on the header page
• I wanted to disallow anyone to register for the site (i.e. allow visitors to view the albums, but not add or alter them), as I want to host purely my own work (you can, if you wish, allow anyone to register and create their own albums)
• I wanted to allow visitors to purchase my photos via PayPal
• I wanted to change the default “look and feel” of the gallery

A quick search of the forum revealed that I could do all of the above, and just about anything else! This is obviously a labour of love to the authors and everyone who has contributed to it and this is demonstrated by the wealth of detail provided in the forums and the online documentation.

There are a number of methods you can use to upload photos to your server. I tried the ftp upload first, where you simply upload the photos to a directory you create on the server, tell Gallery 2 where they are, and it will upload them to the selected album. You can create multiple albums, each with their own defaults, such as maximum image size, maximum file size etc. You can also apply global defaults, such as applying your own watermark to each image. The second method I tried was using a downloadable Java application called Gallery Remote. This allows you to connect to your Gallery via the application and drag and drop images to it, applying captions etc. This makes it an absolute breeze to get the photos into your album. The only short-coming with this method is that you have to manually apply watermarks once the images have uploaded. I may be missing something here, but a quick forum search revealed others are having to do the same. A relatively minor omission that I’m sure will be addressed at some future stage.

The standard installation (as supplied by Dreamhost) allows a number of options for visitors, such as voting and adding remarks. The gallery can then be extended by using any of the enormous number of plug-in modules available for Gallery 2. To install one, you simply copy it into a new directory on the server. Then go to Modules under Site Admin and configure it as required. You then Activate it and it’s available. I used this method to add the “pay by PayPal” and “Contact” modules to my own gallery.

You can set individual permissions for each album if required, set different permission levels for different groups etc. It really is incredibly configurable. It took me around 1 complete day in total to get my gallery up and running as it is now. Given the cost of the application (free!) and its functionality, I’d say this is a very good investment. You can see my finished gallery here. I’ve still some work to do with it, but I’m now happy with its overall appearance.

I’ll still use Flickr for fun, but I shall most likely be dropping my use of the other services and using Gallery 2 for my “serious” stuff.

If you’re a photographer looking for a home on the web for your images, or you want to create an album for your family, I’d strongly recommend Gallery 2.