blog.gallerama.com

A few exciting updates have been made to the Gallerama application. We’ve increased upload limits from 100Mbs to 200Mbs (per upload), allowing you to upload more photos at once. Again, we encourage uploading zipped files containing multiple photos since that also helps speed things up.

In addition, we’ve also improved the My Photos section to allow in-place editing of photo titles and descriptions. We find that this allows much faster and more intuitive editing of photo information. Just click on the current title or description to go into edit more. Click “Save” (or just hit ENTER for the photo Title) and your update is instantly stored.

A few other improvements worth noting:

• Rotating photos is now faster and more easily accessible.
• Comments can now be posted without leaving the gallery or photo page.
• Emailing gallery and photo links has been optimized and received a face-lift.
• Changing your email address and password is also simplified and optimized.
• Loading time for all Gallerama pages and member galleries has been improved.
• Loading of galleries using Brick Wall layout has been greatly improved.

Enjoy, and stay tuned for further updates.

We have spend the last couple of months enhancing and optimizing various components of Gallerama, in particular the upload flow, all gallery templates and our SlideShow. While some of the updates are can only be seen as under-the-hood performance improvements, many visual embellishments have been scattered about as well.

For our tech savvy readers…
Gallerama is now using the brilliant jQuery JavaScript library. We’ve been impressed by John Resig’s amazing library for quite some time and were itching to bring it into Gallerama space. With this new set of updates our own libraries were re-written to rely on and extend jQuery and maximize its potential. Big thanks goes out to the jQuery team.

That’s right, another new gallery layout is now available to all Gallerama members. Featuring our new, large thumbnail size the Grid layout aims to deliver a more structured and modern look to your galleries, with the focus being on the presentation of the gallery as a uniform photo collection.

Once again, our Zoom feature is used to display the enlarged photo version which is automatically displayed in the largest available size which will fit in the user’s browser window. (Resizing the window will correctly adjust the image size.)

Displaying captions below the photos in the gallery view is entirely up to you, as is the number of photos you choose to display per page. When specifying this number please keep in mind that the first grid “cell” is reserved for the gallery name. To display all photos on the single (first) page, just enter a high number!

So, check it out and let us know how you like it.

One of Gallerama’s goals from its inception was to offer not only a cutting-edge photo management and storage solution, but also a great way to showcase photos as well as photographers. We believe we’ve made a big step in that direction by revamping Gallerama’s photographer profile pages, making them a vital component of each member’s online photo presence - a complete photo site in itself. The new profile sites offer quick access to photographer’s most popular and most recent galleries, as well as a link to all available galleries, organized by group.

And there’s more to come. Many elements of the new profile page will soon be customizable, including colors, fonts and the background texture!

If you are a Gallerama member, you benefit from this update instantly and at no extra cost. If you haven’t joined Gallerama yet, what are you waiting for? Join Gallerama today - its free!

As you may or may not know, Gallerama automatically generates a number of versions for each of the photos you upload. (Your original photo file is kept in its original state and is not accessible by anyone but you.) The web-optimized, lower resolution versions are used for display thoroughout the Gallerama application, in Gallerama layout templates, slideshows, etc. In some cases having a consistent (square, cropped) size allows for a clearer and more attractive presentation while in others maintaining the actual aspect ratio is preferred (always for larger versions). Also, some layouts benefit from a fixed photo height, for example the Gallerama.com homepage. While the topic of file versions is briefly described on Gallerama’s site (in the help section), we felt it was time to make things clear. So, below is a list of all web-optimized photo versions created and used by Gallerama:

• Mini Square Thumbnail: 40×40 pixels (cropped)
• Small Square Thumbnail: 90×90 pixels (cropped)
• Standard Thumbnail: 140 pixels wide or tall (larger dimension is used as the limit)
• Fixed Height Thumbnail: 140 pixels tall
• Fixed Height Web Version: 400 pixels tall
• Standard Web Version: 740 pixel wide or tall (larger dimension is used as the limit)

We’re happy to announce that we’ve just added two more standard versions which we feel provide a better gallery viewing experience, and allow for greater flexibility with future gallery template designs.

• Large Squre Thumbnail: 150×150 pixels (cropped)
• Extra Large Web Version: 650 pixels tall

Keep in mind that our Zoom and Slideshow features automatically display the largest possible photo version which fits into the viewer’s browser window, making sure that no part of the image is cut-off during viewing.

PDN PhotoPlus Conference & Expo, the premier photography and imaging event took place at Jakob K. Javits Convention Center in New York last weekend. Once again, members of the Gallerama team were in attendance speaking with photography professionals and enthusiasts about their photo archiving and management needs, and about how Gallerama can help solve them. Additionally, we’ve continued to explore potential partnerships with other providers with the goal of expanding the Gallerama offering to include services such as printing, online sales, etc. Stay tuned for updates on these.

But since we’ve got a real passion for photography and technology ourselves, we couldn’t help but explore the new offerings from the many great exhibitors featured at the show. Some of the highlights included Nikon’s first full-frame DSLR: the Nikon D3, as well as its close sibling, the Nikon D300. As usual, Canon’s presence was dominant with a broad array of fantastic products. Adobe, highlighting its industry standard Photoshop CS3 as well as its new Lightroom software provided many very useful tutorials making its booth a hot ticket at all times.

Information on the next year’s Expo is already posted on the PDN PhotoPlus website. Be sure to check it out.

As DSLR cameras are becoming more popular so is the topic of lens selection. If you are like me and many other photographers and photography enthusiasts you probably started out with a single, versatile lens. Perhaps this lens came along with the camera in a “kit” or maybe you read some reviews and picked a good one separately. But then you realized that this just isn’t cutting it. After all, one of the main reasons for getting a DSLR is its ability to accept different types of lenses. Also, your existing lens may have some shortcomings. For example, the lens distortion is too noticeable; it doesn’t perform well in low light; it suffers from vignetting, etc. These are just some of the problems with many low-cost (and even some more expensive) lenses, but chances are that before you even start thinking about these specific problems you’re just looking for a greater focal range at your disposal.

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If you think things have been a little quiet on the Gallerama front, think again. After months of research, architecture and development we’re officially announcing that Gallerama is now fully integrated with Amazon’s Award-Winning S3 service. This means that not only are the images of our users safely stored at one of the world’s best and most sophisticated storage facilities, but Amazon S3 is also used for serving all photos from Gallerama member galleries as well.

And this is just the beginning. Stay tuned for the real benefits of this integration. To be announced here very soon.

One of Gallerama’s most popular layouts recently got a sweet update. To compliment the overall rounded look of the design, each of the thumbnails is now displayed with rounded edges. Same goes for the currently selected, large image. Additionally, the improved Zoom functionality is used to enhance the gallery viewing experience and provide greater photo details.

Click to view a gallery using this layout