simple online photo gallery software

April 21, 2009 5:04 AM

Looking for simple online photo gallery software, with the option to add ability to buy prints

I'm looking for simple photo gallery software to install on my web server to display my photos. I've read all the many previous questions along these lines, but I have a couple of seemingly incompatible wishes.

I really like the look of the clean simple ones (Pixelpost, zenphoto) - I certainly don't need all the complex features of e.g. Coppermine or Gallery. However, I'd like to have the option to add a shopping cart to allow people to buy prints. I make all my own prints at home, otherwise I would use a hosted solution (I have an account with SmugMug, and love it, but they don't allow you to make your own prints). I see a few options:

1. Use one of the behemoths like Coppermine or Gallery and try to wrestle it into looking clean and simple
2. Use something like Pixelpost and roll a DIY paypal button, or use another piece of software to handle the shopping cart

Any opinions on which of these two would be easier, or any suggestions for a third solution?

posted by primer_dimer to computers & internet (14 comments total)

Some more info I probably should have mentioned. I'm happy to write html/css/php - but would rather not if there's an easier option. Free/open source would be best - I can't afford to sink much money into this. The total number of images to be hosted will be small, so I'm not bothered about speedy bulk uploads.
posted by primer_dimer at 5:10 AM on April 21

Jalbum has it with some of the skins, one of which being Chameleon.
posted by theichibun at 6:02 AM on April 21

How about Zenphoto with the ZenPayPal plugin? Can't imagine it would be too hard to get working. ZP is definitely nice and clean (both front and backend).
posted by genial at 6:13 AM on April 21

genial, thanks - that looks like it could be a good chunk of the solution.
posted by primer_dimer at 7:14 AM on April 21

I am working on a project to do something similar, using wordpress and some plugins.

I got the entire thing basically set up in a day, with a little help from my friends here on Metafilter. Easy Peasy.
posted by pjern at 8:05 AM on April 21

pjern, I was actually inspired to finally set this up by visiting your site, which I found via Projects :-) It looks great.

I'm a little bit hesitant to go down the Wordpress route, because I already run a blog on the site, and worry that having two parallel installations of Wordpress would be asking for trouble. Ideally I wanted www.mysite.com to contain a straightforward gallery, and www.mysite.com/blog to to go the blog.
posted by primer_dimer at 8:32 AM on April 21

I actually have three installations of wordpress on the same hosting account; they just have different database tables and exist in different subdirectories.
posted by pjern at 8:54 AM on April 21

hmmm.... I guess my compu-pessimism didn't allow me to hope it could be that simple! I will give it a try.

I don't suppose you could point me in the direction of any hints on how to integrate PayPal as you have done?
posted by primer_dimer at 8:57 AM on April 21

I don't understand the part about SmugMug not letting you make prints. It looks like it works just fine for me.
posted by zsazsa at 9:15 AM on April 21

Gallery2, using the "Embedded" theme / CSS file, is VERY clean. It also has the shopping cart features. I used Gallery2 embedded inside Joomla, and run it using the mentioned theme - Joomla then applies its theme to Gallery, making it simple. Gallery (when accessed via direct URL) looks like a blank slate with content.
posted by GJSchaller at 9:21 AM on April 21

re: Paypal: You need to have one of the upgraded accounts, and there's a facility there for creating the buttons, whereupon you simply copy the code to your page. The actual button lives on Paypal.
posted by pjern at 9:34 AM on April 21 [1 favorite]

zsazsa, I think that SmugMug makes you use their print lab - you can't sell prints that you make yourself.
posted by primer_dimer at 1:01 PM on April 21

Look into photoshelter. It's similar to smugmug, I believe (not knowing much about smugmug), but you can choose "self-fulfillment" as an option for how print sales are handled (look at the part labeled "Hassle-free photo print & product sales"). That means that you can choose to supply your own prints, or some other lab's prints, to fulfill orders for prints purchased through your photoshelter site.
posted by msbrauer at 4:13 PM on April 21

Quick upadate: thanks to pjern's hints about PayPal, ended up going with Pixelpost + DIY Paypal code. Project to follow soon!
posted by primer_dimer at 7:46 AM on April 23