Online Photo Gallery
September 1, 2017 3:37 PM Subscribe
I need to create a small online gallery. I don't want to start from thumbnails; I want a sequence of fully expanded photos, and I don't want the service to trim size/resolution (within reason). Users can click to go to "next" (i.e. not a slideshow). I'll need to add captions. Interface should be uncluttered. It should display well in mobile. Can anyone recommend a web site/service?
Response by poster: PPS - I have Apple Photos, DropBox, and Evernote. But I don't think they'd fit the bill.
posted by Quisp Lover at 3:40 PM on September 1, 2017
posted by Quisp Lover at 3:40 PM on September 1, 2017
You could set up a free webpage on Weebly and display the photos any way you want. That would give you full control over the presentation.
Another option worth considering would be a powerpoint on Google Docs.
posted by kdern at 5:41 PM on September 1, 2017
Another option worth considering would be a powerpoint on Google Docs.
posted by kdern at 5:41 PM on September 1, 2017
Best answer: Although it would be more of a scroll to each picture rather than a click, you could do this on Google Blogger. I have seen single blog posts with over 300 pictures in them.
posted by AugustWest at 6:33 PM on September 1, 2017
posted by AugustWest at 6:33 PM on September 1, 2017
Response by poster: Hmm. I thought I'd be besieged with photo hosting site suggestions. Guess nothing satisfies all my needs, so probably I'll just do a low-tech single page scrollable photo essay in HTML and throw it up on my server, old-school.
Problem with Blogger is you gotta click to expand.
posted by Quisp Lover at 8:52 PM on September 1, 2017
Problem with Blogger is you gotta click to expand.
posted by Quisp Lover at 8:52 PM on September 1, 2017
How do you want to handle the case where a photo is too big for the display? You said you "don't want to trim size/resolution" but if you don't trim resolution your photo does not fit on the screen and you have to trim size. Are you thinking of some kind of panning solution where the person viewing the photo can slide the photo around to see different parts of it?
This seems like it would come up frequently on mobile devices.
posted by metadave at 9:20 AM on September 2, 2017
This seems like it would come up frequently on mobile devices.
posted by metadave at 9:20 AM on September 2, 2017
Response by poster: Good point. My answer is "within reason".
I realize that all photo host sites would insist that their downsizing (and resolution reduction) is "within reason". So I guess I'm looking for a service with a less aggressive sense of "reason", and errs on the side of aesthetics rather than storage effficiency.
posted by Quisp Lover at 5:04 PM on September 2, 2017
I realize that all photo host sites would insist that their downsizing (and resolution reduction) is "within reason". So I guess I'm looking for a service with a less aggressive sense of "reason", and errs on the side of aesthetics rather than storage effficiency.
posted by Quisp Lover at 5:04 PM on September 2, 2017
FWIW, I just tried this in Flickr: going to an album I'd already made, clicking on the first picture in the album, making that fullscreen and copying the url, which is this:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/grangousier/21798758446/in/album-72157667325318233/lightbox/.
It's just holiday snaps from our last trip to Japan a few years ago. The actual photos are immaterial. Is it what you're looking for, though?
(It loads the pictures first, then with Javascript loads the Flickr gubbins around the photo, so it takes a couple of seconds for the advance arrow to appear. Also, it loads a low resolution first then a resolution appropriate for the screen size, so it appears to be fuzzy at first, then goes high res. This is good, though, because if you think a lot of people will be looking at the album on mobile you don't want to make them download incredibly hi res pictures and use up all their bandwidth, because people don't like that.)
posted by Grangousier at 3:05 AM on September 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
https://www.flickr.com/photos/grangousier/21798758446/in/album-72157667325318233/lightbox/.
It's just holiday snaps from our last trip to Japan a few years ago. The actual photos are immaterial. Is it what you're looking for, though?
(It loads the pictures first, then with Javascript loads the Flickr gubbins around the photo, so it takes a couple of seconds for the advance arrow to appear. Also, it loads a low resolution first then a resolution appropriate for the screen size, so it appears to be fuzzy at first, then goes high res. This is good, though, because if you think a lot of people will be looking at the album on mobile you don't want to make them download incredibly hi res pictures and use up all their bandwidth, because people don't like that.)
posted by Grangousier at 3:05 AM on September 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
I have had nothing but really good service from smugmug. Although you might find them too pricy for your needs.
posted by Faintdreams at 4:46 AM on September 3, 2017
posted by Faintdreams at 4:46 AM on September 3, 2017
Response by poster: Grangousier - Works well on desktop, but no navigation on mobile.
Faintdreams - Happy to pay for quality, but they're more oriented toward web page arrangement, which isn't exactly what I'm looking for. I could design/serve my own web pages. I'm more looking for a Flickr/Imgur/ImageShack/Google or Apple Photos/DropBox hosting service that doesn't force a thumbnail model and that doesn't hack savagely away at size/resolution.
I think AugustWest's suggestion of using Blogger for this might be best. They do seem to have a jumbo size photo option that doesn't require click-to-expand. I'd prefer if they didn't all have to be flat on the page (i.e. prefer one-at-a-time navigation), but it comes close.
posted by Quisp Lover at 10:46 AM on September 4, 2017
Faintdreams - Happy to pay for quality, but they're more oriented toward web page arrangement, which isn't exactly what I'm looking for. I could design/serve my own web pages. I'm more looking for a Flickr/Imgur/ImageShack/Google or Apple Photos/DropBox hosting service that doesn't force a thumbnail model and that doesn't hack savagely away at size/resolution.
I think AugustWest's suggestion of using Blogger for this might be best. They do seem to have a jumbo size photo option that doesn't require click-to-expand. I'd prefer if they didn't all have to be flat on the page (i.e. prefer one-at-a-time navigation), but it comes close.
posted by Quisp Lover at 10:46 AM on September 4, 2017
Best answer: I've wondered how to do this as well. I couldn't find anything that matched what the original poster, Quisp Lover, was looking for so, as an exercise/experiment/side project I decided to try to implement something myself.
Flickr has an API that gives you access to public photos published. Using the language Elm, I created (and published via github) a web-app that looks up public photos that belong to a specific user and displays these as a slide show.
The flickr user name needs to be specified as part of the URL used to access the web page. So, for example, my flickr user name is "dave20477" so if you follow this link...
https://dc25.github.io/askMetaGallery/#/dave20477
... you will see a slide show that contains all my public photos.
Note that this should work for *any* flickr user with public photos. I considered using someone elses flickr user name but that seemed kind of intrusive.
The photos displayed can also be limited to a particular album. I have an album called "album_for_metafilter" . If you follow this link...
https://dc25.github.io/askMetaGallery/#/dave20477/album_for_metafilter
... you will see a slide show that contains all the public photos in that album. Most of my public photos are in this album so it will look familiar if you already tried the previous link.
These slideshows are designed to be embedded in another web page as I have done in a blog post. Follow this link...
https://dc25.github.io/myBlog/2017/09/06/a-flickr-slideshow-with-help-from-elm.html
... to see the first slideshow listed above displayed inline.
Some of the photos have captions. These are taken from the description of the photo that can be set in flickr.
Anyone who wants to use this project should clone the github repository and rebuild the web page. For this you will need to use elm ( elm-lang.org ) . You're welcome to use the published webpage as it stands but I don't promise that it will always remain the same.
The github repository: https://github.com/dc25/askMetaGallery
I'll continue to work on this project in the near future but I'm not expecting to make major changes. Probably just code comments and other minor cleanup changes.
( I know this is a little late -- hopefully someone will find it of interest ).
posted by metadave at 4:39 PM on September 6, 2017
Flickr has an API that gives you access to public photos published. Using the language Elm, I created (and published via github) a web-app that looks up public photos that belong to a specific user and displays these as a slide show.
The flickr user name needs to be specified as part of the URL used to access the web page. So, for example, my flickr user name is "dave20477" so if you follow this link...
https://dc25.github.io/askMetaGallery/#/dave20477
... you will see a slide show that contains all my public photos.
Note that this should work for *any* flickr user with public photos. I considered using someone elses flickr user name but that seemed kind of intrusive.
The photos displayed can also be limited to a particular album. I have an album called "album_for_metafilter" . If you follow this link...
https://dc25.github.io/askMetaGallery/#/dave20477/album_for_metafilter
... you will see a slide show that contains all the public photos in that album. Most of my public photos are in this album so it will look familiar if you already tried the previous link.
These slideshows are designed to be embedded in another web page as I have done in a blog post. Follow this link...
https://dc25.github.io/myBlog/2017/09/06/a-flickr-slideshow-with-help-from-elm.html
... to see the first slideshow listed above displayed inline.
Some of the photos have captions. These are taken from the description of the photo that can be set in flickr.
Anyone who wants to use this project should clone the github repository and rebuild the web page. For this you will need to use elm ( elm-lang.org ) . You're welcome to use the published webpage as it stands but I don't promise that it will always remain the same.
The github repository: https://github.com/dc25/askMetaGallery
I'll continue to work on this project in the near future but I'm not expecting to make major changes. Probably just code comments and other minor cleanup changes.
( I know this is a little late -- hopefully someone will find it of interest ).
posted by metadave at 4:39 PM on September 6, 2017
Response by poster: metadave - looks great! Only problem is that with some, the nav arrows are actually inside the photos. any way to make them only show outside?
posted by Quisp Lover at 2:02 PM on September 9, 2017
posted by Quisp Lover at 2:02 PM on September 9, 2017
This thread is closed to new comments.
Users can click to go to "next" (i.e. not a slideshow).
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Sorry, to clarify, I don't want a slideshow effect where photos automatically advance. Viewers should choose when to proceed.
posted by Quisp Lover at 3:38 PM on September 1, 2017