Gallery Instructions

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Public and Personal Galleries 

     You have two options for placing your images on the web site; Public and Personal galleries. Public galleries, such as the Salon, are open to anyone wishing to include their work, provided they meet the gallery requirements. Typically, images intended for placement in public galleries are subject to approval, to ensure images posted in these sections meet the requirements specified. For example, the Salon section requirements are 1) all works in the Salon must be created using enamel; and, 2) only two images from each registered user can be posted to the Salon. If work is uploaded for display in a public gallery, it will not be included in the gallery until it is approved by an administrator. 

     Personal galleries, or albums, on the other hand, do not require approval, and images uploaded to these sections will be immediately available for viewing by visitors to the site. Registered users are free to upload any type of photograph they wish to display; artwork, workshop photos, snapshots of friends and family, etc. The only requirements for personal galleries/albums is that the user cannot upload more images than allotted web space allows.

Creating Personal Albums 

     While users do not have to create personal albums, and can choose to upload only to one of the public galleries, you may wish to create one or more personal albums to organize your images. This is done in the 'Admin Mode' section of the user's account. To create a personal album, click the 'Admin Mode' link in the top navigation bar. Figure 5, below, shows the top navigation bar, with the 'Admin Mode' link highlighted. 

Figure 5.  Navigation bar.  Admin Mode link is highlighted in yellow.

     'Admin Mode' allows you to make any modifications you choose to your albums or images, as opposed to 'User Mode,' which only allows for viewing and uploading of images. 'Admin Mode' allows you to add titles, descriptions, and keywords to your albums and images after they have been created or uploaded, as well as an option to delete them. These modifications can only be performed in 'Admin Mode'; if the options are not available to you, make sure you are not in 'User Mode.' 

     Once you have entered Admin Mode, you will see a new toolbar, located below the language selection box. This toolbar has links allowing you to create and order personal albums, modify existing albums, and edit information in your profile. To create a new album, click the box on the left, marked 'Create/Order My Albums' to begin the album creation process (Figure 6, below). A window will open containing an album creation box. If you have existing albums, they will be listed here; if not, the box will be empty. Click the 'New' button below, and an album titled 'New Album' will appear. Click this album title, and change the title of the album in the text box below (see Figure 7). Once you have made your changes, click the 'Apply Modifications' button. If you have created more than one album, you can also change the order in which your albums appear, or delete unwanted albums. 

Figure 6.  Admin tool bar.

Figure 7.  Album configuration box.

     By using the 'Modify My Albums' link after creating albums, you can add descriptions and keywords, and include links to websites and e-mail addresses.

Preparing Your Images for Upload 

     Optimizing your images is a critical step which should not be omitted. Optimizing your images compresses the file size, while maintaining image quality, so download time for viewers is minimized. A compressed file will load on a viewer's screen several times faster than a file that has not been compressed, which means your image will be displayed much quicker, and visitors with slower dial-up connections are more easily able to view your work. More importantly, compressing your images will allow you to upload more images to your allotted web space in the gallery. If, for instance, a compressed image is one-fourth the size of a non-compressed image, you will be able to upload four times as many equally-sized images to your personal web space, as compared to non-compressed images. 

     To optimize your images using a free online service, follow the instructions on the web page of the service you choose. If you are comfortable with manipulating your own digital images, and have access to photo editing software (such as Adobe Photoshop), you can use the tools found in these programs to reduce the file size of your images. Since there is a variety of photo editing software, we will not go into lengthy detail about using these programs. In Adobe Photoshop, for instance, the process to optimize for the web is relatively straightforward. With your image open in Photoshop, and after you have sized, cropped, and/or color-corrected your image, click the FILE menu, and select SAVE FOR WEB... to open the image optimizer. Typically, image optimizers will provide different options for web images, such as file type, image quality, etc. For photographs, the best file format to use on the internet is .JPG. An option during optimizing is image quality; medium setting is usually all that is required for most web images. A medium quality setting is usually quite acceptable for use on the internet, and will allow for a smaller file size than the high quality setting, allowing for upload of additional images. 

     If you use a photographer or photo lab to transfer your slides to digital files, you can ask them to provide web-ready .JPG files. Even if you have your photographer or photo lab provide you with the proper file format, you may still wish to run your images through an image optimizing program or web site, to insure the smallest possible file size without sacrificing image quality.

Uploading Images 

     Once your account has been created and you have logged in, you can begin to upload your optimized images to the gallery. If you have not created any personal albums, images can only be uploaded to one of the public galleries of the website. If you wish to place images in a personal album, first follow the instruction above for creating a personal album. 

Figure 8.  File/URL upload screen.

     In the top navigation bar, click the 'Upload Images' link to begin the uploading process. A window will open containing upload boxes and URL (Universal Resource Locator) boxes, Figure 8. Upload text fields allow you to place images to the gallery directly from your computer, while URL fields allow you to upload images that are elsewhere on the internet. Note: By uploading images from your personal computer, it is assumed the user has rights and permissions over the images to be displayed. Before uploading content from elsewhere on the internet using the URL upload boxes, please be sure permission has been granted to use these images. Gallery Administrators will delete any images that appear to be copyright infringement, or have been brought to our attention as an infringement of another's copyright. 

Figure 9.  Browse/upload box.

     To upload directly from your hard drive, click 'Browse' next to one of the upload text boxes, search for and select your file, and click 'OK'. This will place the direct path to your file in the text box. Users can upload up to five files at one time; for additional files, begin the process again. To retrieve and upload files located elsewhere on the internet, type, or cut and paste, the direct URL into the text box located in the URI/URL upload section. Up to three URLs can be listed for upload at one time. To upload more than three URLs, repeat the process. Once you have listed all the files to be uploaded, click the 'Continue' button. 

     After clicking the 'Continue' button, there may be a slight delay as the images are being passed to the website. Please wait patiently as the files are uploaded. If the transfer is successful, a screen will appear stating, 'Successful Uploads,' and will include the number of files uploaded, and directions to again click the continue button. If uploads were not successful, you will be given information why they did not load. The most common problems are too large of file size, and incorrect file type. If file size is too large, you should optimize your images to ensure they are less than 1MB (megabyte) in size. If the gallery will not recognize the file type, be sure to save your images in either .JPG, .GIF, .TIF, or .PNG format, with .JPG the preferred format for photographs displayed on the web. 

Figure 10.  Confirmation message, showing successful upload.

     Once you have received confirmation of successful upload (Figure 10, above), click the continue button. You will be taken to a screen displaying a thumbnail image of your first picture, along with several text boxes. In our example, we have uploaded a photograph of our friend, Allan Heywood (Figure 11, below). On this screen, you will select which album you wish to place your image. For our example, we have chosen to place our image in Gallery 1 of the Salon. If you have created personal albums, these will be available in the drop down list. Ensure you are placing your image in the proper album, as this choice cannot be undone by the user. If an image is uploaded to a public gallery where it does not belong, it will either be placed by an Administrator in a Salon Gallery (if applicable), in one of the user's personal albums, or it will be deleted if a personal album has not been created. 

Figure 11.  Upload file screen, with text boxes to include additional information about images.

     This screen will also give you the opportunity to provide additional information about the image; title, description, and keywords. BBCode can be used in the description box to create hyperlinks to outside websites, e-mail links, and to modify text appearance, such as bold and italic text. Once you have finished choosing an album and including appropriate descriptions and titles, click the 'Continue' button. If all of the information is in order, and the file successfully transferred, the next screen will inform you it is in place. If the image has been uploaded to a personal album, it will be available for immediate viewing. If the image has been uploaded for display in a public file, you are notified that it will be available for viewing once it has been approved by an Administrator. 

     Now that your first image has been uploaded, you can proceed to upload additional images to the gallery, by repeating the steps listed above.

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