Slideshows on Web Sites, a la Zenfolio

[Jager]

Having browsed Guy's and Tim's and a number of other posters' galleries on Zenfolio, I must say that I am impressed with the presentation that Zenfolio offers. I especially like the slideshow feature which provides a quick and painless way of quickly perusing a bunch of images - almost like the old days of bending over a light table with a loupe editing a bunch of chromes.

After dilly dallying for far too long, I've pulled out Dreamweaver and am in the beginning stages of building my own web site. I expect for the majority of my images I'll simply build separate web galleries in Lightroom for individual shoots. I like the controls and the relative ease Lightroom provides in quickly building a web gallery.

Alas, Lightroom provides no slideshow capability within those web galleries, along the lines of what Zenfolio offers. Does anyone have any suggestions for software that provides that kind of functionality - preferably something that integrates well with Lightroom?

To keep this somewhat remotely on topic... the vast majority of images I plan to post will have been taken with the M8.

TIA.

Jeff

P.S. Apologies for the double-post. My internet connection burped while saving.

[erl]

Fixed the double post Jeff, but can't help with your question.

[guy_mancuso]

Jeff , if you figure this all out because i really do like the look of Zenfolio . I really need to update my real site badly it is over 4 years old. So anything you can find out please let me know.

[photolandscape]

I have photographs on pbase.com as well as on zenfolio.com.

My 4 galleries on pbase.com (about India, Lewis & Clark trail, Day of the Dead in Oaxaca, Mexico, and private gallery) draw lots of viewers. In about 18 months, I have had nearly 150,000 individual photo hits. For the equivalent of about $25/year, that's excellent. I have no idea why pbase seems to attract lots of hits, but in my case, it's been quite good.

The graphic design style options in pbase.com are a bit limited, but you can easily write a short introductory statement and post it as a lead in to the photos. Viewers can contact you easily, can recommend your work to others, vote on your photographs, and there are quite a few really outstanding photographers who have sites on it--Claude Renault, for example.

I have had my zenfolio.com photos (only 40 images shot with the M8, all of them concerning New Orleans eighteen months after Katrina) on-line for one month. In that time, I have only had 132 viewers. Initially, when I was getting practically no hits whatsoever, I posted here on the M8 forum to see what effect, if any, that might have. I quickly went from maybe 20 hits to 130 in a couple of days. Then, it completely died again.

Lesson learned: you have to be proactive and steer people to your zenfolio.com site much more than I have had to with pbase.com. Perhaps because it is newer and less well-known, zenfolio.com doesn't seem to draw people in the way I would have liked (I realize some of this may be due in part to my subject matter).

The ease-of-use could be better on zenfolio.com. It isn't terribly intuitive in places, and what I miss most is the apparent lack of an option to also post some introductory remarks setting the stage for viewers. Maybe it's there, but I sure couldn't find it.

Last but not least zenfolio.com option offers limited but more attractive graphic design options--more elegant for sure.

Just thought I'd add this to the mix.

[guy_mancuso]

I personnally am not that interested in the general public hits but i can use it for clients or prospective ones to see more up to date images that i did or create something specifically tailored to there needs, so that part i do like is to create a collection for them. I need to play more on it as i just opened up the account but the look i saw with Tim's at first drew me to sign up.

[johnfriar]

Jeff, if I understand you correctly, you're looking for a software component that allows you to view a slide show. If so, you may want to take a look at this...

AIRTIGHT - AutoViewer Download

It was recommended to me, although I haven't used it yet but intend to give it a go on my own website.

John

[mboerma]

Jeff,

I think you are looking for something in this direction:

Zenfolio | Zenfolio Public API

There is a plugin available for Apple Aperture and so they might come up with one for Lightroom. At least the state it is "wanted".

[Hans Roggen]

Hi Jeff,

I'm in the middle of updating my website and i am using Soundslides Plus. Slideshows with movement and sound if you like. I use both but you can also choose to have a slideshow that you can browse through manually.
Here's an example on my website: Portrait Photograpy (still beta)

[johnwolf]

Jeff,

Sorry, can't help with the slideshow functionality. I am also developing a Zenfolio site with some recent Japan pics and like it very much. My main complaint is that you cannot have a splash page. I asked them about it and they said several people have made this request and they are considering it. If you care about this functionality, let them know. A stronger Zenfolio home page would be an excellent addition.

John
My Zenfolio site

[robsteve]

Jeff:

Have you tried the flash gallery of LightRoom? It produces a slideshow.

[etienne_werner]

I would like to recommend Jalbum. It is a free program with very many possibilities and it works on most OS's. I find it very easy to use.
JAlbum - the free web photo album software and photo gallery software

Here a very simple sideshow I made with Jalbum for our site:
WFA/Reuters

Regards,

Etienne

[Jager]

Thanks for fixing my busted double-post, Erl.

Appreciate the replies, guys. Just to clarify, I'm looking for software which will allow me to replicate the slideshow functionality on Zenfolio - not actually use Zenfolio or one of the other photo hosting services. I'll be posting a lot of content which are not images.

I'll look through the several suggestions and try and sort out what might work.

Rob, I assume the flash gallery you're talking about is the slideshow module within Lightroom? I'm not aware of any other slideshow functionality in the program. And unless I'm missing something, the slidehow module doesn't work outside of Lightroom.

One of the things I'm trying to achieve is to maintain image quality within the slideshow presentation itself. One of my frustrations with a lot of slideshow products is the reduction in image quality relative to the original photos. The slideshow module in Lightroom is like that, for instance. One of the things I like about the Zenfolio slideshow is that there doesn't appear to be any degradation in quality.

Anyway, I'll look into the several suggestions and report back. Thanks again.

Jeff

[stnami]

Soundslides................... Soundslides.. all ready to go just paste into your site saves all the mucking around with flash, links etc
see for examples Untitled Document
.
.
ps ..... the secret part...............it also works with photographs made with other cameras

[carlmuck]

Jager,

Take a look at Matthew Campagna's The Turning Gate he's made some Lightroom Gallery Plug-ins. They work pretty well.

One of them integrates the Airtight Interactive Autoviewer.

The combination of what he's done is pretty easy to use, including building "Index" pages of your galleries. It's not a complete photo site like Gallery or JAlbum, but it works directly out of Lightroom so for quick dumps it works pretty well.

You can look at my site http://www.archieandhubert.net and see several of the gallery styles in action.

c.

3616

[robsteve]

Originally Posted by Jager

Thanks for fixing my busted double-post, Erl.

Rob, I assume the flash gallery you're talking about is the slideshow module within Lightroom? I'm not aware of any other slideshow functionality in the program. And unless I'm missing something, the slidehow module doesn't work outside of Lightroom.


Jeff

Jeff:

It is under the web tab and you choose flash Gallery.

Here is one I made a few weeks ago.

June Optimist Clinic - 2007

[farnz]

Originally Posted by Jager

... And unless I'm missing something, the slidehow module doesn't work outside of Lightroom...

Jeff,

You can export slideshows from Lightroom in pdf format. In the Slideshow module choose "Export slideshow" from the Slideshow menu at the top left of the page. When the slideshow is run, Adobe Acrobat reader will run and play the slideshow for you; no intervention from Lightroom is required.

Pete.