Dancing with light
Image: A world wide web of photo sharing opportunity

Summary: This is a “show and tell” detailed review of four different approaches to putting your digital photos online. These approaches are aimed at making life easier and better for both the casual digital camera user and the enthusiasts who build their own web sites. While each approach succeeds, each in turn has drawbacks. I've tried to write it in such a way that it's easy to skip to the parts that interest you most. (OH - and the picture above? That's Jere showing his new puppy, Nate, to grandmother.)

There are just so many cool options for sharing photographs online today, that I thought I’d focus on a few that revolve around a single piece of inexpensive, cross-platform, software which you may already have - Photoshop Elements 2. (You can get a free, trial copy here.)

Actually, on a more basic level this gets at a problem I think many of us share. We take photos, and forget them. But the tools available to us now offer encouragement for putting your photographic house in order, selecting your best, and sharing them with family, friends, and the world.

In experimenting with this I selected 10 images and have put them online using four different ways:

• as a slide show/purchase prints opportunity on the Shutterfly web site that is linked through Photoshop Elements 2.
• as an Acrobat (PDF) slide show created by the same software in another automated process
• and as a complex Web site created in minutes by Photoshop Elements 2 in yet another automated process.
• Finally, I have put them up on my own “Dancing with light” blog, which, of course, is where you’re reading this.

Each of these approaches calls on different skill levels, and serves different purposes. The two easiest are using Shutterfly and making a PDF (Acrobat) slide show. But in terms of what you accomplish, none of this is rocket science.

Want to look first and learn more later? Good go here:

1. Go to my Shutterfly account and see the album, “February Favorites.” I don’t really expect people to order prints, but if you haven’t done this before, explore the process - and, of course, if something catches your eye, or you just want to see the quality of printing involved, feel free to order something.

You don’t need an account to view the pictures. You do need an account if:

• You would like to save one or more of the pictures in your own space on Shuttterfly.
• You would like to order prints of any of them.

Opening an account and storing prints online at Shutterfly is free.
You pay only for the prints you order.

2. You can download the PDF file right here, but two cautions:

• This is a large file (about 1 megabyte) and so will take a few minutes to download.
• Once it does download, it will open in Acrobat using the full screen. Images will change every five seconds. After it has completed the 10 images you may be wondering how to get out of it - I was when I first tried it. The answer: hit your “escape” key. (Marked “ESC” in upper left corner of keyboard.)

Download PDF slide show.

(This requires Acrobat Reader. If you don’t have Acrobat Reader you can download a copy here. )

3. I have three examples of Photoshop Elements idea of a web site. Each uses a different template with a different basic approach to the problem. They can be found here:

• Horizontal
• Vertical
• Antique

These represent the basic approaches taken - with a variety of variations - in the templates provided.

4. Finally, the “Dancing with light” album is here. Click on a thumbnail and get a larger version with text. Click on the larger version and get one twice that size in a new window. (The largest image is 1,000 pixels across which will be too large for about half the users today.)

Been there, seen that!?

Ok - you back? Have some ideas? Some questions? Want to learn more about how these were done and what I found to like about the process - and not like? Read on.

My main tool, in each case, is Photoshop Elements 2. (I do not work for Adobe, or own Adobe stock - I’m just an enthusiastic user - whose enthusiasm has dimmed a tad as I see some of the functionality doesn’t work quite as expected.) I got the program free twice - it was packaged with my Epson scanner and my Canon camera. But if I had not gotten it for free, I would have very willingly paid the $45-$100 street price for it. This program runs in Mac or Windows. It is easy to use, powerful, and inexpensive - a winning combination. It is based on Photoshop, long-recognized as the premier program in its field. The ability to manipulate photos, repair and enhance them in it, is awesome. But right now I’m focusing primarily on the online things you can do with the images, once you’re satisfied with how they look.

Using it I was very quickly able to take a group of photos and turn them into the pages linked above. Well, quickly once I really understood what was going on. There’s a “quick ramp” here, but some pitfalls at the end that took me a a few days to discover and sort out. While there is good online documentation with Photoshop Elements and Shutterfly, I ran into several things that either weren’t mentioned, or were buried so deep you may not find them. I even ran into what I felt were a few inconsistencies, or malfunctions. So, here are my notes on the pros and cons and pitfalls and successes of the various approaches to sharing online.

1. The Shutterfly solution

Who should use this approach?

• People who don’t know anything about building Web sites and don’t want to know anything. All they want to do is get their photos online where family and friends can enjoy them.
• People who want to order prints in various sizes and format from their digital photos - and that includes very web savvy types who may also be highly skilled digital image makers.

Special requirements

• A Shutterfly account - it’s free and takes just a few minutes to sign up.
• While anyone should be able to get satisfactory results, a little knowledge goes a long way to getting more out of your Shutterfly experience.

Pros

• Easy. Nice results. Some flexibility in online display, lots of flexibility in printing.
• All sorts of cool things you - or your visitor - can do to arrange photos and make choices regarding prints. You can even arrange photos in a little, spiral-bound, book.

Cons

• Strict limits on the text that goes with the images.
• Really only one choice for the online display, but it’s a reasonable one and you can rearrange images and set timing.
• Cropping can get tricky and the results may surprise you if you are not careful.
• The serious photographer needs to be careful about what they upload and what options they select when ordering prints.

(For a fuller discussion of similar online services, see my earlier entries on this subject: Digital imaging: New and Much Improved I haven’t really changed my mind since I wrote this, but I have delved into the subject in a deeper way and learned more. )

If you think this is for you, read on for the details. Otherwise, click here to jump ahead to the PDF - Acrobat Reader approach.

Shutterfly - the details

In Photoshop Elements 2 “file” menu is a choice: "Online services." That takes you to other choices, one of which is “Shutterfly.”

Should you use this route to Shutterfly? I don’t think so because it’s operation was erratic for me. I would use Elements to improve my photos and size them for online display. But I found the “online services” connection didn’t always work as advertised and when it did, I didn’t see any great advantage to it. My advice? Go directly to Shutterfly, get an account, and use one of their methods to upload images. I found that just clicking on “add images” in their menu took me through a process where I could put up 10 images at a time and worked just fine. But they have other alternatives you can explore that allows you to do more preparation on your machine before uploading the images.

That said, I’m glad Elements points to Shutterfly and I suspect the relationship may become tighter in the future. There are several similar online services. I haven’t examined them all, but I have tried three or four and for the family photographer, I think Shutterfly is the best. (For the serious amateur wanting to share images online, I still like PBase - but it comes at a price.) You can find a good guide to all the similar services here: http://www.andromeda.com/people/ddyer/photo/albums.html

Shutterfly - some things to watch

Quality. They do a fine job with printing - and it’s a chemical process using photographic paper, not an inkjet or laser printer. So the results are more durable. But . . .

-- be sure you upload files of a size suitable to your planned use. Shutterfly does a good job of warning you if a file you have uploaded will not produce a good print of a specific size. For casual use, that’s all you have to know. But you usually don’t find it out until you actually go to print. So it helps to understand a bit more. Among other things, uploading large files takes more time, so you may want to upload files that are only suitable for viewing online, or making small prints.

Your digital camera produces pictures of a certain size and quality. Generally, if you have a choice - and you do with most cameras - and if you want to have prints made from your pictures, you should take them at the highest quality your camera can produce. This means bigger file sizes, and so fewer pictures will fit on whatever memory device you are using in your camera, but there’s a price for everything. How big should they be? I had to dig for the Shutterfly guidelines that would tell me what size print I could expect from what size file.

Digital quality revolves generally around file size - the more pixels (picture elements - think of them as dots) in an image, the better the quality and the bigger the file. On screen everything can look great because the screen is a very coarse medium. Things look fine on screen at between 72 and 96 dots per inch. The rule of thumb for printing on your inkjet printer is you want around 240 - 300 dots per inch.

What’s this mean? If your image is 2400 pixels wide, then your print can be 10-inches wide - that is 2400 divided by 240. Your camera manual should tell you the size of the images produced and divide this by 240 to get an idea of print size. That, however, is for printing at home. The process used by professional, online printers, such as Shutterfly, is different and better and the bottom line is, you’ll get better and bigger prints from the same digital image. But you should follow their guidelines. Here they are:

Image Resolution Maximum print size

less than 640 x 480
Only wallet-size prints recommended

640 x 480
Absolute minimum resolution for 4x6
(results will vary)

1024 x 768
Minimum recommended resolution for 4x6

1152 x 864
Minimum recommended resolution for 5x7

1600 x 1200
Minimum recommended resolution for 8x10 or larger

For large-format prints (1114, 1620, and 2030), our recommendations are similar to those for an 810, although you may wish to help ensure the best possible print by using an image that is 3 megapixels or larger.

The crops the thing . . .

The 35 mm negative produced by so many point-and-shoot cameras has a ratio of width to height of 3:2. That’s the same ratio provided by my Digital Rebel and some other digital cameras, though your camera may produce a different size. It’s good to understand this because if you do, you will avoid nasty surprises when ordering enlargements. Again, this information should be in your camera specifications in the manual.

A typical print is 6x4 and that works out fine for 35mm film. Whatever you have on your negative fills the picture. And if your digital camera has a light sensor with the same ratio of width to height you’ll do fine with 4x6 prints.

However, the other standard sizes of photo paper used by Shutterfly and others does not translate so smoothly. I don’t know why? I’ve been using these sizes all my life and never thought about it until now! They are 5x7, 8x10, and 11x14. Shutterfly offers these and even larger sizes. Well, none of these are a ratio of 3:2. This leaves you with two choices. The default at Shutterfly seems to be to crop both ends off your print so that the result fills the paper from edge to edge.

I don’t like that because it changes my composition. Fortunately, Shutterfly has an alternative. They will print your entire picture - no cropping - but it will NOT fill the entire 8x10 (or whatever) paper. In other words, they leave a white border around the print that is a different width on the sides than on top and bottom. (This, by the way, is no different than what 35mm film photographers have faced over the years, although frankly, I wasn’t that aware of it. Yes, I must have known it as i worked in the darkroom making enlargements, but that was an intuitive process - almost subconscious. I never relaly thought about the ratio thing. In fact, I can remember being vaguely disappointed with some enlargements from my slides done by a commercial house some 30 years ago and not knowing what exactly bothered me about them. Now I know it was the same sort of cropping Shutterfly uses.)

What’s nice about the Shutterfly approach is you can explore your alternatives online and see the results of your choices before making a commitment to printing.

You find this out by starting the ordering process. When you get to the page that actually has the order with a place to check a size, you will see a thumbnail of your picture on the left and under it a “print preview” button. Check off a size - say 8x10 - then click “print preview.”

It shows you how the picture will appear on the 8x10 sheet. If not satisfied, choose “adjust cropping” and experiment until you have a result that pleases you.

And then there’s color

Again, if you are a casual user, you don’t have to worry about this. But if you have played with your image in Photoshop Elements or similar software and now have it exactly as you want it, then beware. Shutterfly wants to help and you may not want their help, but they’ll give it to you anyway unless you tell them to bug off!

How do you stop them from being “helpful?” Select an image you feel is exactly as you want it and choose “enhance/fix picture” from the menu on the right. Then from the tabs at the top of that menu choose “effects.”

Suddenly - over on the left side underneath the thumbnail of your picture is a little box you can check. The box says “don’t apply automatic corrections to this picture.”

That’s a really roundabout way to arrive at this box - but, that’s what they offer. They use a technology called “VividPics.” To learn all bout it - and decide whether or not you want to check this box for any given picture - I suggest you click the “more about VividPics” link that is under the check box. You’ll get a useful explanation in a separate window.

I have a feeling I’m making Shutterfly sound far more complex than it is. Visit my site. Walk through the process of ordering prints. Get a feel for how it all works. Open your own account. Play some more. You have nothing to lose but your time. I think it’s easy. I think it’s flexible. I think the results - both online and in print - are fine.

2. A PDF (Adobe Acrobat) slide show

Who should use this approach?

• People who want a quick, meat and potatoes way to share photos across computer platforms.

Special requirements

• In theory these files could be sent by email - they certainly could be burned on a CD - but in fact they may be larger than what many email services will allow. So, you probably need to put them on a Web site and share them that way.

Pros
Fast. Easy. Nice results.

Cons

• You probably will want to put your file - with a link - on a Web site. If you know how to do that, it’s easy. If you don’t, there’s a little learning curve.
• No text goes with the images. (Might not bother you - it bothers me.)

If you think this is for you, read on for the details. Otherwise, click here to jump ahead to the personal Web pages approach.

You need to think a little about file quality here. If you are going to do this do you expect a person to print out the results? If so, you want to make choices that will lead to high quality prints - but high file sizes as well which means longer download times. But if you are doing this just so someone can view your prints on screen, you can keep the file quality - and size - lower.

Once you’ve made your basic decision, Photoshop Elements make the process easy with two features:

• batch processing
• PDF slide show creation

Batch processing means you can point the software at a folder containing a dozen or more images and ask it to convert them all in the same way. Here’s how it works - specifics given assume that you mean for the slideshow to be viewed on screen, not printed:

1. Choose “batch processing” from the “file” menu.
2. In the dialogue box choose your folder that holds your picture.
3. Under “conversion options” choose “high quality jpeg.”
4. Under “image size” check the box that says “convert image size” and under width in pixels choose “700.” ( I am assuming, of course, that your pictures are wider than this. If they aren’t ignore the size issue. ) Do check “constrain proportions” and set the “resolution” to 96.
5. Be sure to examine the next choice carefully. You can either save modified versions of the files with new names (leaving the originals unchanged), or select “Rename Files” and set naming options. This feature is nicely done and I recommend that you rename. The rule of thumb in digital photography is to leave your original alone - always work with copies.




6. Under “output option” create a new folder to put the converted files into.

Update: After I wrote this I discovered that the files produced by batch processing were twice as large as I expected. I’m not sure why, but if I saved the same file with the Elements “save to web” feature it was about half the size. The difference? As near as I can tell the batch processing saves all the “EXIF” and other information that you have added to the image. (You add this text information in Elements.) I don’t understand why that would balloon the files this much, but it seems to be the case. In any event, if file size is an issue, batch processing is may not be a good choice. Save the files one at a time using the “save to web” feature - or at least test the two methods to see if your results are the same as mine. This might be something specific to the Mac or me.)

Ok, now - one way or another - you have the images in an appropriate size and format. Go back to the “file” menu in Elements and choose “automation tools” and from that menu, choose “PDF slideshow.”

A new dialogue box comes up. Load your images into it in the order you want them to be displayed in the slide show. Set the number of seconds for each slide on screen - 5 is the default and works nicely - and click “OK.”

Your slideshow will be quickly created in PDF format. You will notice this is quite a large file. For 10 slides I did this way, I ended up with almost a megabyte - quite a long download and a bit large for many email systems. To make this file smaller I could cut the number of pictures, or batch process them again at a smaller width - say 400 pixels instead of 700.

(At first I thought this size was a problem with the batch processing - and it still looks to me like batch processing does not remove text content from an image file. However, I suspect this content is removed by the PDF processing. So the net result when combining batch processing with the PDF-building tool is that the data get eliminated. In any event, I gained little when I saved these files for the Web individually - thus getting rid of the text information - and then put them through the PDF process. Bottom line - I would go ahead and use batch processing if the goal is to make a PDF file - but be wary of it if you are preparing files for uploading directly to the Web.)

You can upload this PDF file to your Web site and make a link to it in the normal manner. I suggest, however, that in your link you warn your Web user of three things:

• This is a large file - state the size
• It’s in PDF format and if they don’t have Acrobat Reader, they can download a free copy here. (http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/alternate.html)
• When the show loads on their computer it will display in full screen mode. To get out of this mode they should hit the “Escape” key.

I have mixed feelings about this approach. I have never liked PDF files for display on screen because the whole process is essentially designed to convey documents that are meant to be printed - not viewed on screen. But this breaks that pattern - this creates a credible slide show meant to be viewed on screen. And after the user hits the “escape” key they can view pictures one at a time for as long as they want, changing the size or whatever. So I may have to rethink my long-term anti-PDF prejudice. ;-)

3. The personal Web pages approach

Who should use this approach?

• People who already know how to build a Web site, but want a short cut to a nice display.


• People who are willing to learn a little bit about Web pages so they’ll make good choices.

Special requirements

• A web site that you can access using FTP software - file transfer protocol.


• FTP software and the knowledge to use it.

Pros
Fast. Easy. Nice results. Reasonable flexibility.
Cons
You need a Web site, FTP software, and a minimum of technical knowledge.
Text with images is limited and while there are several attractive templates to choose from, making the best choice is more than just a question of aesthetics.

If you think this is for you, read on for the details. Otherwise, click here to jump ahead to the blog approach.

You might want to review the “gallery” examples. They are found here:

• Horizontal
• Vertical
• Antique

Creating a Web site - it’s much more than a single page - with Photoshop Elements 2 is simple. The only real technical challenge is getting it from your machine to a Web site - and that’s a relatively small hurdle. But you do, of course, need a Web site - and you do need FTP access to that site. That is, this tool creates several folders and files that need to be uploaded. With FTP access this can be done in a single step. If you don’t have such a site with FTP access then I doubt that this process is for you. (If you don’t have a Web site, but would like to start one, I suggest you explore some of the free alternatives, such as that offered by DotEasy.com. When you go to their site, look for the comparison page - this will show you some other free choices. But keep in mind “free” always comes at a price! I host this site with DotEasy, but I pay a monthly fee to do so. I started, however, by using their free service.)

(If you don't know what is involved with FTP it means having the right software and learning how to use it. Since this varies with the software, any detailed description is beyond the scope of this article. I suggest you do a Google search on "FTP software.")

OK, to create your Web site:

• Put all the pictures you want to use in a single folder. (They don’t have to be sized or prepared in a special way for the Web - Elements will do this for you.)
• From the “file” menu choose, “Create Web Photo Gallery”
• Choose style - the three examples I’ve posted here gives an idea of the different types, but there are several variations
• Make selections from the “options” menu

Ahhhh, there’s the rub.

At first I didn’t notice that this "options" box included a drop down list and depending on which option you choose, you then get a different set of choices to make in the boxes below it. Lots of flexibility here.

Fortunately, most of these choices are obvious and don’t require any special knowledge. The one that does is headed simply “large images.” Essentially this tool creates two images from your pictures - a “thumbnail” and a “large” image. You can set the actual size for each of these. Your choices for the thumbnail sizes aren’t that critical. They are critical for the “large” images, and here’s where a little knowledge pays off.

When you deal with the computer screen you deal in a world of pixels and pixels are not absolute units of length like inches are. Instead, how many inches of screen a group of pixels occupies depends on the screen’s resolution - and not only can this vary, but in most cases the user can choose from a selection of two or three different screen resolutions. (I suspect many users don’t know this because it’s usually ot obvious.) So a 10-inch wide screen could display 640 pixels across it or 800, or 1024 or more.

For starters, you should know what your screen resolution is set to. If you want to make a rough guess, the picture at the top of this article is 500 pixels wide. If you click on that picture, you’ll get one that is 1,000 pixels wide. The screen I use can be set anywhere from 640 to 1440 pixels wide. I usually have it set at 1440. But - and this is important - I need to be constantly aware when it comes to producing Web pages, that half of the people viewing the Web today (as of January, 2004) are doing so with a screen that shows just 800 pixels. So that’s what I design for - actually, 740 pixels because browser scroll bars and other stuff occupies about 50 pixels of the screen.

What this means from a design standpoint is it’s an imperfect world. Your pictures frequently look at their best when t hey occupy the whole screen. If I put up a picture that is 740 pixels wide it will occupy the whole screen for half of my viewers, and about half the screen for the 10 percent of viewers who have a screen resolution such as I use.

And that really doesn’t convey the whole sense of things. While my screen may show 1440 pixels resolutions, it is not really twice as wide as someone’s screen that shows 800 pixels. Their screen may be 12-inches across while mine is 16. So that means 750 pixels on my screen not only occupies about half the screen real estate, but the picture looks even smaller - it’s about 8 inches wide instead of 12!

But that’s the world we live in - the Web was designed so that we could share across this world despite all these differences.

I design with 800 pixels as a limit because I know that will fit on most screens. (About 6% of users will have even lower resolution, such as 640 pixels, and they will have to scroll horizontally to see some of what I put on the Web. Horizontal scrolling is a pain, but hey - the world is full of tradeoffs.

That does not mean that I can safely choose the “custom” setting on the picture size and write in 740. The reason is that the gallery templates only use a portion of the screen for the large image. The biggest amount of space for images shows up in templates such as “antique paper.” In these templates the thumbnails all appear together on one or more screens (depending on how many pictures you have.) When a user clicks on a thumbnail they see a new screen with three arrows indicating previous, next and return to the thumbnail screen. That leaves quite a bit of room for images.

On the other designs they are using what Web developers know as frames. In a frame a portion of the screen acts as a separate window and in these cases contains the thumbnails. Click on a thumbnail and the picture changes in the other portion of the screen. This frame approach has advantages and disadvantages - but one disadvantage is it cuts down on the amount of screen real estate you can use for your main picture.

As noted, you can pump in your own numbers under the “custom” choice in the drop down menu. But they offer three other choices - small (250 pixels) , medium (350), and large (450).

Through a lot of experimenting - by reducing my own screen resolution to 800 - I found that as a general rule I could use “large” for the layouts where the thumbnails were on a separate page, such as “antique.” I found I had to use “medium” with the horizontal or vertical frames design where the thumbnails appear on the same screen as the large image.

You also need to think about how many thumbnails will fit on a screen. If you have more than 10 pictures I would suggest using one of the designs where the thumbnails are on separate pages - or the vertical frame design because at least all this requires is that a person scroll vertically to see more thumbnails.

BTW - why I generally do not like frames in Web design could be a whole separate article, but put simply they make things such as sending a page’s URL to a friend, or adding the page to a list of “favorites,” difficult.

In any event, play with the different layout and look carefully at your results. It’s easy - and doesn’t take much time to experiment with different setting. Remember that not only should the picture fit nicely in a screen that is 800 pixels wide, but so should the navigation tools (arrows), captions, and other information about the picture.

One thing that was not clear to me was where the picture information was coming from. I didn’t see any space to add or change most of it. And it’s not there - not in the “create Web photo gallery” menu.

To see it and edit it you need to open a picture in Photo Elements 2 - then from the “file” menu choose “file info” and a box will appear. It will already contain some information about the picture, but you can add your own notes here. This information is then picked up by the Web page building tool and used for the title and caption.

I don’t like separating things this way - but I also don’t see another way to do it.

Warning 1: there appears to be a limit of about 250 characters in the captions. Write more and they just don't get used.

Warning 2: Not all template use all the parameters you get to set. That is, you can make choices that give you the impression - for example - that the captions will be included with the large image, then when you build the pages they don’t appear. The reason? That particular choice wasn’t included on that particular Web template, even though the software let you make the choice.

You may notice a warning to this effect - and you may not - but the good news is experimentation is easy and fast, so I suggest the best way to learn what works and looks good to you is to experiment.

Once you have a winning formula this certainly is an easy easy way to create Web pages for your images. I’m thinking about how I might best incorporate it into my “Dancing with Light” blog. And that brings me to my last choice.

4. The MovableType blog’s the thing

(Movable type is a free (for noncommercial users) blog-building tool found here. For an explanation of blogs, go here. )

Who should use this approach?

• People who are comfortable building Web sites and willing to learn the special mini-language associated with Movable Type.
• People who really want to do it their way - they want flexibility and are willing to pay the price for it both in terms of dollars and learning curve.

(Please note: If you are a serious amateur photographer and want to share your photos online in what amounts to a photo blog, a much simpler approach is offered by PBase. Not quite as flexible as I want, but still very nice and at a reasonable price. http://www.pbase.com/ )

Back to MovableType

Pros

• Very flexible to both you as the builder and to your user.


• Can incorporate all the other approaches and pull them together in this one spot - as this article has done.


• Allows you to use text with images without limits - important to me.


• Allows you to “file” images in different ways. For example, when I post a single image to this blog, such as “Three Pipers Piping” (http://www.giveyoujoy.net/dancing/archives/001058.html) you will be able to find it in several different ways -


• - For a while it will appear as one of the five images on the home page of Dancing with light.


• - It will also appear under “recent entries” for a while.


• - It will always appear under in the album “”top 10 2.04”


• - It will always appear in the album “Winter Beach”


• - It will also appear under the Dancing with Light” archives under “March.
• Plus you can find it by using the “Search this site” box that will look at all text associated with the image. (Try searching for “Sanderling.”
• Eventually, it will get picked up in the Google Search that looks at the entire “Give you joy!” Web site. (It takes awhile for new entries to get listed in this one.)

Don’t underestimate this ability to find things at a later date. Computer screens give you relatively small amounts of information at one time and simply don’t have the feel of a book that you can quickly thumb through. That’s why the ability to file things in multiple ways - and search for words and phrases within a Web site - is so important.

Cons

• It takes time to learn how to build blogs, to plan what you want to do, to build the basic site, and to add content to the site.

If you want to learn more about MovableType, visit their Web site. http://www.movabletype.org/

If you already use it, but are curious how I created my “album” pages, the key is simple. It’s a MovableType plug in called MTGrid and you can get it for free here. (http://www.nonplus.net/software/mt/MTGrid.htm) MTGrid allows you to make tables. The code for my thumbnails is put in my “excerpt” entry field and this is what is used to build an album page.

Whew! I experimented a lot more - and wrote a lot more - than I had intended when I started this project. Hope someone finds it useful. If nothing else, it will serve as an aide to my failing memory ;-)

Posted by Greg Stone at March 7, 2004 01:27 PM