ReadyPhotoSite Blog » Perfect Flash Photo Gallery: Design Tips

13.Aug
2009

Perfect Flash Photo Gallery: Design Tips

Posted in Flash Photo Galleries, Inspirational Showcase, Photo Websites

Presentation matters. And the Web is no exception. The way you choose to present your art and/or products on your website affects your visitors’ attitude towards you as a professional and the overall further success of your business.

Many modern artists and businesses use Flash Photo Galleries to create stunning online presentation or slideshow of their product’s digital images. In contrast to static photo galleries, dynamic flash galleries can give the presentation a smooth interface, fresh spark, and create a rich visual experience you might want to offer your visitors to catch their attention and stay in their minds. By putting a dynamic flash photo gallery on your website, you allow your visitors to navigate through the images like they are having a catalog handy. More to say, flash photo gallery would nowadays be expected by visitors on sites relating to gaming, music, fashion, movies, and above all - photography. That said, if you want to benefit your visitors and boost your site traffic, you should go for flash photo gallery solution.

We cannot offer you a single template to create a perfect flash photo gallery, however, having looked through a great number of dynamic flash galleries, we’ve compiled a set of features to consider when choosing a flash photo gallery for yourself that would allow you to use the flash photo gallery potential to the fell and help you maximize the effect.

Unlimited images

Creativity has no limits. There’s nothing more frustrating than realizing that you’re out of server space, and need to decide on images to delete, especially if you’ve already picked them out of many to upload before. A high quality flash photo gallery should allow for unlimited photo upload. Thereby, however nice and attractive the flash photo gallery is, if it limits the number of images to upload – it’s lame, moreover, if you’re looking for a long-standing solution.

Image editing tools

Some flash photo galleries would allow you unlimited download but with no control of your photos. They would automatically resize and organize your images which might not meet your expectations. A professional flash photo gallery should have the drag-and-drop, crop, scale, rotate/flip, zoom-in/out option to alter the photos uploaded.

Image caption and description tag

Make sure you can add a name and description tags to the images in your flash photo gallery. Flash is search engine friendly now, but still it’s the text and not flash that is indexed. Moreover, some flash galleries would allow you to sort and/or search images according to their tags which might be very convenient.

Slideshow mode

Flash image slideshow allows you to demonstrate the sets of certain photos to your visitors. This way you can create the “My Favorites” page or organize the product presentation. A flash image slideshow allows for dynamic slide change that makes it convenient for users. Make sure there’s an option to control the precise duration of each slide. There might be transition and motion effects available to make your slideshow more animated. The most popular default transition effect is fade-in and fade-out. However, you might wanna get more creative than that. Remember, that users want to get surprised with new ideas and experiences.

Music Player

In contrast to the majority of flash photo templates where there’s a pre-installed background music, flash photo galleries come with built-in music editors that allow you to use multiple background music to set any mood of your flash gallery. You can add your own music to your flash photo album or image slideshow right from the admin area to enhance your visitors’ impression. Feel all the benefits of good music choice and player on the following two websites.

Creative Gallery Design

The unusual and visually appealing design is probably the key feature that would draw your visitors’ attention to your flash photo gallery. The original and nicely-looking gallery can positively influence attitudes and ensure the trust in your professional skills. Here are a few examples of creative flash photo gallery designs we hope would inspire you.

Big image dimensions

If your flash photo gallery showcases thumbnails or small-sized images, it’s important to give you visitors the option of viewing them in big dimensions to have a better impression. The selected image can open in the same or new browser tab or window. However, a lot of flash photo galleries today showcase your images in relatively big dimensions. The choice is totally yours.

Watermark protection

Stealing photos online is a common issue. Of course, with flash photo galleries your photographs are more secured than with static galleries because flash photo galleries do not allow downloading images via “save as” option, and therefore prevent your photos from unauthorized usage in most of the cases. However, if you want your images to be a 100% protected, choose a flash photo gallery with watermark protection. You can create and upload a watermark image by yourself to ensure it doesn’t spoil the impression from the pictures showcased.

User-friendly admin panel

One of the main advantages of a high quality flash photo gallery is that it’s simple to manage. There are beautiful galleries that are, however, tricky to manage which might become a great obstacle in usage. If you’re a photographer, you’ll probably upload many pictures on regular basis, and would like the process be quick and easy. If you’re involved in any other business and have a flash photo gallery integrated with your corporate website to showcase your products, you won’t prefer to spend a lot of time on it either. Otherwise, the process can become frustrating and stressful.

Intuitive and smooth navigation

Navigation is the key to your flash photo gallery user interface design. Besides, dynamic flash galleries are notable for their smooth and fluid user experience. If your visitor cannot find how to switch between the galleries, or change the slideshow mode to a gallery, or if the overall experience is rough, then you failed to make his user experience with your dynamic photo gallery pleasant, and he might never come back to your portfolio of site at all.

Easy to implement in your site

If you already have a site you need a dynamic photo gallery for, it’s important that if fits your current design well and works properly when integrated with your website. Sometimes an elegant and exquisite flash photo gallery or a glossy sleek flash image slideshow is just not what you need in spite of that fact that on their own they look gorgeous. Or they integrate with certain types of websites and have a strict set of requirements for integration. Choose a flash photo gallery that is flexible.

Quick features on the final note

• support both, RSS and custom images
• liquid layout - fits to any size you specify
• multiple language support

We presented you a number a design tips to create a flash photo gallery close to perfection. Following them, you can be sure to have a fascinating and functional dynamic photo gallery with smooth and rich presentation that wouldn’t leave your visitors indifferent.