Quick Steps to Create & Link NextGen Gallery

These three quick step lists should help you remember how to do the common tasks required to create and link NextGen Gallery.

Create and link a gallery to a page

Create the gallery and upload your images
Inside the gallery’s top task pane click the button that says add page.
Go to Appearance > Menus and add the new page to the menu and save.

If you want the new gallery to also appear in the album

Go to Gallery > Album
Select the album from the drop down menu
Drag and drop the new gallery into the album and save.

If you want to add a gallery to an existing page or post

Open the page or post in the editor
Place your cursor in the editor where you want the galley to appear
Using the “Add Gallery” icon on the top row in the editor select the gallery you want from the drop down menu and insert, then update your page.

How to Add a Red Dot to Sold Art in WordPress

Artbiz receives the odd request asking if there is a way to put a red dot in the description of their images. Unfortunately NextGen Gallery doesn’t have that option and you’ll hard pressed to find a WordPress gallery plugin that does.

By the way, the red dot tells people who the work is sold. •

The reason it’s not a feature is probably because – unless you’re an artist or involved with the fine arts you’ll have no idea what the red dot means. That’s why writing sold or private collection or in the collection of... is standard practice for website image galleries.

But for those of you who really, really want to know how to do this I have this solution.

Using HTML to add a red dot to image descriptions in NextGen Gallery. Here goes…

First we need a dot. The best dot to use is a bullet created by keyboard command “alt + 7″ and gives you a bullet ” • ”

Once we have our ” • ” we need to style it. Make it red and make it bigger. This bit of code does just that, copy it from the screenshot below, highlighted in yellow.

Copy the above and paste it into the image description box inside NextGen Gallery as shown below and you’ll have the red dot.

red-dot-nextcellent-gallery — Screenshot of description box

Here’s a screenshot of the image as it will be seen by your site visitors once the thumbnail is enlarged.

If you feel strongly about knowing how to add a red dot to sold art then this will work. Otherwise writing “sold” or “private collection” is perfectly fine and doesn’t need explanation.

Why Add Image Meta Data

A new client said “The re-sizing is working, I am not sure about why I am doing the metadata template.”

There’s no denying that resizing, renaming, optimizing and filling in the file info, also known as metadata, is a time-consuming process.

Why Add Image Meta Data? It is worth the time; this is why…

1. Images of your artwork will travel, either by email for submissions or uploaded to your website. Any file info that you provide goes with the image, in other words, it’s embedded. This includes copyright notices, keywords and the works description (name, size, medium).

2. Visitors to your website may pin your images to Pinterest. When pinning an image with file info, that info is automatically extracted and fills in the caption. You do not have to rely on people to do the right thing and give credit or take the time to look for it.

3. Now here’s the best thing about filling in metadata templates for your images. You only have to do it once! AND when you upload them to NextCellent Gallery the Alt title, image description and keyword fields are filled in automatically. Copy or move images between galleries; the file info goes with it.

Descriptions in Nextgen Gallery — Fields are auto filled in NextGen Gallery

A little work will go along way to brand and protect your images.

Any questions on why add image metadata? What has your experience been like when adding the metadata file into in Photoshop?

Resizing Images

Resizing Images article has been updated with new information

The first thing you have to do in preparation to add content to your site is to optimize your images. Optimizing is a term used to indicate a change to a photo or a graphic, to reduce it in both visual size and file size, for use in other programs. For use in an Artbiz website I ask clients to resize to no larger than 800 – 1024px in any one direction and no larger than 100 to 150 kbs.

Photoshop or Photoshop Elements

Choose “File” > “Save for Web & Devices” (Photoshop)
Choose “File”>”Save for Web” (Photoshop Elements)
Use the Save For Web dialog box to preview the effects of different optimization options on a photo you want to share on the web. The process is simple: Open a photo in the Editor and choose File > Save For Web. Then choose a format from the file format menu (GIF, JPEG, PNG-8, or PNG-24) and set options as desired. (The file format menu is directly the Preset menu.) This saves a copy of your file, without overwriting the image.

More information and visual aids

Resize your images online

Online free photo editors that you can use for free to resize your image and add a watermark.

WordPress Gallery

How to use the WordPress Gallery

This post displays the default WordPress Gallery that comes standard with every WordPress install. All Artbiz themes are outfitted with this gallery by default and are configured to use a thumbnail for next and previous images.

Click a thumbnail to start…

Usage from WordPress.org (read the entire article)

THIS IS CRUCIAL!

Uploading images whilst working on a Page (or Post) allows WordPress to create, and store, a direct association between each image and its parent Page (or Post). It is this association that is used to create your gallery.

Tip: When creating a gallery, try to ensure that the images you’re uploading are all roughly the same size (e.g. 1000 pixels wide by 750 pixels high). The final gallery of thumbnails will look a lot neater as a result.

Once all the images have been uploaded, check that each image has a human-readable title. No titles like abc2864.jpg, please. Give your images real titles like “My Dog” or “Roses”. If you have made changes to the image titles, remember to select “Save All changes” to record your amendments.

After you’ve uploaded and edited your images, click the “Save all changes” button. Once the changes are saved, the Gallery tab will be displayed on the “Add an Image” box and will automatically gain focus.

Scroll down to the bottom of the Add Media window to the Gallery Settings section. When you have finished entering your Gallery Settings, select “Insert gallery”. Then save your updated Page.