Lightroom-News.com

Timothy Armes has already made some major internal changes to his visually impressive ‘Impact’ web engine. Following popular demand there’s now lots of control over the image scaling behaviour, including an option to scale each image to fill the browser window cropping them.

More information on the new scaling options can be found here: http://photographers-toolbox.com/products/impact.php?sec=quickguide#scaling

This new version also enhances the viewing experience on the iPhone.

The Turning Gate has released two new web engines for use exclusively in the recently released Lightroom 3 Beta 2, taking advantage of the new support for AS3 Flash galleries.

TTG Simpleviewer-2 allows users to create Simpleviewer-2 galleries utilizing the full range of available configuration options, including many options not available in the Airtight Simpleviewer engine included with Lightroom. TTG Simpleviewer-2 also supports the new LR3 watermarking options, displaying of image sets from Flickr, and gallery indexing via TTG Auto Index and TTG Pages. TTG Simpleviewer-2 is available to all Lightroom users as a free download.

TTG Monoslideshow-2 allows Lightroom users to create galleries using the popular and powerful Monoslideshow Flash gallery. Designed for maximum flexibility, Monoslideshow can be used to create gallery types ranging from simple image rotators, to complex slideshows with thumbnail navigation, ken burns effects, professional image transitions, a full-screen viewing mode and more. To use TTG Monoslideslideshow-2, users must first purchase Monoslideshow separately and supply it to the web-engine. Until the end of March, TTG Monoslideshow-2 will be available at the introductory price of $15, after which it will cost $20. Those interested in demoing Monoslideshow before committing to a purchase can try out the fully interactive, online Monoslideshow demo.

Finally, recent updates to both TTG Stage and TTG Pages allow embedding of the new Simpleviewer-2 and Monoslideshow 2 Flash galleries, making it easy to integrate these galleries into your website. For more details, visit The Turning Gate at its new address, http://lr.theturninggate.net.

LRB Exhibition from Sean McCormack of Lightroom Blog has been updated to version 1.1. Feature additions and bug fixes include:

1.1
Added Top Gap
Added Numbers checkbox
Added body image check box.
Fixed repeat
Changed less for fewer
Change UI colours
Added a Switch to the galleries to hide the menu and force all images into Gallery 1, acting as a single gallery rather than a website.
Added Number Height slider
Added Menu Gap slider
Menu gallery swap
Menu and Identity Plate transparency choices
Added Flickr code and made icon.
Body Height added
Fixed spacing in Gallery numbers for Gallery 4, 5, & 6.
Add tiles for number colour and hover colour.
Changed copyright date
Fixed bug that caused error code to be visible when someone enters a period (.) in a number box.

Current users can update using their download link, and this counts as one of the 9 downloads they purchased. It’s not compulsory to download, unless you need the features and bug fixes here. The 9 downloads can be used as the user sees fit. For those interested in the plugins features and purchase information, you can access the main LRB Exhibition Page.

Matthew Campagna has launched TTG Pages 3.0. TTG Pages 3.0 is a spiritual successor to TTG LR Pages featuring many improvements, as well as integrating features from TTG Auto Index and TTG Stage. It’s more powerful, more flexible and easier to use than any of its predecessors. Features include:

- Creates Home page, About page, Contact page and self-populating Album Index.
- Much improved Contact form featuring flexible visual and positioning customization and input validation.
- Full integration of TTG Stage, supporting the following Flash galleries: Autoviewer, Postcardviewer, Simpleviewer, Monoslideshow 1.x and 2.x, Slideshow Pro, FlashNifties, Dimin Slideshow, Polaroid Gallery, the Lightroom Flash Gallery and Flickr.
- Pre-built site navigation menus.
- Six new site templates.
- Includes TTG MSS2 XMLer for creating Flash galleries with Monoslideshow 2.x.
- More user-friendly for novice and veteran Web module users alike!
- Longer subscription terms for updates.

The cost is $25. Those previously subscribed to TTG LR Pages have been sent discount codes for the upgrade.

More information is available at The Turning Gate.

And a live demonstration here: http://demo.theturninggate.net/

Timothy Armes, author of many Lightroom plug-ins, has just released his first Web Engine.

‘Elegance’ is designed for photographers wishing to showcase is small number of images in an elegant display that’s free from navigation bars or other ornamentation that can make the gallery feel out of place on a web site. Fades and transitions are implemented in Javascript, so there’s no need to for visitors to install Flash.

iPhone users get a special treat too – the finger swipe gesture moves from one image to the next!

You can read more about Tim’s motivations for this gallery on his blog, see an example in action on his site and download the Web Engine from the Photographer’s Toolbox.

As with his plug-ins, this this donationware.

One feature sorely lacking in Lightroom is a good watermark on Export. Using the fabulous 3rd party plugin LR2/Mogrify from Timothy Armes solves this issue for a straight export, but unfortunately post process plugins are not available in the Web Module. So how can we do it?

Well for my recently launched music photography website Muso Foto, I wanted nice (i.e. not the normal Lightroom one) watermarks on my images. Nothing intrusive, but something that doesn’t take away from the image.

Here’s the steps I took:

TTG Highslide Gallery Pro has been updated to version 1.41. This release updates TTG Highslide Gallery Pro with support for Fotomoto’s new card products. Using Fotomoto, you can now sell greeting cards, flat cards and postcards directly from your web gallery.

A full list of changes follows:

v1.41 (2009-08-09)
Support for Fotomoto’s new card products — sell greeting cards, flat cards and postcards through Fotomoto!.
Improved form validation for Selection Gallery.
Fixed form compatibility for Form-to-Email Pro.
Improved handling/protection of Highslide license.
Fixed bug that prevented text customization for ‘Close’ button in Slideshow mode.
Added capability to enable/disable individually Fotomoto “Buy Print” and “Send E-card” buttons.
Fixed IE bug for View Cart button width.
Package includes a modified Form-to-Email script and readme file for use on Yahoo Small Business accounts.

In addition the non Pro version has also been updated.

With apologies for the extended delay in following on with the series, here is part 6 in our continuing series on writing your own web gallery. Please note that the code section doesn’t wrap, but still can be cut and pasted to a text or code editor. In this case I’ve sacrificed readability to usability.

In our last look at creating a HTML gallery, we showed the need for Live Update, and prior to that we introduced the method of adding CSS in Lightroom. One thing I should mention about CSS generated in Lightroom, is that it doesn’t generate in the order you put in the model section of the galleryInfo.lrweb file. In fact I have no idea what sets the order. It seems quite random to me!

Anyhow, one of the easiest additions to the page that looks nice is the ability to have the images scroll along the page. Normally this would be simply put into a CSS file that Lightroom can reference. Let’s look at this initially and then add it to the main galleryInfo.lrweb code, where it can then be manipulated in a panel.

A few weeks ago, Matthew Campagna from The Turning Gate, sent me a gallery link to look at, specifically via my iPod Touch. It looked wonderful and was very elegant, of course it elicited lots of questions and comments from me. In truth I was very impressed with it. This was a preview of the TTG iPhone Portfolio 1.0 gallery, and is now available to download.
The purpose of this web engine is to create an iPhone compatible gallery, which has all the bells and whistles of a normal web gallery.

Although seriously busy with college, Matthew Campagna has found time to update his Client Response Gallery to version 2.1. For those unfamiliar with the gallery, this is a perfect way to use Lightroom to create galleries that allow clients to make selections of images online. The client form sends an email to the photographer listing picks, individual comments and ratings, depending on what options are chosen when creating the gallery. As this is a major update, users of previous versions are recommended to update.

2.1 Additions:

Updated scripts: Highslide 4.0.10, Fancy Forms 0.94, Mootools 1.2.
Removed Nifty Corners Cube (js/css) to further reduce gallery footprint.
Made changes to highslide.cfg.js, the custom Highslide configuration file used by the gallery.
Cleaned some old code out of the gallery head that wasn’t being used anymore; somehow overlooked it before.
Added a border to the Name/Email/Comments input form and corresponding color switcher to the UI.
Image caption alignment now set to left justified.
Added an overarching label or set of instructions for Custom Panes (to be used if you want a single label for both columns of checkboxes).
Paragraph alignment for upper and lower paragraphs can now be aligned left, right, center or justified.
Custom panes expanded to seven possible items.
onHover Download Title and Body copy now customizable.
Download Image button can now be set to download either the Hi-Res Rendition, or the Large Preview.

Users having previously purchased the gallery through E-Junkie.com should be able to download the update using their unexpired personal download links.