HTML Galleries - Three levels of images possible?

[EdCasati]

Is there a way to generate a gallery that will include three levels of images instead of the current two?

Thumbnails
Preview
Original File

Many of my clients have no simple way of viewing the images that we send them on DVD (sometimes several 100 images) so what we do is use 'another' program (BB) to generate a gallery that they can scroll through, very similar to the 'default' gallery in PM. The main difference being that they can click on the 'preview' file and see the original, which they can then right-click and save to their own system. That gives them a rudimentary indexing system for the originals that we send them.

The originals just end up in a sub-folder of the gallery called (surprise!) 'originals'

The PM templates seem VERY complex to edit right now... don't have a clue where to start to add that functionality!
 

 

[Kirk Baker]

Is there a way to generate a gallery that will include three levels of images instead of the current two?

There is currently no way to do that.  But it would not be difficult to add that capability.  I'll see about adding that for the 4.6 version.

One question though, what should be done about the original file if the original is a RAW file?  Most end users and certainly all web browsers won't be able to display a NEF/CR2/DNG/etc. file.  That's the only thing that I think could be a problem with such a feature.

-Kirk

[JAS Photo]

Maybe just me - but I would NEVER want to give a client the original's even if they are not RAW.

[Kirk Baker]

Maybe just me - but I would NEVER want to give a client the original's even if they are not RAW.

Agreed.  It would be an option that would be off by default.

-Kirk

[EdCasati]

Each person runs their own business their own way according to the needs of the photographer and the client... I hate it when people Say " I would never do it that way" when they have NO idea what the needs of the business really are.
We go back in the business a long way, far enough that the 'normal' way of doing things for assignment work was to shoot the rolls of film and hand them over undeveloped to the client. Actually that has been the norm rather than the exception for large clients, with wedding and studio photographers being the exception. Big accounts regularly still work this way, with lots of photos provided to the client, and the client doing a final selection and having their own people do final touchup or getting back to the photographer for final touchup.
In any case, there has to be a simple way for others to view full resolution images in order to make decisions, and the thumbnail / preview is not enough, hence the need for a full resolution 'original'. And the easiest way to provide a 'universal' interface that works online and offline is via an HTML browser.

[Kirk Baker]

Each person runs their own business their own way according to the needs of the photographer and the client... I hate it when people Say " I would never do it that way" when they have NO idea what the needs of the business really are.
We go back in the business a long way, far enough that the 'normal' way of doing things for assignment work was to shoot the rolls of film and hand them over undeveloped to the client. Actually that has been the norm rather than the exception for large clients, with wedding and studio photographers being the exception. Big accounts regularly still work this way, with lots of photos provided to the client, and the client doing a final selection and having their own people do final touchup or getting back to the photographer for final touchup.
In any case, there has to be a simple way for others to view full resolution images in order to make decisions, and the thumbnail / preview is not enough, hence the need for a full resolution 'original'. And the easiest way to provide a 'universal' interface that works online and offline is via an HTML browser.

Please do not get upset by others comments.  I don't think they were meant to denigrate your business model.

I will need for you to answer my earlier question which I will repeat here.  With no feedback from you for my question, I will not be able to add the feature.  Please answer the following:

"What should be done about the original file if the original is a RAW file?  Most end users and certainly all web browsers won't be able to display a NEF/CR2/DNG/etc. file.  That's the only thing that I think could be a problem with such a feature."

I await your response.

-Kirk

[mskuma]

I have no real business answering this question, but I came across it & since it hadn't been answered for a while, I'll put in my comment. I personally think in the case where the original is RAW, the only thing that makes sense for viewing it in a browser is to convert the original (full size) RAW it to JPEG (at a factor selectable by the user since maybe it's ok to lower it's Q factor to keep the original-sized file size reasonable, but the user might still want to retain a high Q factor for resized images). I personally don't have a need for it, but maybe this would satisfy the original poster's situation.

[EdCasati]

I guess that the term 'original' is confusing.

As far as clients are concerned, they consider a JPEG an original.
The key is to be giving them something that can be viewed at 100% so they can check for focus, expression, etc.
Having only 2 levels is not enough, because the 'preview' size needs to fit in the screen, yet is not large enough to check for detail.

Please do not get upset by others comments.  I don't think they were meant to denigrate your business model.

I will need for you to answer my earlier question which I will repeat here.  With no feedback from you for my question, I will not be able to add the feature.  Please answer the following:

"What should be done about the original file if the original is a RAW file?  Most end users and certainly all web browsers won't be able to display a NEF/CR2/DNG/etc. file.  That's the only thing that I think could be a problem with such a feature."

I await your response.

-Kirk

[Kirk Baker]

I guess that the term 'original' is confusing.

As far as clients are concerned, they consider a JPEG an original.
The key is to be giving them something that can be viewed at 100% so they can check for focus, expression, etc.
Having only 2 levels is not enough, because the 'preview' size needs to fit in the screen, yet is not large enough to check for detail.

Please do not get upset by others comments.  I don't think they were meant to denigrate your business model.

I will need for you to answer my earlier question which I will repeat here.  With no feedback from you for my question, I will not be able to add the feature.  Please answer the following:

"What should be done about the original file if the original is a RAW file?  Most end users and certainly all web browsers won't be able to display a NEF/CR2/DNG/etc. file.  That's the only thing that I think could be a problem with such a feature."

OK, so in the case of a RAW file, you want a JPEG produced at maximum resolution?  Note, some RAW files do not contain a full size JPEG preview embedded in them so the "original" file may be lower resolution than the RAW would be if it were rendered with a RAW processing program.

-Kirk

[William R Wood]

I guess that the term 'original' is confusing.

As far as clients are concerned, they consider a JPEG an original.
The key is to be giving them something that can be viewed at 100% so they can check for focus, expression, etc.
Having only 2 levels is not enough, because the 'preview' size needs to fit in the screen, yet is not large enough to check for detail.

Please do not get upset by others comments.  I don't think they were meant to denigrate your business model.

I will need for you to answer my earlier question which I will repeat here.  With no feedback from you for my question, I will not be able to add the feature.  Please answer the following:

"What should be done about the original file if the original is a RAW file?  Most end users and certainly all web browsers won't be able to display a NEF/CR2/DNG/etc. file.  That's the only thing that I think could be a problem with such a feature."

OK, so in the case of a RAW file, you want a JPEG produced at maximum resolution?  Note, some RAW files do not contain a full size JPEG preview embedded in them so the "original" file may be lower resolution than the RAW would be if it were rendered with a RAW processing program.

-Kirk

Well, as an amateur who often gives friends/relatives images on disk, I would like to see this feature as well (3 levels: thumb, preview, and original).  I would like to be able to specify the image size of each of the 3 levels because some people have fast computers with nice big computer screens and would enjoy large images.  Others have the reverse situation and need smaller images.  And sometimes file size might need to be adjusted so all the images will fit on on a single disk or specific number of disks.

As to the "original" I would suggest letting the user choose the file size and format as well.  Automatic conversion of RAW to JPG for this purpose would be a problem for some users  Some recipients will be photographers who do have the software to view RAW files so that choice would be important.  In fact, sending original RAWs to other photographers for comparison or critique is quite useful to me.

Regards

Bill Wood

PS.  If low rez embedded JPGs in the RAW file are an issue, you can convert the RAW to DNG and the Adobe converter lets you pick a full size JPG to be embedded in the new DNG.

[Kirk Baker]

Bill,

I guess that the term 'original' is confusing.

As far as clients are concerned, they consider a JPEG an original.
The key is to be giving them something that can be viewed at 100% so they can check for focus, expression, etc.
Having only 2 levels is not enough, because the 'preview' size needs to fit in the screen, yet is not large enough to check for detail.

Please do not get upset by others comments.  I don't think they were meant to denigrate your business model.

I will need for you to answer my earlier question which I will repeat here.  With no feedback from you for my question, I will not be able to add the feature.  Please answer the following:

"What should be done about the original file if the original is a RAW file?  Most end users and certainly all web browsers won't be able to display a NEF/CR2/DNG/etc. file.  That's the only thing that I think could be a problem with such a feature."

OK, so in the case of a RAW file, you want a JPEG produced at maximum resolution?  Note, some RAW files do not contain a full size JPEG preview embedded in them so the "original" file may be lower resolution than the RAW would be if it were rendered with a RAW processing program.

As to the "original" I would suggest letting the user choose the file size and format as well.  Automatic conversion of RAW to JPG for this purpose would be a problem for some users  Some recipients will be photographers who do have the software to view RAW files so that choice would be important.  In fact, sending original RAWs to other photographers for comparison or critique is quite useful to me.

The problem here would be that if the HTML gallery included actual RAW files, the browser wouldn't know what to do with them when asked to load the files.  You may get a download action (which would show a folder picker) or you may get a window showing the binary contents of the file.  Neither of which would be really useful.

All image data must be converted to a well known format suitable for displaying full tone images.  Those formats are JPEG and PNG.  JPEG is universally acceptable.  PNG can be handled by most browsers.  Given the choice, JPEG is the better one.

-Kirk

[William R Wood]

Bill,

The problem here would be that if the HTML gallery included actual RAW files, the browser wouldn't know what to do with them when asked to load the files.  You may get a download action (which would show a folder picker) or you may get a window showing the binary contents of the file.  Neither of which would be really useful.

All image data must be converted to a well known format suitable for displaying full tone images.  Those formats are JPEG and PNG.  JPEG is universally acceptable.  PNG can be handled by most browsers.  Given the choice, JPEG is the better one.

-Kirk 

Sorry, that was a dumb request on my part.    Somehow forgot that we were talking about an HTML gallery to be viewed in a browser which, of course, cannot read a RAW file.


Regards

Bill Wood