Gallery Hints and Tips
Much of my work is displayed and sold through my gallery hosted by smugmug at photomacs.smugmug.com. This simplifies my job by letting me focus on taking pictures. All the work of creating galleries and taking orders is handled by the nice folks at smugmug. All I need to do is upload the pictures (after selecting the best shots and doing some touchup) and update some parameters to establish each individual gallery. However, this means you will need to make some decisions on selecting your products from the website.
One more note - because I use smugmug, you will not see popup adds while looking at your pictures in my gallery!
Browsing the Photo Gallery.
The photo gallery is arranged using categories and galleries. A category is simply a collection of galleries, and a gallery is a collection of pictures. Category and gallery names describe their contents and should be fairly intuitive to most people who are looking for a specific set of pictures. Usually, the most recent galleries will be at the top of the gallery site and will often be found in the featured gallery section.
Once a gallery has been selected, you can browse through the pictures many ways. The pictures in a gallery are presented using one of several styles. You may select a different style in the style pulldown usually located near the top right corner of the gallery window. Do not be afraid to try different styles. Galleries are initially set to smugmug and you can always go back to that style if you wish.
Purchasing Pictures
Purchasing pictures involves two steps.
Adding pictures to your cart
The first step is to add pictures to your cart. This can be done a picture at a time on screens that display a large picture, or from the multiple photos link on screens where many pictures are displayed the same size. You can add one or many pictures to your cart before you actualy specify how you wish to print the picture.
You can view your cart at any time by clicking on the shopping cart which is usually located near the top right corner of the screen.
Specifying How Picture Will Be Printed
Many options are usually available for printing. They range from standard prints, such as 4x6, 5x7, or 8x10, to gifts such as mugs, mouse pads, t-shirts, and more.
Start by selecting one of the product groups in the product group pulldown. Next select a specific product from the pulldown to the right of the product group. Depending on the product, the picture may be cropped to fit the item selected. (See below for a quick note about cropping and composition.) This will be indicated by a red rectangle indicating what will actually be printed. You may adjust the cropping by clicking the adjust button. Follow the directions on the screen to crop the picture to your liking.
You can also crop a picture anytime you would like to change what part of the picture is included by simply clicking on the adjust button. Another option available is no crop. However, if the picture does not fit the product selected, you will have some white space on the finished product.
If you would like more than one product for a specific picture, press the duplicate button to add another line for the same picture to your shopping cart. After changing products or quantity, you can press update to see your new total at the bottom of the screen. Once you have selected all desired products, press next and follow the directions to enter your shipping and billing information to complete your order.
About cropping....
When a photographer is shooting pictures, a great deal of thought can go into what is refered to as composition. Composition addresses how the various elements are arranged or positioned in the photograph.
The 'Rule of Thirds' describes a common method for positioning various elements in a picture. Since the relative position of elements may change depending on print size and cropping, I often do not crop pictures posted on my site. Therefore, when selecting a print, you should look at the composition and make adjustments that you find attractive.
For a quick introduction to composition click on the button below. (This will take you to an outside website in another browser window. When you are done, exit that window, and use your 'Back' button to return to the previous screen.)
Still have questions?
If you still have questions, send me an email using the Contact Us link at the bottom of this page. I will answer your question as quickly as possible.