I am looking for an opportunity to create my own Photo Site. I want to do it without great cost, and best without material cost at all.
Who can advise me simple tools to create my own photo site?
Posted by Kelly Rowe on August 24, 2010 at 12:24 PM
What assets do you bring to the table? Do you know HTML, CSS, PHP scripting? If so, any text editor will do the job for you. Do you have Photoshop CS2 or higher? You can get a copy of SiteGrinder 3 from MediaLab and build all of your site in Photoshop. The learning curve is a little steep, but they have excellent learning resources. If you have Lightroom, I believe it has the ability to create a web gallery. You could also look for an aged copy of Dreamweaver, like CS3, and buy it for cheap. I think we paid under $200 for our copy at amazon.com. There are other tools out there too, but these I'm familiar with.
Posted by Lon Overacker on August 24, 2010 at 12:27 PM
Sergey,
My apologies up front if this comes across as harsh, but your question is so broad, it would be like asking "how do I build a car?" There are some extremes - the easy part is to go to a dealer and buy a car, or at the other end, re-invent the wheel and literally build your own which takes a lot skill, hard work, tedious hours and money too.
You basically have three options:
1. Build your own. Which means learning html, asp, php, sql, etc. and using an html editor or a wysiwyg editor like Front Page. Very steep learning curve. You'll need web hosting, a domain name, etc.
2. Pay someone to design, build and host your site. Expensive, but quite painless if you have the money. You said without great cost, but I'll put this out there as an option anyway for you to check out: Wide Range Galleries. Many folks here have used them and I've heard nothing but postive things.
3. Host your images on a template driven site at nominal annual costs. Many folks use these services as well: smugmug.com and zenfolio.com
The only other suggestion I have at this point is to peruse this site and visit as many photographer websites as you can stand to get an idea of the range of quality and looks of websites to see what you may like and dislike.
Google is your friend too. There is SOOOO much out there to help and assist, you just need to jump in and start reading and researching.
Good luck
Lon
Posted by Tom Nevesely on August 24, 2010 at 12:41 PM
I use three pieces of software for my website:
1. I have an old version of Dreamweaver (4.0) that I use to create my pages and gallery templates. I bought it really cheap ~ $40 or so.
2. I use an old version of BreezeBrowser to create my photo galleries. I bought it as a raw converter for my Canon 10D way back in 2003 and I found that it creates nice web galleries that are easily customizable if you know how in Dreamweaver.
3. Finally I use Photoshop to create the various graphics I have on the site.
It took me a while to learn it all and my website has gone through several revisions over the years but I find that I really enjoy doing it so it's not really work to me.
Posted by Nancy de Flon on August 24, 2010 at 1:09 PM
I'm a complete technophobe when it comes to this sort of thing, and if you want an idiot-proof site, as I did, and don't mind paying a bit for the convenience, you can get websites at various levels of professionalism hosted by www.betterphoto.com. A cheaper alternative (but more work on your part) is to make your site on WordPress -- they've just upgraded to WP 3.0. I have one of my blogs there and you can post your photos as well as text..
I found this quick and easy service to create a personal photosite - www.albolio.com. It's free to use, loads up all your flickr or picasa pictures. I love it!
Discussion
7 repliesWho can advise me simple tools to create my own photo site?
My apologies up front if this comes across as harsh, but your question is so broad, it would be like asking "how do I build a car?" There are some extremes - the easy part is to go to a dealer and buy a car, or at the other end, re-invent the wheel and literally build your own which takes a lot skill, hard work, tedious hours and money too.
You basically have three options:
1. Build your own. Which means learning html, asp, php, sql, etc. and using an html editor or a wysiwyg editor like Front Page. Very steep learning curve. You'll need web hosting, a domain name, etc.
2. Pay someone to design, build and host your site. Expensive, but quite painless if you have the money. You said without great cost, but I'll put this out there as an option anyway for you to check out: Wide Range Galleries. Many folks here have used them and I've heard nothing but postive things.
3. Host your images on a template driven site at nominal annual costs. Many folks use these services as well: smugmug.com and zenfolio.com
The only other suggestion I have at this point is to peruse this site and visit as many photographer websites as you can stand to get an idea of the range of quality and looks of websites to see what you may like and dislike.
Google is your friend too. There is SOOOO much out there to help and assist, you just need to jump in and start reading and researching.
Good luck
Lon
1. I have an old version of Dreamweaver (4.0) that I use to create my pages and gallery templates. I bought it really cheap ~ $40 or so.
2. I use an old version of BreezeBrowser to create my photo galleries. I bought it as a raw converter for my Canon 10D way back in 2003 and I found that it creates nice web galleries that are easily customizable if you know how in Dreamweaver.
3. Finally I use Photoshop to create the various graphics I have on the site.
It took me a while to learn it all and my website has gone through several revisions over the years but I find that I really enjoy doing it so it's not really work to me.
Sandy r