As I whittle my way through this task of recreating my galleries, I am learning little efficiencies along the way.    This gallery plugin I am using, NextGen Galleries, has an interfacing Adobe Lightroom module.   It’s another plugin within the plugin!  This is another feature I like because much of my workflow in developing my photographs starts in Adobe Lightroom.  My entire photographic archive is there.

Workflow for online photo galleries

This can be a key factor in choosing an online photo gallery if you are a Lightroom user.   How many steps are from that first download from your camera to ultimately placing an image on your website?  My previous workflow worked like this:

1. Develop photographs and create JPEG images in a local folder  (always the most time consuming step)
2. Log in to admin area of gallery through web browser
3. Navigate to file upload utility area
4. Select files from local drive to upload
5. Upload files and select destination subject gallery for each
6. Type image ID in data field for each image (for shopping cart purposes)
7. save data changes

Online photo gallery structure

All of the above steps assume I had a gallery structure and corresponding pages on my site created to upload the files to.    This isn’t much different when working with NextGen and Adobe Lightroom.   Once you have the basic structure of subject galleries on where to place the photos, then many of the steps involve getting the photos from your computer to your website.

The biggest difference in having a Lightroom plugin is you eliminate the need to do anything through a web browser or directly on your site.  Again, this is after the basic gallery structure and corresponding web pages are there.   The steps 2 through 7 above all take place within Lightroom.

Getting photos ready for upload

I always create a separate set of folders on my computer for “web ready” images.   These photos are resized, watermarked, converted to sRGB profile, and sharpened for the web.   I still do all of this from within Photoshop for a couple of reasons.  First, I have grown to like Tony Kuyper’s web resizing features of his TK Actions Panel so much.   For me, it adds the perfect amount of sharpening that is consistent from image to image.   Second, I have a particular embossed, transparent look of my watermark that I haven’t been able to duplicate by using automated watermarking tools.   This uses a Hard Light layer within Photoshop and the transparency level may need adjustment from image to image.

You can save more time by using Lightroom to resize, sharpen, and watermark images at the time of upload.  It is just my personal preference to do so within Photoshop as I can closely check the appearance and watermark before upload.   It’s a nit-picky thing I have about watermarks, and I am seeking therapy on it, trust me.

Sync folder option within Lightroom

Once the files are on my computer, I import them into Lightroom using the Synchronize Folder feature.   Images ready to upload to my site are in the special “Previous Import” area of Lightroom separated from everything else.    I then take all of those photos from the Previous Import area and drag / drop them to the related NextGen plugin folder / gallery I want them to appear in.    If you have all of the title, caption, and keyword data within Lightroom, all of this will be set up on your website for you.   (who knew there would be so much clerical work in photography!)

Here you can see the photos newly dragged to NextGen folder versus the photos already online in the gallery:

“Ready to publish” versus “published” photos screenshot of Imagely NextGen plugin in Lightroom

All that is left to do is to hit the Publish button within this module.   From there, the Imagely NextGen plugin does the rest of the work in transferring the photos to your website photo galleries.   It connects to your website, uploads the photos to the corresponding galleries, and moves them to the “Published” area shown above.   If you are using the E-Commerce module, the photos will be for sale using the gallery default price list.

Personal Preference Prevails

As far as overall steps and work, I think are legitimate points on both ways, using a browser to upload vs. doing it within Lightroom.   Obviously, you need to be using Lightroom to manage your image catalog.   I see it more as a simplification of workflow versus eliminating a lot of clicks, steps, and time.   You are trading actions you may do in a few programs to doing them all within one.

If you are fine with having Lightroom doing resizing, sharpening, and watermarking – then you are that much further ahead of me in efficiency.    I may also call upon you for therapeutic reasons.    A large part of any photographic workflow comes down to a lot of personal preferences.   If you are using or plan to use NextGen Gallery with Lightroom, hopefully you picked up a tip or two here.