# Are the web galleries Lightroom offers under "Web" usable?



## foyer (Dec 14, 2020)

I was looking for a gallery system / script (and I still do) to show the photos online. I didn't consider at all the web galleries offered by Lightroom. Are the easily / good to use? And are there more options to adapt the design than offered under "Web"? Actually I mean to remember there was a drawback, like that this gallery system will not be further developed, but that doesn't seem to be the case, does it? Actually it looks very good.

Is the Lightroom gallery responsive? So also useful for Smartphones, Tablets, etc.?

Is there a gallery system / a CMS / add on for WordPress or such to recommend?


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## clee01l (Dec 14, 2020)

Not only can you share your Lightroom Albums via Lightroom Mobile, you can also share them vis any standard web browser ( Online photo editor | Photoshop Lightroom ). I have not seen any  Gallery system or add on since the extensible tool set for the Lightroom App is not as robust as for Lightroom Classic.    However, shared albums are web addressable and toy can include a link to them in Wordpress.


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## foyer (Dec 14, 2020)

Thank you very much!

Ah, sorry, I forgot to mention I want to use my own webspace, so I have / will set up an own website for the photo galleries. So I would upload the images from the Web module of Lightroom to my own websites. Is such a procedure useful with the Lightroom Web galleries?

And I only want to edit the photos with the desktop program at home, so Lightroom Classic. So there is no need - thank you for the link, good idea - for the online editor.


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 14, 2020)

foyer said:


> Ah, sorry, I forgot to mention I want to use my own webspace, so I have / will set up an own website for the photo galleries. So I would upload the images from the Web module of Lightroom to my own websites. Is such a procedure useful with the Lightroom Web galleries?


It is, but the web galleries produced by Lightroom Classic are static html. More and more websites use a dynamic CMS, like Wordpress. In that case it makes more sense to export the images as jpegs, and then upload them to a special Wordpress gallery (or use a combination of plugins for Wordpress and Lightroom Classic to keep them in sync).


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## johnbeardy (Dec 14, 2020)

If you want to use the galleries in Web, you can integrate them into your own web site, assuming you know HTML. When LR began, this user-built type of static web site was quite common, but nowadays things have moved more towards the sitebuilder style.  These, like ZenFolio, relied on  publish plugins and online data and were more dynamic - change a single photo rather than changing the whole gallery. There are WordPress equivalents, depending on how geeky you are and how much time you want to put into them. A third route is Adobe Portfolio which lets you upload photos directly or link galleries to collections that you synced to Lr Mobile. This last option is now pretty good, both in terms of workflow and how good the site looks. I'd recommend trying it before the others - it may be all you need.


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## foyer (Dec 14, 2020)

So I guess, because Lightroom's Web galleris are static this means they are also not responsive what is a big drawback, I assume.

There are so many (great looking) gallery extensions for WordPress and there seem to be so less gallery CMS, gallery scripts other than it was five or ten years ago, if I see it right. So one could extend a WordPress gallery in almost each direction. So a combination of Lightroom and WordPress (with extension or more) or WordPress / extension without using Lightroom for managing might be good as well.



> If you want to use the galleries in Web, you can integrate them into your own web site, assuming you know HTML.


It is long ago that I (amateurish and very slowly) coded with HTML / CSS. So  I would / should not do such anymore. And I do not want to spend much time on such. Rather use some CMS / extension or such I quickly can adapt to what I want.



> A third route is Adobe Portfolio which lets you upload photos directly or link galleries to collections that you synced to Lr Mobile. This last option is now pretty good, both in terms of workflow and how good the site looks. I'd recommend trying it before the others - it may be all you need.


Yes, that sounds good, but I would never use Lightroom Mobile, I always wanted to edit photos the way I am used to, on the PC / Notebook. And I want the photos to be on my own website.


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## johnbeardy (Dec 14, 2020)

LR's web galleries include static templates which are responsive, and static templates which are older and are not.

Static and responsive are entirely different concepts. Static means that the pages are HTML files that have been generated, and it's in contrast to dynamic which means the HTML is generated as pages are called on the server. Responsive means the HTML, static or dynamic, is designed to scale in different devices.

You don't have to use LR Mobile to use Portfolio - just sync collections from LR to LR Mobile. It's like syncing them to Adobe's server, and you would be calling the pictures from Portfolio instead of from the LR Mobile apps. Then one day you'll want to make a quick edit when you only have your phone, and suddenly you'll start seeing the value of LR Mobile too.


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## johnbeardy (Dec 14, 2020)

Grid, Square and Track are all responsive.


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## foyer (Dec 14, 2020)

> LR's web galleries include static templates which are responsive, and static templates which are older and are not.


I assume, to not to use a not responsive gallery does not make any sense, doesn't it? So what do dynamic galleries, e.g. WordPress with extensiondo  better than Lightroom's Web galleries as both of them seem to generate a good view, design?



> You don't have to use LR Mobile to use Portfolio - just sync collections from LR to LR Mobile. It's like syncing them to Adobe's server, and you would be calling the pictures from Portfolio instead of from a LR Mobile app. Then one day you want to make a quick edit when you only have your phone, and suddenly you'll start seeing the value of LR Mobile too.


Yes, that sounds very useful, but actually I really never would edit / watch images on the phone. And I necessarily want to have my own website with (completely) own domain.



> Grid, Square and Track are all responsive.


Thank you.


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## prbimages (Dec 14, 2020)

johnbeardy said:


> You don't have to use LR Mobile to use Portfolio - just sync collections from LR to LR Mobile.


Perhaps better to say "just sync collections from LR (Classic) to the cloud", because, as you say, there is no need or requirement to use LR Mobile (the app). 

foyer, it is possible to use your own domain name with Adobe Portfolio, if you want to do that.


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## foyer (Dec 14, 2020)

> foyer, it is possible to use your own domain name with Adobe Portfolio, if you want to do that.


I guess, a part of one's own domain name. Or one's entire domain name? E.g. www.my-photos.com


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## BarrySchwartz (Dec 15, 2020)

I produce web galleries all the time for my clients to choose which photos I deliver, based on the number in my contract.  All the galleries are uploaded to my own server, and they work very well and are responsive.  I often use a plugin by The Turning Gate (TTG Masonry Gallery from 2018) that I'm not sure is supported any more, though it works just fine.  Their main product is now called Backlight, which is highly supported, is robust enough to build entire websites, and which I'm thinking of buying, even though I only need individual galleries for my clients (my professional website is on PhotoFolio, and my blog is WordPress).  The Photographer's Toolbox, which is affiliated with TTG, also provides plugins for websites.

All this being said, I've also used the basic "Grid" gallery right out of Lightroom, and while it's limited in style, it works fine.  I believe you can modify the code once the gallery is generated, but that's up to the user as to how much work one wants to do - or coding skills one has.


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## foyer (Dec 15, 2020)

Yes, that sounds very good.

As you have a WordPress blog anyway why not just use an extension to have your own professional website / photogallery there as well?


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## johnbeardy (Dec 15, 2020)

foyer said:


> I guess, a part of one's own domain name. Or one's entire domain name? E.g. www.my-photos.com


Entire. 

Assuming you have a subscription, it takes a few minutes to sync stuff to LrMobile / Adobe's cloud and then link Portfolio to it.


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## foyer (Dec 15, 2020)

That is extremely fast. OK, I will consider it. Thank you.


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## johnbeardy (Dec 15, 2020)

This shows you the Settings page where you setup domains, and there is this help page with links to specific domain linking options.

You can have up to 5 Portfolio pages, and AFAIK they can each link to a different domain.


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## foyer (Dec 15, 2020)

OK, that sounds very great, many thanks. So a visitor could not recognize if it is one's own website or the gallery (with the same domain) or the the service from Adobe. It cannot be distinguished.


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## johnbeardy (Dec 15, 2020)

They'd have to look very hard. I went looking just now, and I do see a pale grey on white "Powered by Adobe Portfolio" at the bottom of the page. It may be possible to switch it off, but I'd never noticed it before.


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## BarrySchwartz (Dec 15, 2020)

foyer said:


> Yes, that sounds very good.
> 
> As you have a WordPress blog anyway why not just use an extension to have your own professional website / photogallery there as well?


My blog is mostly word-focused, on professional practices for photographers and creative entrepreneurs; I teach workshops on these topics based on a college class I taught for several years.  While I do put photos on it, they are mostly there to illustrate articles, so while I can certainly show images, it's not the primary purpose. 

I don't have my professional site on WP because I have not yet found anything that matches the design capabilities and stability offered by Photofolio or even such products as SquareSpace, which put a tremendous amount of work on their back-ends to make them rock-solid and easy to use.  Also, these template-based providers are extremely responsive to commercial and editorial photo-buyers, who are my client base.

Having written all this, I am thinking about developing WP galleries for my private client galleries, and possibly for my semi-secret website for showing archival work that I don't put on my professional site.  Also, as WP becomes increasingly dominant, I'm starting to see plugins for LR that may make those kinds of websites and galleries more viable, and certainly easier to produce, so will have the advantage of being able to use two of my favorite and most used products in concert with each other.


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## foyer (Dec 15, 2020)

> They'd have to look very hard. I went looking just now, and I do see a pale grey on white "Powered by Adobe Portfolio" at the bottom of the page. It may be possible to switch it off, but I'd never noticed it before.


OK, many thanks for looking.

Many thanks for your explanation, Barry. There are unbeliebly many extensions for galleries for WP, so there actually should be a right one for you, the problem might be to find the right one among all those many. At the moment I would say, if I will decide for such a gallery script / CMS on my own webspae I would tend to use WP with a gallery extension instead of a script like Coppermine Photo Gallery (which does not look very good) or Photo Gallery Website for Modern Photographers (X3) (which looks very good) or Piwigo - Organisieren Sie Ihre Fotosammlung (free) or https://www.zenphoto.org/news/version-124/ (free).


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## johnbeardy (Dec 15, 2020)

Coppermine is ancient, if you don't know.

I run my own photo web site on WordPress because I want complete freedom, and I could write a publish plugin for Lightroom and WP galleries, including client selection pages. They're pretty slick, and moderately responsive, but I chose not to release them publicly because I don't want to get into supporting web sites and because I consider that the right advice for a general user is to try Portfolio before even considering other solutions. It's free with the subscription, it's responsive, you can add text and social media links, the workflow integrates pretty well with LR, and you can use your own domain. It's basically a  couple of steps - sync collections to Adobe's cloud,  open Portfolio and choose "integrations". You only need to put aside half an hour....


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## foyer (Dec 15, 2020)

> Coppermine is ancient, if you don't know.


Well, it looks quite ugly at least but I assume it is still being developed.



> I run my own photo web site on WordPress because I want complete freedom, and I could write a publish plugin for Lightroom and WP galleries, including client selection pages. They're pretty slick, and moderately responsive, but I chose not to release them publicly because I don't want to get into supporting web sites


Yes yes, very understandable. I would assume, there already are extensions like the ones you could write. And - at the moment - I would say, I actually do not need to many options, just a simple gallery.

Yes, Portfolio really sounds good, but....


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## johnbeardy (Dec 16, 2020)

There are good galleries designed for WP but the workflow from LR is very inefficient partly because a good WP/HTML coder is unlikely to have the LR coding skills too.

Honestly, put aside that half hour!


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## foyer (Dec 16, 2020)

Yes, I will go on considering using it.

Thank goodness it does not seem that many photos to be uploaded at the end.


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## Samoreen (Dec 16, 2020)

foyer said:


> So a combination of Lightroom and WordPress (with extension or more) or WordPress / extension without using Lightroom for managing might be good as well.



There's a very interesting package (WP/LR Sync) containing a Lightroom plugin and a WordPress extension allowing to automatically synchronize a Lightroom album with the WP Media Library. See here. Additional free WP Extensions working with WP/LR Sync also allow you to directly synchronize LR with a WP gallery. The WP extensions are free, the LR plugin costs $US 24 for 1 site (yearly subscription). Multiple LR instances can connect to a single WP site where WP/LR is installed. The LR plugin works with LR 6 and above.

With this package, all editing/culling can be done in LR. When your album is ready, upload it automatically to WP. This way, you don't use the LR gallery templates but the more modern galleries available for WP.

If you are using Real Media Library instead of the standard WP Media Library, additional capabilities are available (the way WP stores images in the standard Media Library being a real issue, many site builders are using extensions allowing to manage images in a more logical way).

*Related links* :
Meow Gallery (+ Gallery Block)
WP/LR Sync: Theme Assistant
WP/LR Sync Folders with Real Media Library
WP/LR Sync: Total Synchronization


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## foyer (Dec 14, 2020)

I was looking for a gallery system / script (and I still do) to show the photos online. I didn't consider at all the web galleries offered by Lightroom. Are the easily / good to use? And are there more options to adapt the design than offered under "Web"? Actually I mean to remember there was a drawback, like that this gallery system will not be further developed, but that doesn't seem to be the case, does it? Actually it looks very good.

Is the Lightroom gallery responsive? So also useful for Smartphones, Tablets, etc.?

Is there a gallery system / a CMS / add on for WordPress or such to recommend?


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## foyer (Dec 18, 2020)

Thank you very much! I will have a look at those.



> the way WP stores images in the standard Media Library being a real issue,


Why? So one never should use the standard gallery (if there is one at all) of WP or use that library?


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## johnbeardy (Dec 18, 2020)

Why? Not wanting to pay, not knowing of alternatives, low expectations etc. 

Another issue is color management, because WP's built-in media library strips colour profiles (and other metadata). This means that images are displayed with simple sRGB profiles. That's OK for many visitors but looks wrong when the visitor has a color calibrated setup and colour managed browser. Bypassing the built in media library allows more control, which is more work too and may be worthwhile.

In any case, any WP solution will require you to do much more work than using something that is already part of your subscription.


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## foyer (Dec 18, 2020)

> Why? Not wanting to pay, not knowing of alternatives, low expectations etc.


Sorry, I am not quite sure to understand the context, how is this meant?



> Another issue is color management, because WP's built-in media library strips colour profiles (and other metadata).


Isn't it a very strange behaviour? To change the colors of an image (if I understand it right)? Removing metadata (if one does not want it)? So that means, if it is all about photos one never should use the build in gallery, I assume.


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## johnbeardy (Dec 18, 2020)

Not strange at all, it just reflects how most WP users, including photographers, don't care about colour management. The problem is with WP's media library (which supplies images to the galleries) and one can find WordPress extensions to get around it and which allow you to get good colour with the built-in galleries.


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## foyer (Dec 18, 2020)

> Not strange at all, it just reflects how most WP users, including photographers, don't care about colour management.


But then that's strange. I hadn't even known that a CMS would / could impair the colors (or may be even more) of an image.

So it seems one definitely would need an extension for a WordPress gallery to not to get impaired colors. That also is very strange.


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## Samoreen (Dec 18, 2020)

foyer said:


> Why? So one never should use the standard gallery (if there is one at all) of WP or use that library?



When I discovered the WP world and its Media Library, I first thought that I had wrongly understood something about the way WP manages images. But this was not the case.

1. in Medial Library you have 2 options : either the files that you upload are *all stored in the same folder* (only one level, no subfolders) or they are stored *in a tree structure based on year and month* of upload. That's it. Just try to manage a big number of images this way....

2. For each uploaded image, the WP uploader generates from 3 to 9 additional images resized from the original (the higher the image definition, the more additional images are generated). This is to be able to use the image having the most appropriate definition for the target container. Just imagine managing all these images using one of the 2 options mentioned above.

So many third-party plugin developers are proposing various solutions to this issue. The more sophisticated they are, the higher is the price to pay.

Requests for a smarter Media LIbrary have been posted since a long time to the WordPress forum but for the moment, nothing has been done to fix this.


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## foyer (Dec 18, 2020)

2. And the additional storage needed for the additional images.

Sounds extremely strange and useless. So it sounds like one definitely has to use an extension to use a gallery with WordPress. And there is no free extension to make a gallery useful?


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## johnbeardy (Dec 18, 2020)

foyer said:


> But then that's strange. I hadn't even known that a CMS would / could impair the colors (or may be even more) of an image.
> 
> So it seems one definitely would need an extension for a WordPress gallery to not to get impaired colors. That also is very strange.


It's really not  strange. You'd be amazed at how many web apps do strip metadata including the colour profiles - often using misleading language like "optimizing".  For most people, that's OK, but if you have a colour managed workflow you're going to want your web site to display colour properly to other people with similar high standards.

I emphasize again that WP has a Media Library, and galleries - these are separate features. The Media Library is where the colour management problem is.  Every WP site has themes, which often include galleries and determine how many versions of each image is generated from whatever is in the Media Library. Modern themes/galleries  are designed to be responsive, and they tell Media Library to generate thumbnails of various sizes to speed up and produce best quality on different screen sizes.

Of course, by now you could already have a site from Portfolio, or might have decided it isn't right for you. Have you even tried it yet?


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## BarrySchwartz (Dec 18, 2020)

foyer said:


> OK, many thanks for looking.
> 
> Many thanks for your explanation, Barry. There are unbeliebly many extensions for galleries for WP, so there actually should be a right one for you, the problem might be to find the right one among all those many. At the moment I would say, if I will decide for such a gallery script / CMS on my own webspae I would tend to use WP with a gallery extension instead of a script like Coppermine Photo Gallery (which does not look very good) or Photo Gallery Website for Modern Photographers (X3) (which looks very good) or Piwigo - Organisieren Sie Ihre Fotosammlung (free) or https://www.zenphoto.org/news/version-124/ (free).


The most downloaded - and best - gallery for WP is Envira.  Very well supported, as it should be since it's a paid upgrade each year.  However, the "Lite" version is free, and if you don't pay for the upgrades, it will still work going forward.  Lots of documentation and support.


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## foyer (Dec 19, 2020)

> I emphasize again that WP has a Media Library, and galleries - these are separate features.


Ah, now I see, the Media Library (I thought / interpreted it stored the images for WP's (own) gallerie(s)) has nothing to do with the (images shown in the) galleries. So when one uses WP's own gallery (if one would be available) or an extension those images are not affected by the way the Media Library processes images.

So for e.g. normal (not photgraphy, not painting) blogs this kind of processing images by the Media Library just might not matter.



> Every WP site has themes, which often include galleries and determine how many versions of each image is generated from whatever is in the Media Library. Modern themes/galleries are designed to be responsive, and they tell Media Library to generate thumbnails of various sizes to speed up and produce best quality on different screen sizes.


Ah no, it seems some galleries have to do with that library. And some do not. Sorry for my bad understanding. So I guess one should use the ones which do not.



> Of course, by now you could already have a site from Portfolio, or might have decided it isn't right for you. Have you even tried it yet?


No, I didn't yet, have not tried any gallery yet, first I want to finish the editing of the pictures and choose the ones to be uploaded.



> The most downloaded - and best - gallery for WP is Envira. Very well supported, as it should be since it's a paid upgrade each year. However, the "Lite" version is free, and if you don't pay for the upgrades, it will still work going forward. Lots of documentation and support.


Thank you, I will have a close look at it.


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## johnbeardy (Dec 19, 2020)

foyer said:


> No, I didn't yet, have not tried any gallery yet, first I want to finish the editing of the pictures and choose the ones to be uploaded.


Maybe try multi tasking - half an hour and you can set up a small Portfolio gallery - or delay asking these questions until you are ready to test for yourself? Too much detail too early?


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## foyer (Dec 19, 2020)

Yes, good thoughts. But may be better too early than never. Yes, indeed, for the time being I have enough information, I guess., thank you very much. I assume, testing different gallery scripts for WP is quite laborious (installing, setting up and so on) so may be better single tasking for me. And for the next time I will be at a place without Internet, so editing images fits quite well.

Many thanks again.


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