Plugin Review – TTG – Highslide Gallery Pro Plugin For Adobe Lightroom
First thing’s first; reviewing a plugin for Adobe Lightroom is new for us, so its going to take us (me) a while to get it right. Hang in there… in addition, the developer of this plugin has arranged a $5 discount to all our readers, so we’re really excited about that. Pop over to the turning gate website, add the plugin (pro version only) to your shopping cart and when you check out type the word ‘xtremecamera’ into the discount text field. We would like to thank them for their kind offer, and we urge any Lightroom users to take advantage of this offer; even if it’s the first plugin you’ll buy. – Julia Barnes
A little information about Lightroom is in order before we get to the whole plugin business…. Adobe Lightroom is the most important piece of software any digital photographer can own. It is vital for a productive workflow and using it correctly means that you can probably ditch 3 or 4 other software titles that will become redundant once you learn how to use Lightroom. But, you must learn to use Lightroom or it’s simply a glorified iPhoto. Adobe Lightroom is even more important to photographers than Photoshop. If you already use Lightroom you’ll understand why, and if you use Lightroom the time has come to pay attention to the third party plugins being developed. This review is for Highslide Gallery and Gallery Pro by The Turning Gate’s Matthew Campagna, and it’s a perfect plugin to kick off our extensive coverage of the Lightroom Plugin market.
One of the coolest things about Adobe Lightroom (commonly referred to as LR among its supporters) is that it has a architecture that lends itself well to a great SDK (software development kit) provided by Adobe, and creative developers are extending the functionality of Lightroom to places you and I never imagined. I see no end in sight either, as this plugin surely shows.
The Module Concept
Adobe Lightroom has separate and distinct modules called “Library”, “Develop”, “Slideshow”, “Print” and “Web”. The Web module allows the end-user to export (locally or directly to a web server) a fully formed web gallery with all the supporting files, of the photographs in the Lightroom catalog. Adobe includes several templates for their HTML and Flash component “engines” in the Web module, and a cottage industry by plugin makers are providing end users with many more.
So, a normal “workflow” using Lightroom might go something like this; you take some photos with your digital camera, you hook up the camera to your computer, you import the photos into Lightroom. Easy, right?
Once in Lightroom you begin with the first module, Library. This is where you organize and set data for your images. From there you move to Develop module where you make corrections to white balance, colorcast, a gazillion other things. Develop is where the magic happens and you take your RAW or JPG format photos and make them the best they can be. From there you move into Slideshow if you want to set up a slideshow to view the photos in the catalog. (I hardly ever use this module and quite frankly I’m thinking its just not needed here). From there you move to Print, which is a vital module because you can use it to obtain the most amazing prints from your printer. I just do not ever print a photograph any other way then through taking it through the Print module. Finally, the Web module is what you use to get your images online where the entire world, or your private client, can bring them up in their web browser.
Highslide Gallery and Gallery Pro
Matthew Campagna of The Turning Gate (http://theturninggate.net/) is the man behind “Highslide Gallery and Gallery Pro” and his skill with the Lightroom SDK is apparent. As far as his dedication to the plugin goes, consider that since the time I began this review process, just a couple of weeks, the plugin has been updated twice.
Highslide Gallery and Gallery Pro use a powerful JavaScript engine that was built as a way for viewing images and media in JavaScript viewers with special effects. It is at the very heart of the plugin. Developed by Torstein Hønsi you can pick up a license on a per-domain basis if you plan to use Highslide on a commercial project, or an unlimited version that would allow unlimited commercial domains. You can see several examples of Highslide in action by visiting the website, HIGHLSIDE.
I used the Highslide Gallery Pro for this review because the Pro version comes with two built-in shopping carts, PayPal and Fotomoto. Everything other than the shopping carts is identical in both versions. While there are many ‘web gallery plugins’ for Lightroom only this one uses the Highslide JS.
CLICK HERE TO WATCH A 12 MINUTE DEMO OF GALLERY PRO IN ACTION
Installation is as simple as double-clicking the plugin. Once double-clicked the plugin opens the directory where the plugin is going to be stored (user/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Web Galleries on the Mac) and moves itself to that directory. Since the plugin comes with 4 web templates (all beautiful examples of what your galleries can look like), you simply drag the web template icons to the Web Templates directory (directly under the Web Galleries directory when viewed in ‘column view’). Then restart Lightroom and the plugin, and its templates are loaded and made available in the Web module. Easy Peazy.
What It Is, Exactly…
TTG Highslide Gallery Pro (the plugin we reviewed) is a true multi-purpose plugin for Adobe Lightroom. It can be used to create three types of photo galleries, a client-proofing gallery with and email response option that works out-of-the-box, and two types of shopping cart galleries, PayPal and the still-in-beta Fotomoto. I know a couple of photographers that are using the plugin for selling prints online and they work exceptionally well.
When you create a gallery as a “proofing” gallery the Highslide JS allows you to choose one, two, or more photos at the same time and arrange them on the layer above the thumbnail gallery within the browser. You click on the photos and they enlarge on top of the gallery just as you’ve seen in many galleries before now. Even Apple’s website delivers content in this manner now, every time you watch a video on the Apple site it appears above the page in a Highslide-type layer. You can drag the photos around the browser (hold down the mouse and drag) so that when choosing more than one image you can drag them side by side to instantly see which photo works best for whatever purposes.
Many photographers that might want to use this plugin to sell prints online would do well to choose this type of gallery since the potential buyer can see larger versions of the photos side by side and it beats having to enlarge the thumbnails over and over again while you are making a decision on which print you want to buy.
Gallery Type – Slideshow
This gallery mode allows you to put together a great slideshow gallery. Click on a thumbnail and Highslide JS pulls up a larger version along with a darkened browser and slideshow controls. This is an excellent slideshow module and one that offers dozens of customizations to make it truly your own style.
Gallery Type – Inline Slideshow
This gallery type is quite different than the above Slideshow. The style can be set as North, East, and South, which mean that the thumbnails are arranged along the top, bottom, or along the right side. There are simple slideshow controls to run the slideshow or you can move through the gallery by clicking on the thumbnails. The main difference in this slideshow and the other slideshow gallery is that Inline means that the photos do not appear above the page, or above the thumbnails, but rather remakes the page completely. You can even include a header in this gallery style.
Options Galore
The most daunting, and yet the most creative feature is the number of options along the left sidebar of the plugin. From creating Menu buttons (including an easy way to use graphics in the menu), to the size of the pages, the size of the thumbnails, the size of the popup photos, font choices, and more and more, too many to mention here.
Every element in each gallery type can have a unique color, borders, matting, padding, and more. Just by exploring all the options available to you in this plugin will allow you to completely customize every gallery you create, and when you develop a custom template you want to use over and over again you can save the template and assign to any batch of the photos whenever you want.
Real World Experience
First, The Turning Gate has done an excellent job writing a concise description of this plugin on their website and I urge everyone to head over there and give it a good read-thru. You can also download a trial version so that you can try it before you buy it. And when you decide to buy, The Turning Gate has generously issued a $5 discount coupon for either version just by typing in “xtremecamera” in the discount code field. (We’ll mention this again at the bottom of this review).
I’ve told you what the plugin is and what it does, so how is it to actually use? That’s where it really counts after all. If you don’t own Adobe Lightroom or have a serious interest in trying Lightroom out then the chances that you’ve read this review to this point are quite slim. So I’m going to assume that you either use Lightroom as your primary workflow software or have at least seen it in action (Adobe does offer a 30-day trial of Lightroom 2.4 that you should install if you aren’t using it yet.).
I have been installing and using various plugins for Adobe Lightroom for a couple of months now. We are going to review them on a regular basis because they had a lot of value to Lightroom and a lot of functionality. Plugins can make your job a whole lot easier, and Highslide Gallery Pro gives you the most bang for your buck of any I have used to date, especially if you use the Pro version to sell prints.
I’ve created several galleries with the plugin and I’ve spent hours customizing the look and feel of each one. I found it easy to use and quite a lot of fun as well. The PayPal module is really easy to use, including inputting the pricing, sizes, and even a second option such as “framing” in an easy to follow fashion that will have you up and selling your own prints quickly.
If you don’t want to bother printing your photos yourself you can sign up for an account at Fotomoto and have them print them and ship them for you. Fotomoto is built into Highslide Gallery Pro so all you need to do is type in your Fotomoto code, set your prices and sizes and export your gallery.
Speaking of exporting you can use the built in FTP tool and upload your galleries to your server straight from Lightroom, or you can choose to export the gallery to your desktop, or locally, and them upload it via FTP.
The Turning Gate has a couple of really good tutorials that show you some of the little secrets of how to get things done; the newest is how to use graphical buttons in the menu bar.
Highslide Gallery Pro is $40 and includes all future upgrades in the 1.x series. Highslide Gallery is $20. If you don’t need shopping cart solutions and you know you won’t need them in the future than by all means go for the non-Pro version. But if you think you might, someday want to sell prints online then the $40 price tag is more than fair for such a comprehensive plugin.
Note* If you plan on using Highslide Gallery or Gallery Pro on a commercial website you will need to buy a license from Highslide JS (its good karma). The plugin functions fine without a license but it’s not fair to the fine folk that have put in thousands of hours developing Highslide JS. You can buy a license on a per domain basis or an unlimited version. Check out their site for complete details.
You can save $5 when you purchase the pro version by typing in ‘xtremecamera’ in the Discount Code field on the checkout page, a very nice gesture by our friends at The Turning Gate.
Look, let’s face it, there is a reason Adobe Lightroom is kicking Apple Aperture’s butt (and hey, I LOVE Apple and use nothing but Macs), and part of that reason is the amazing plugins coming from developers like Matthew Campagna and The Turning Gate. Highslide Gallery Pro is a quality plugin from a quality group of developers. When you head over there to their website you might want to check out some of their other Lightroom plugins as well.
Julia Barnes & John Manzione
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