Can you put a flowchart on a web page? I don’t think so. At least not the kind of flowchart I was thinking of. I am going to make a valiant effort over the next few hours to see if it’s possible. Otherwise, you will be stuck with seeing something like this:

Writing a blog is a lot of fun, but it is also a fairly time consuming activity. Combine that with an obsessive photo hobby and the free time disappears rapidly. So anything that can make the blogging part easier just leaves that much more time behind the camera.

Windows Live Writer (or WLW for short) looks like a very interesting program. And I really like being able to keep a local copy of my posts prior to uploading them to the blog. We’ll see how this works and I’ll report any bad (or exceptionally good) experiences.

The primary reason I am trying this is from the information I saw in a couple of posts by Ed Bott from ZDNet, ‘My 10 favorite Windows programs of all time‘ and ‘Your turn: Readers choose their 10 favorite Windows programs‘. There is some good information here, especially if you have time to read the comments. Check it out.

So I am writing this post with Windows Live Writer. It seems to be working famously. And as long as I am doing a post about testing new software, I thought I would throw in this HDR photo of the Jeep. It is first of all a test to see if WLW will handle the photo display markup I used in my previous posts. And if you click on the Jeep photo to see it full size you will notice the Photomatix watermarks on the picture. I have been testing the trial copy of Photomatix, and while it is interesting it is not interesting enough for me.

In my opinion, and painting with a very broad brush here, there are two kinds of ‘new’ digital photographers. Those that go out and take photos, and those that are caught up in all the tech things that can be done on the computer with digital photos. There are countless very good sites on the Web where you can learn about Photoshop, debate RAW vs. JPG, consider the differences in printing your shots yourself or using various photo printing services, and examine the intricacies of the histogram you see on your camera. But it is sure a lot more pleasing and interesting reading and learning about these things after you have a good library of photos of your own to work with.

We will be talking about High Dynamic Range (HDR) photos in the future (here is an example photo and a site with loads of HDR information. But for now our primary directive is to maximize our time when we are out taking photos and finding additional interesting things (er, I mean ‘subjects’) to photograph. There are zillions of sites to tell you what to do with your photos after you have them, but very few that can help you determine the best and most effective way of being in the right place at the right time to take those photos in the first place. And that’s what we will be trying to do here.

Here is something I’ve been looking at the last few days. A ‘polaroid viewer’ plugin that you can use with WordPress.

I can see how this would be a nice way of displaying a bunch of ‘event’ type photos for someone to browse through. It seems much more interactive and fun than a page of tiny thumbnails staring you in the face.

In the previous post I was testing this and some other variations to display photos. I wanted to find some workable options for a photo-blog site. Even though I’ve only worked with these systems for a few days, I am quite impressed.

Since time flies on the ‘Net, I will probably have this post and the previous one up for a while in their ‘test’ state. When I have some final positive results, I’ll move things to a separate page to keep as a reference guide. It will take at least a number of hours to work through all the options and configuration possibilities on these plugins.

Be warned: It will probably take a few minutes to load the photos below if you are on a fast connection to the Net. And a LOT longer on dial-up. I’ll be changing this soon, but I want see actual load times. (Patience is a virtue. [grin])

[polaroid=3,520,520]

To use this viewer, click to drag and move the photos. Double-click on a photo to expand or collapse. Drag out the ?-mark in the upper left hand corner for help. In some of the tests below I am using some of my low resolution kitchen photos to test different options.

For the viewer above I am currently using about 30 fairly high resolution photos. I want to see how this works. Most of the photos are sized at 1200 X 800 pixels. That’s larger than they would need to be (the viewer is sized at 600 x 550 pixels) and the images are 455 x 455 px, but I want to check load times and how responsive it is.

One ‘feature’ of the viewer is that it ‘writes’ the file name at the bottom of polaroid. In checking, it seems that there is about a 50 character maximum before the name is truncated. Also, the minimum height of the viewer probably needs to be at least 550 pixels. I want to do some more testing at other screen resolutions.

And the actual displayed image is approx 455 x 455 pixels. So I would assume that would be the appropriate size for uploaded photos using this.

And here’s a quick test of the viewer sized at 455 x 520 which looks like the minimum size where you can still see the entire photo when one is maximized. (This size does cut off the bottom of the ‘polaroid’ and part of the file name would not be visible if it required two lines to display.)

[polaroid=2,455,520]

(Updated: 3/9/08: See this page with a ‘cleaner’ display of the photo display options and links for further information.)

This will be a constantly revised ‘draft’ post for a few days. I know, I know, don’t do that! But I am going to anyway as I test some photo display options. The options for setting the display style are here. And here is a tutorial. And a link to the Thickbox site.
Here is a link for info on the Polariod option.

Option 1: Display thumbnails with link option to view as a slideshow:

[View with PicLens]

Option 2: View as a slideshow.
See the Option 2 slideshow example on this WordPress page. (This option is buggy in IE when a slideshow is used in a post.)

Option 3: Single Picture

Both my interest in photography and the Internet have changed considerably over the past four or five years. Part of this change started for me with the changes in photography from film to digital. I really did rediscover photography after getting my first digital camera. Now I happily click away and strive to improve my skills in search of that ‘wall-hanger’, the photo deserving of being displayed for all the world to see.

And here is a truism: To create a ‘wall-hanger’ photo, you have to learn something about photography. It’s true that anyone may ‘get lucky’ and just by clicking away stumble upon their own wall-hanger. But it doesn’t happen very often (if at all). And one (quite good) way to learn more about photography is by using the resources available on the Web.

And when you learn more about the Web you see that it is an excellent means of displaying and sharing your photos.

You start this process by using existing resource on the Web to upload your photos. Sites such as Flickr make it easy for all who desire to share their photos with anyone who wants to look.

But then you discover that you want a better way of displaying or sharing your photos. There are many other options available. And you also want to be able to write and comment about your photos, and as you keep broadening your interests, other things. So then you discover Blogs and, if you are not faint hearted, CMS’s or Content Management Systems.

Some content management systems include e107 (which I have used but will be discontinuing) and Expression Engine which I have not used, but considered and rejected.

The point of all this is that you find that there are so many options and new things to learn that the task becomes overwhelming, or at least that’s how it seems.

So I am making a change in direction. I want to keep up my photography as a main hobby. I enjoy it a lot. But I also want to make it into something that at least a few other people in the world also find interesting. With that in mind, if you spend time here, you will be following me on my new path to changing this site. And for now, that’s all. I want to define clear goals for this project; but for a while, that will have to wait.

I have more new plans for updating my site, and this is one of the first steps. We’ll see what happens…

This page has a number of examples of options available to display photos in a WordPress blog. If you use WordPress, these plugins work fantastically.

[All the examples on this page use the NextGEN Gallery WordPress plugin. See listing at end of this page for links and further instructions.]

Option 1: ‘Gallery’.
Displays thumbnails with link option to view as a slide show.
Click on an image to see full size.
(See NextGEN’s site Gallery page for more information.)

[View with PicLens]

Option 2: View as a slide show.
(Images change every 5 seconds. Set change rate in Gallery Options.)
(See NextGEN’s Slide show page for more information.)

Option 3: Single Picture
Click on photo to see full size.
(See NextGEN’s: Single Picture)

Option 4: Polaroid plugin.
Interesting way to display a group of miscellaneous photos.
(For information see NextGEN’s: Polaroid Plugin)
See this post for more information and a couple of examples.

[polaroid=2,500,500]

Resources and Links:

• The NextGen Gallery WordPress plugin by Alex Rabe is available here.
• The options for setting the display styles and options can be found here.
• And here is a tutorial with some helpful information and examples.
• Also a link to the Thickbox site.
• The polaroid flash viewer is from Christopher Einarsrud and was incorporated into the NextGEN Gallery.