Featuring members’ photography on the front page is a new addition to the PSRI Web with its new clothing. The current method is a self running slide show. You will see an alternative method in this post using thumbnails that expand to a larger image. Each method has advantages and disadvantages, so write your comment below this post and let’s see what the general feeling about this is. Of course, there is no reason why we could not alternate between different presentation methods periodically.
In either case, we can use newer photographs than the collection I happened to have in a pool. The dimensions of the slide show are 600×340 pixels, so photographs that fully fit that proportion will be welcome. That format certainly favors horizontal images, although it will accommodate verticals with no problem. The thumbnail gallery will enlarge the images to fit the maximum allotted dimensions both by the system and the screen space available in your browser.
If you like to send some photographs consider the following:
- Best ratio for the slide show is 600 x 340 pixels
- The maximum image dimensions for the thumbnail gallery will have the longer edge as 700 pixels
- The images should be saved in sRGB color space as JPEG files
- The JPEG quality need not be any more than 60% or (5-6 in Photoshop scale out of 12)
- Images larger than the long edge being 700 pixels will be scaled automatically (no quality complaints!)
- Mail the photographs to web-photo {at} psri {dot} us
- You will receive an automated reply when your message is delivered
- Limit the photos you send to “a few” and let’s see how this system will work
Below is the thumbnail gallery. There will be three rows of 5 photographs randomly selected from a specific pool gallery. Let us hear what you think about the slide show versus the thumbnail gallery.
I think I prefer the current setup, a running slide show of a large image. It doesn’t require any action from the person viewing the page. That said, I also like the thumbnail idea. It gives people the opportunity to choose an image that catches their eye.
So, you are indifferent? The thumbnail gallery also displays the images larger than the 600×340 pixel frame of the slide show, slide show can be viewed at full screen but with lower quality.
I really like the slideshow at the moment, but that is just my preference. Not sure how it works, but some of the Flickr groups that I participate in have web sites associated with them – if you add an image to the Flickr pool for that group, and give the image a certain tag, the web site cycles through random images from the pool. Kind of cool!
Mike
That’s an interesting thought Mike. Let me look into that. So there is no image collection other than a pool on flickr. Cool!