Written from the ground up with new internal code and ideas, LRB Exhibition is a new ‘Website in a gallery’ plugin for Lightroom’s Web module. From the Portfolio family, it allows the user to create home, about, contact and general use pages, along with 6 galleries and 2 external links.
The main image area in the gallery is based around a single image preview in an enclosed space. Using jQuery, each slide can be navigated to either using the navigation arrows, or numbered links to the relevant slide. LRB Exhibition is far more mature that LRB Portfolio was at version 1.0, in fact it’s almost par with LRB Portfolio 2.51, and probably equal to 2.4. It does however have features not available to LRB Portfolio, such as per page image and text placement and a floating text box.
Install.
Mac: Double click on LRB_Exhibition.lrwebengine to install.
PC: In Lightroom Preferences (Edit>Preferences), click Presets. Click ‘Show Lightroom Presets Folder’. Open the folder. Look for a folder called ‘Web Galleries’. If it’s not there, create it and drop LRB_Exhibition.lrwebengine inside it. Restart Lightroom
Intro Video.
Here’s a quick look at using the gallery. Click through for the full size verion.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=047NxVFRBqI]
There will be more forthcoming.
Basics
A basic look at how this gallery works:
Create a collection of images you want on the website. Decide how many galleries you will have and then sort them into order for each gallery. You might have 35 images for the first gallery, 20 for the next and maybe 26 for the 3rd of the 3 galleries you’ve decided you’d like.
Next go to Web and select LRB Exhibition from the list. Make sure All Fimstrips Photos is selected in the Filmstrip, or that you’ve selected all the Photos. Go to the Gallery section and enter those numbers in each gallery section. Give the galleries names for the menu. Now go add details to the Home, About and Contact pages. Same for the Blank page, which can be used for pricing, or services etc. These page have individual text box sizes and locations, along with a choice of locations for the image on the page.
Once you’ve customised the gallery to your taste, be sure to save your settings as a Template. While Lightroom will remember the settings for the collection, if something bad happens, you’re better off with a Template to get those settings back.
A lot of the internal stuff works in a similar way to LRB Portfolio, so you can access that User Guide for more details. Like I say, there will be more video tutorials to add usage.
Features
- Home, About, Contact and Blank page
- 6 Galleries, 2 external links
- Google Analytics support
- SEO features built in
- Custom jQuery Gallery
- Multiparagraph, floating text boxes
- Clean layout
- 900X600 images
- Compatible with Lightroom 2 and 3
- W3C vaild (base code)
Sample Gallery
Click to view a sample gallery.
Buy
LRB Exhibition is €15 plus VAT.
For the first week of sales, you can get a 20% discount using the sales code LRBEX20. Remember to update the Cart after you enter the code, or it will not be applied. Please note the download allows for 9 updates, after which you require a new purchase.
The Future
Like any software, LRB Exhibition will take on a life of it’s own in the wild. Feel free to ask questions or add suggestions in the comments.
Say you’ve 3 galleries with 20 in each gallery, so include 61 images, and have the banner as image 61.
At least I think that should work!
Hi Sean,
I have a question: on the homepage I would like to use a photo as a banner. But I don’t want this picture to show up in one of the galleries. Is there a way to do this? To see what I mean go to http://www.sorgedrager.nl/exhibition. On the homepage the picture also shows up in the gallery “portret”, but I don’t want that…
Regards,
Sander
Sean,
Thanks for the quick reply. The comments section is fine for tech support, especially if you end up seeing Q’s quicker than LRF.
As for the first part of my question, I was thinking of having some images link to (my other) external websites. I would just hard code it in the generated html on a few. But if the nav is on top and hogging all mouseover action, then it doesn’t seem possible. It seems that your previous/next navigation covers the entire viewport of the image, split right down the middle. On some next/previous navigation systems, they divide the real estate into thirds so that the middle area can be used for what I’m talking about. Not that you should or could change the way you have it, but if it’s easy, why not?
Anyway, if it’s possible to fairly easily modify the code after the gallery is generated, do you think you could explain it to me in an email? If it’s a matter of editing an image map’s coordinates, or changing a few lines of code here and there, I’m comfortable with that and would buy LRBE just to try it out.
Paul
Sean,
I was thinking of buying this, but was curious about 2 things:
1) Is it possible to embed an external link in gallery images? I assume this would have to be done by hand in the generated html, but wondered if the navigation overlay (previous/next image) would interfere with this. Or can the navigation area be modified to leave the central area of an image free for an html link?
2) Is this the place for tech support for LRB exhibition or is there a forum on LR Forums just like there is for LRB Portfolio?
Thanks for answering my question before I buy.
Paul
Hi Paul,
The images are behind the navigation, so it wouldn’t be possible without hacking around the image positions and sizes, then editing each photo for a link. What’s the link going to?
This is the place for tech support. While Portfolio is on Lightroom forums, sometimes it doesn’t send me notifications when a request comes in. Here I have to approve comments so I know somethings come in.
Hi Sean, Thanks a lot for the reply. In the meantime I’ve published my site : http://www.mrtfotografie.nl
Herewith I like to thank you for the good job you did with LRB portfolio. It is a fantastic programm!!!!!!
Marianne Rouwendal
Hello,
I was looking for a more advanced Lightroom Web module and settled on Lightroom Exhibition for its combination of features, elegance and simplicity. Having just put it through its paces and published a first album, let me offer first my congratulations on a great product. I also have the following comments/questions:
1. Slide Title/Caption
Although it is in the Lightroom module options, it is not implemented in the Galleries. After reading this blog on the subject, I would suggest the following:
The top bar would seem to be the logical place for it, either on the opposite side of the Main title, or as an optional replacement for it (THE BIG title is hardly necessary over hundreds of images, or could be scaled down and moved to the bottom bar along with the menu). In any case it would be nice to at least be able to exercise that option when desired.
2. Galleries and Collections
I’ve had a heck of a time at first with this, and this is a Ligthroom issue (not the plug-in’s fault). Since I knew I would use all 6 galleries (BTW that number happened to be just right but you might want to consider increasing it if possible) I set up a Collection folder with 6 sub collections. Makes sense, no? As it happens, doing this prevented me from doing any manual image sorting, which I tried to work around, unsuccesfully. So I ended “mocking up” each collection and then moved them into a single one for proper sorting and outputting. Now, since this module’s purpose is to offer multiple galleries, wouldn’t it make sense to offer the option of INDIVIDUAL collections for each gallery page, rather than playing with a cumbersome total image count?
3. Contact page
The font used is big and ugly and I haven’t found anywhere a way to change it (other than remove the attribute. It is embedded in code somewhere. Any chance of being able to change it?
I realize that this is a recent product that will evolve over time, but above all I must say that I impressed. You are doing something very right, and the price is right too!
Best
Didier Delahaye
already worked it out,
only the first time it “hanged” while downloading. (first time i chose save as, second time “open” and then saved it)
hi,
i ordered exhibition, but my download doesnt work?
Grt,
Arnoud
Try a different browser Arnound, you may see similar posts in these comments. For some reason e-junkie, the digital download service I use, can be strange with IE..
Hi Sean,
I recently purchased LRB Portfolio and received the email with the download link just a day ago. I tried downloading the file but when i do so, the download doesn’t show any packages moving or any downloadspeed or estimated time. I am using Internet Explorer 8 to download, and i never have had any problems with downloading files.
Did any of you have this problem as well, or is there a common solution?
I wonder myself if Firefox or any other browser would fix the problem, but i don’t want to waste my limited 9 attempts, of which i might have used a few already while trying to download the file.
Thanks in advance for the help. Marianne
Hi Thierry, any form would remain unless cleared. If you’re getting mail sent to yourself, then it should be working. Can you email the mail.php page that gets created by the gallery to the email you got the download link from?
I’m sorry but i need your help.
Just can’t receive mail from contact form.
i’ve only checked “show contact form” & entered my email in “email address (no mailto:)” under the blue advice… when i upload end try to send myself a comment .. it seems to be ok (“thank you for comment”), but i do not receive any mail.
I’ve tried different addresses (i case of spam filter or anything else).. nothing…
So… can’t found how to solve that..
🙁
(nota: when we press “back” after sent form.. the form is not cleared)
Thanks.Think I’ll go for Exhibition nevertheless.
Hi Sean,
I have a question. I’m really in doubt what to choose: Exhibition or Portfolio…I like the way photo’s show in Exh., but I also like the possibility in Portfolio to use photo’s on the homepage as links, instead of name of the link.
Is it possible to set up Exh. this way?
Due to the way Exhibition is sized, it’s not feasible to create something as neat as in Portfolio.
tip of the day !!
Use more than 6 galleries with that great LRB exhibition !!
Name “link 1” as a gallery (ex. “sports”) and aim a subfolder on your main site /sports
Create a second site and upload it in the subfolder.
Do not use it’s home section but rename it’s link 1 as “home” and aim main site
If design is the same, and subfolder contains galleries that can be naturaly associated (as “sport”) browsing seams to be natural between both sections.. and you’ve got 2×6 galleries !!
I’ve actually done this as a tip before for LRB Portfolio.
Joel,
Video is only supported via ingest, slideshow export or original export. There is no way to include video from Lightroom in a web gallery. The SDK simply doesn’t allow it.
Ok for the next feature, or if there is a way to do this now…. adding Video to the site. I took one of the pages that Portfolio created, My services page, opened it in DW and change the image to a Quick Time Movie, which worked. But the logo shrunk in size. So the page does not match. I could not find a way to adjust the page down. Now that LR3 will preview Video is there a way to make it work?
Thanks again.
joel
Hi Sean, this plugin is easy to use, once the video has been viewed a couple of times and all the settings tested to see what they do. I also made sure to save my site as a template (just as you suggest).
LRB has finally allowed me to do something I’ve needed to do for a while: quickly create an organised online gallery for my amateur photos at a reasonable price. I would now like to add my site to the growing list of examples: http://www.tufalphotography.co.uk
Thanks,
Asif
A little SEO question. is there a way to ad comments embedded in to the images for google images to pick up? or is there any additional way to add more key words. and other SEO goodies to the site?
Thanks.
Love the sites.
Greeting Sean.
First I use LRB Portfolio (http://www.minnesotafoodphotographer.com ) and LRB Exhibition (http://www.bdiphoto.com/minfoodbeta/index.html). ( working site) LOVE them both!!! My problem is with Exhibition. The first image in the index page and the first gallery are the same image, that part I’m OK with. But between the index the first gallery the image shifts down. it seemed to be fine in lightroom but online it shifts. And also is the a way in Portfolio to remove the two black lines above and below the images?
Thanks
Ps. you should charge more. at least 5 euro more. You just saved me 14.00 a month in Website charges.
Joel
Hey Joel, you’re making me hungry! First up, you can change the image on the homepage in the Site Info section. It’s the first image by default to stop Lightroom giving error messages when you first load the plugin with only one image selected. I’m not seeing the image move so if you can post screen captures that would help.
In Portfolio the bar colour is controlled by the ‘Image Area Border Colour’ swatch in Color Palette.
Hi Sean, Is there a limit to the number of images in the website? At the moment I’m restricted to 500 using the Adobe web template and would like to showcase more than this (divided into six smaller galleries). Thanks, Asif.
Sorry Asif, I didn’t see this comment. Limit is 5000 over the 6 galleries.