Tutorials

Aperture
Depth of field
Exposure
Field of View primer
Home made ring flash
Special Flash Effects



Tutorials are given a difficulty rating out of five stars(*). Five stars being the hardest to master.

WPGphoto.com User Gallery tutorial

This tutorial will help you create and maintain your own WPGphoto user gallery.

*Please note that you retain all your rights to the photos, you are only allowing us to display them here for you.


VIEWING GALLERIES - NAVIGATION

It is important to understand how to navigate the galleries before creating one for yourself.

1) Go to http://www.wpgphoto.com/gallery/

2) You will see four different areas:
-The top area of the site is where the gallery banner and navigation are.
-The section named "Category" shows the site's main categories. In the case of WPGphoto.com, only the user galleries exist as we are a photography site and do not include videos or other types of media. If you click on the "User galleries" you will be taken to an area which lists all the users on the site and allows you to go directly to their albums.

-The next two sections are the "Random files" and "Latest editions" areas which are always present. This is important to note as it is possible to confuse these sections with a users gallery.


CREATING YOUR OWN GALLERY

Registration:

1) Go to http://www.wpgphoto.com/

2) The next step is to create a user account. You do this by clicking the "Register" button on the menu in the top right of the page. On the agreement page you must agree to the terms of the site and then select "Agree". Be sure to fill out as much information as you are comfortable including your location, interests etc.

3) You will then enter some general information including a user name (which is displayed and will represent you on the site for your galleries etc), a password, your e-mail address (must be a real address to activate your account). You can also enter your location, interests, home page and occupation.

4) After you have successfully created your account an e-mail will be sent to you at the address you provided. You must open the link from this e-mail in order to activate your account.

5) After activating your account you can now log in. Go back to http://www.wpgphoto.com/ and select "Login" from the main menu. You can now create your own galleries.

CREATING AND MANAGING YOUR GALLERIES

1) After logging in, choose "Admin mode" from the main menu. (If you are already in admin mode you will see "User mode" in the menu bar.
This will put you in a mode where you can create and edit your own galleries.

2) Click the "New" button. You will see "New album" in both the albums box and in the text input area. In the text input area type the name of the album you would like to create and the name of the album in the album box will change automatically.

3) Select "Apply modifications". Your changes will be saved and your album will be created.

You can then choose "Modify my albums", this will allow you to give a description to your album as well as other options however they are not absolutely necessary.

Your final option in the user admin mode is "My profile", here you can change your personal information as well as check the size of your album. Each new user is given 500k.You are now ready to add pictures to your album.You can upload files in the admin or user mode.

*Before uploading files I recommend resizing photos to approximately 800x600px at 72 dpi at about 60% quality. This will allow you to have approximately 5-10 photos minimum. Users who contribute on the forum regularly and come to the meetings can request to have their gallery upgraded to 2 megs. The gallery is mainly for people who don't have personal web space to put some of their newest and best shots up.

Uploading pictures to your gallery

4) First choose "Upload file" from the main menu. You can upload up to 5 files (from your hard drive) at a time or submit up to three URL's at a time if you already have your images online.

5) After selecting your files you will be prompted to click to continue. Choose "Continue" and you will then be able to select the album you want that file place in and to add comments and other information to your photos one at a time. After entering information for your file you will see "Continue" at the bottom of the page, click "Continue" and you can continue adding comments and information to the rest of your photos.

6) To view your galleries, select "My gallery" or "Album list". Your galleries will be listed below. Underneath your gallery are the "Random files" and "Latest editions" areas. These areas only show eight of your photos at a time, not your full gallery.