Photo galleries can really apply to just about every website, since it allows you to let anybody add pictures for others to see. Just about every website that exists on the Internet is focused on a certain subject, making your photo gallery related to that subject can dramatically increase your amount of visitors.

So how do you go about doing this? Well you could always hire a web designer or web design company to do it for you, like us :), but in the end adding a photo gallery is pretty simple with the tools available today.

First off you need to know what purpose you want your photo gallery to serve. Whether you just want it to show only pictures that you upload, or go all out and allow anybody to upload photos, you need to know before you begin.

Once you have that figured out, we can move onto choosing your photo gallery software.

Photo Gallery Software

When it comes to photo gallery software, you actually have a lot of options to choose from on the Internet these days. Obviously over time more will come and go, but for now I will give you the run down of the best free, open source, photo galleries on the Internet today. Because you know, who the heck wants to pay for anything!

First off, if you want a simple photo gallery where only photos you add will be displayed, like a family website or something along those lines, then I recommend Plogger. Now keep in mind, in my opinion Plogger is not the best photo gallery software available for free on the Internet, but it is perfect for simple websites that only want to showcase their photos.

Now if you want a complete photo gallery, one that allows anybody to join and upload photos, then I recommend Gallery.

I know it sounds like such a simple name, but I assure you the software is anything but. I mean it is simple for people to use, but the amount of options and features you get is simply unbelievable. They even have a shopping cart integrated into the photo gallery so people can buy your photos!

So as far as photo gallery software goes, those two are really the premiere ones available on the Internet at this time for free. Of course as time goes on, I suspect more will come and go, but to me it seems Gallery will be around forever with the huge community that they already have.

Installing and Setting Up Your Photo Gallery

This is where it gets tricky, unless of course you already have some web designing and coding experience. Also, I am only going to be able to explain the general outline of what you need to do too install your photo gallery, the complete process varies from software to software, so be sure to read the documentation for whatever one you choose.

Step 1: Ok, so first you need to have put all of the photo gallery software files in a sub folder of your website, which I suggest you name photos. Just to let you know though, you can also put your photo gallery at the root level of your website, if you plan on making the entire website dedicated to photos. But since most are not, I figured you should just put all of the files in a folder called photos, so the gallery has it’s own section. And keep in mind, you can name the folder whatever you want, photos just seems the most logical to me.

Please Note: To get the photo gallery software on your websites server, you need to upload them all. Depending on your connection speed, this could take some time.

Step 2: Now that all of the files are uploaded you can install your photo gallery software. Like I said before, this process varies from software to software, but most just require you to type in the URL of the install file which you uploaded with the rest of the files, and then just fill in the blanks with your PHP database name, username, password and other information in the form.

Once this information is filled in correctly, you can install your photo gallery. If all of your information was correct, then it should install without a hitch. If it has a problem, double check everything is correct.

Please Note: Whatever photo gallery you install, one thing is for sure, you will have to set folder and file permissions. This basically means you need to connect to your websites server via FTP, and set the permission for the files and folders it tells you to, too the correct number. For example, one folder might have to be changed to 777 CHMOD or 755.

Step 3: Once it is all installed, and you have the security part complete by changing the file and folder permissions, you can customize your photo gallery. This is really the last step, and is pretty easy.

Basically to customize your photo gallery, all you need to do is apply your template to the main file that your photo gallery uses. Usually this is the index.php file, or the index.php file of a certain built in theme of your photo gallery. Wherever it may be, apply your header part of your template above the photo gallery code, and the footer part below.

Now of course if your website is uniquely designed, you might have to play around with it a little bit to make everything look just right.

After that, all you need to do is make sure you create a .htaccess file with this code in it “DirectoryIndex FILE.php with FILE.php being the main page of your photo gallery. This way whenever someone goes to www.yourdoamin.com/photos it will redirect them to the main page of your photo gallery, not a directory listing.

Once all of that is done, just type in www.yourdomain.com/photos or just yourdomain.com, depending on whether you put it in a sub folder, and make sure everything works fine. Play around with the options and settings to customize it to your liking.

Well that basically sums up the process of finding, installing and customizing your own photo gallery for your website. Just remember that the setup instructions vary from software to software, so be sure to read the instruction manual!