SlideshowPro Director offers an inexpensive and elegant solution for image galleries on the Web. Since I started using it last year, I have seen its use proliferated in many different formats all over the Web, from artist portfolios to lodging virtual tours. SSP Director has to be installed and used on a server, and it requires Flash. It is available as a component for Flash and gallery extension for Lightroom. [There is a standalone version that eliminates the need for owning Flash, described below.] If you have a Web site hosted on a server and know how to get access to it for uploading and installing Director (or as a first step, the free test software that determines if the full product will work on your server), or if your Web designer/Webmaster can guide you through the process, the installation is pretty straightforward. Getting the Flash software is the hard part because it is so expensive. But once you’ve got the look you want, and upload the Flash files (a .swf and .html file), then you are good to go. That means you can get someone with the Flash software or your Web designer to create the flash “engine” for you. You’ll need two SSP products: SlideShowPro...

I’ve had a lot of opportunities to explore Web gallery and slide show software, and I use a variety of tools for different clients. Some clients want to be able to create, prep, and update their own portfolios, and I am always delighted to see a client who doesn’t necessarily feel very technical get comfortable with tools that empower them to do things for their own Web sites. In that vein, here is the first of some tools that will differ in both technology and output, but that deliver good-looking and user-friendly portfolio Web galleries/slide shows, even for the novice user. Galerie is a winner for Mac OS X users (the Web site says 10.2 to 10.4) who don’t have PhotoShop or who want something simpler and more easily customized than PhotoShop’s Web Gallery capability. I am running Galerie on an Intel-based iMac with Mac OS X 10.5.1 (Leopard), so it is compatible with newer versions of the Mac operating system. Available for free download in a universal binary (runs on both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs), Galerie works with iPhoto and a set of customizable templates to generate Web galleries and slide shows with index pages and individual image enlargement pages....