(last update: May 31, 2010)
Due to the lack of updates on plugins to support more recent versions of WordPress, I spent some time to go back through and find the best working and most functional photo gallery plugins for WordPress to date.
1. Fotobook
compatible up to WordPress version 3.0.2 – official WordPress.org page – demo
Fotobook is a WordPress plugin that will link to your Facebook account(s) and import all of your photo albums for use in your WordPress installation. It uses the Facebook API so importing your photos is a breeze. Requires PHP 5. THIS IS MY FAVORITE ONE!
Features include:
- Interfaces with Facebook’s API
- Displays photo albums on a WordPress page
- Import photos from mulitple Facebook accounts
- Sidebar widgets for displaying random or recent photos & albums
- Creates an album of photos that the user’s tagged in
- Insert individual photos into posts/pages
- Easy-to-use Ajax album management panel
- Frontend validates as XHTML 1.0 Strict
2. NextGEN Gallery
compatible up to WordPress version 3.0.2 – Official WordPress.org Page – demo
NextGEN Gallery is a full integrated Image Gallery plugin for WordPress with a Flash slideshow option. Features include…
- Sortable Albums : Create your own sets of images
- Upload a Zip-File with pictures : Upload pictures in a zip-file (Not in Safe-mode)
- Watermark function : You can add a watermark image or text
- JavaScript Effect : Use any available popular image effect : Thickbox, Lightbox or Highslide
- Multiple CSS Stylesheet : Use a nice shadow effect for your thumbnails with your own CSS file
- Slideshow : Full integrated flash slideshow
- TinyMCE : Button integration for easy adding the gallery tags
- Sidebar Widget : Show a slideshow, random or recent picture at your sidebar
- Language support : Translated in more than 15 languages
- Upload tab integration : You have access to all pictures via the upload tab
- Tag support for images : Append related images to your post
- Meta data support : Import EXIF, IPTC or XMP meta data
- Sort images feature
- Cool flash addons
3. Yet Another Photoblog
compatible up to WordPress version 2.9.2 – Official WordPress.org Page
Convert your WordPress Blog into a full featured photoblog in virtually no time. Use the full range of WordPress functions and plugins: Benefit from the big community WordPress has to offer. Features include…
- A non invasive WordPress-plugin that converts wp into a easy useable photoblog system
- Easy image upload – All wordpress post-features can be used
- On the fly thumbnail generation – Use multiple thumbnail sizes where and when you need them: Thumbnail generation gets controlled from the template.
- EXIF data processing and output
- Self-learning EXIF filter – Your own cameras tags can be selected to be viewed.
- Full i18n-Support through gnutext mo/po files
- YAPB Plugin Infrastructure for extended functionality
- Ping additional update-service-sites when posting a photoblog entry.
- Nearly every WP-theme can become a photoblog in virtually no time.
- Out of the box configurable “latest images” sidebar widget
- You’ll get a photoblog system based on wordpress – Decide if you want to post a normal WordPress article or a photoblog entry. Be free to use all available extensions / plugins of the WordPress platform
- Be the owner of your own photos on your own webhost
4. PhotoSmash Galleries
compatible up to WordPress version 3.0.2 – Official WordPress.org Page – demo
PhotoSmash Galleries makes it easy to create photo galleries in posts or pages that your users can upload images to. PhotoSmash has incredibly flexible and simple models for designing custom gallery and form layouts, utilizing your own custom database fields, html, and css, or just use the standard. Features include…
- User contributable photo galleries – allow your users to upload images to galleries
- NEW! Media RSS is enabled, supports PicLens (activated by including piclens=true in the shortcode)
- Link gallery thumbnails to various destinations including full-size image, related post, and WP Attachment Page when using Media Library integration
- Add images to the WordPress Media Library so you can use them in blog posts and even the Standard WordPress Image Gallery features
- Multiple simultaneous image uploads in Admin, using the WordPress Media Library, then import images to PhotoSmash!
- AJAX photo uploads from within Posts and Pages
- Star Ratings for images
- Control who can upload images: admin only, authors & contributors (and higher), or registered users and higher
- Moderate images uploaded by registered users (Admins and authors are automatically approved)
- Receive email alerts for new images that need to be moderated
- Options page for setting general defaults or specific gallery settings
- Auto-adding of photo galleries
- Multiple galleries per post, added using a simple tag system
- Integrates with popular image viewing systems like Lightbox and Shadowbox
- Tweak appearance through the included css file
- Add Custom Fields to tile
- Add Custom Fields to the upload form
- Create Custom Upload forms using simple tags and HTML
- Create Custom Layouts using simple tags and HTML
5. The PhotoBlog Theme
compatible up to WordPress version 3.0.2 – Official Theme Page from WPZOOM
PhotoBlog is an unique portfolio theme for Photographers, Graphic Designers, Architects, etc. With an intuitive layout and a fully widgetized sidebar, it offers the flexibility required in modern blogs. Features include…
- Featured Content on the homepage and in the Sidebar. Number of posts is controlled on the Widgets Page in the Admin Panel.
- Threaded Comments
- Support for WordPress 3.0
- Widgetized Sidebar
- Unique Widgets Developed by WPZOOM Team
- Dynamic image cropping for thumbnails (TimThumb script)
- Compatible with all modern browsers
- Integrated Social Bookmarking Plug-ins
- Theme Options Admin Panel
- Featured Posts on Homepage
- Custom image sizes for uploaded images
- Support for Google Analytics & Feedburner
- Valid XHTML & CSS Code
6. FancyBox for WordPress
compatible up to WordPress version 2.9.2 – Official WordPress.org Page – demo
Seamlessly integrates FancyBox into your blog: Upload, activate, and you’re done. By default, the plugin will use jQuery to apply FancyBox to ANY thumbnails that link directly to an image. This includes posts, the sidebar, etc, so you can activate it and it will be applied automatically.
7. AWSOM Pixgallery
compatible up to WordPress version 2.9.2 – Official WordPress.org Page – demo
AWSOM Pixgallery is an Image Gallery/Archive plugin designed to make it easier for Artists or Webcomic creators to set up a portfolio of their artwork. It features Automatic Watermarking, captioning using the Visual Editor or HTML, sorting, auto-thumbnailing, Comicpress theme support, per image/gallery commenting and more. It is a WordPress native Plugin and does not require any config or file changes or outside tool integration to work; just activate the plugin and add a line of text to any post or page and your Gallery of Images will appear. All options are handled through the regular WordPress Admin interface. More features are in development now such as tagging, extensive theme control through Admin interface, and more
8. Lightbox Gallery
compatible up to WordPress version 3.0.2 – Official WordPress.org Page – demo
The Lightbox Gallery plugin changes the view of galleries to the lightbox. Features include…
- Lightbox display of Gallery
- Tooltip view of caption of images
- Displays the associated metadata with images
- Divides Gallery into several pages
- Extends the default Gallery options
- Additional settings are set in the option page
- Switch to the Highslide JS display
Photo Gallery Premium Themes for WordPress
Depending on your type of project and how much time you have to dedicate towards it, a premium wordpress theme may help you in making a photo gallery type site with WordPress. To see what’s out there you can read my page on Premium WordPress Themes where I have compiled a list of the best premium themes with added functionality to fill any project needs.
pictures
July 10, 2008
Thanks for the information.. Fixed my site with not problems.. Thanks again..
admin
July 10, 2008
no problem. glad you liked the list. Which one did you end up using?
kelly
July 16, 2008
Your blog entry made it so much easier for me to choose which one I want to use. The thumbnail feature is very important I think as it keeps blog loading time fast. Visit my blog to take a look if you wish!
THANK YOU AND KEEP UP THE GREAT BLOGGING HERE!
admin
July 16, 2008
kelly I checked out your blog! Great work on integrating the photo gallery. Looks very good!
kelly
July 18, 2008
Thank you my dear Gum-lover! I actually removed the plugin “Yet-Another-Photo-Blog” plugin cos it was making my sidebars look really wierd! So I will be trying another plugin and see if it works better. Keep your fingers crossed!
ashish thakur
July 24, 2008
i couldn’t create the image gallery?
How i do this?
admin
July 24, 2008
which one are you trying to work with?
jurcerip
August 2, 2008
Thanks for the post
jack
August 19, 2008
Thanks for the list. Does any one know how to integrate NextGen Gallery with any Star Rating plugin? It would be great to find a plugin (not full theme) that gave you the same functionality but with the ability for users to rate each image.
Any Suggestions?
Thanks
Larry Bradshaw
December 23, 2008
Does anyone know of a wordpress plugin where viewers can rate the photos for a photo contest?
ray
December 30, 2008
I am looking for the same thing. All I have found is photoracer on the word press plugin page. I haven’t used it yet because it is written in Italian.
danny
January 3, 2009
you forgot the best one PhotoQ
Jamaica My Way
March 11, 2009
That makes 4 of us now, looking for a WordPress way to have photo contests on our blogs.
Has anyone come up with anything besides Photoracer?
Jim
March 17, 2009
I also am looking for a photo voting plugin for wordpress. I am trying to manage a contest where judges from all over the country will be looking at the pics and voting on them. There has to be a way!
Free Stuff
April 10, 2009
Hey! that’s good collection……………keep going..
Cynthia
June 5, 2009
Great compilation!! Thank you so much, this makes my photo gallery selection so much easier……
- Cynthia
jonathan
June 19, 2009
hi, i am also looking for a gallery solution with a rating system!!
is there any way to do it?
Mubeen
August 8, 2009
where do you put the photos in nextgen????? pls help me
Justina
September 1, 2009
hi! thanks for the post
I am wondering: I want to upload my pictures in a good quality, so I need a pluggin that DOES NOT load all the pictures at once… only when you clik on them..
do you know of any?
thanks a lot
wallpaparss.net
September 2, 2009
Great compilation!! Thank you so much, this makes my photo gallery selection so much easier thanx
Derek Murphy
October 7, 2009
also looking for a way to rate photos – some smart developer should make one!
Frank van der Stad
November 14, 2009
I just created a photo contest plugin for wordpress: WP-PhotoContest [http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-photocontest/]…
So, I’m the smart developer <grin>
blogresipi
November 17, 2009
hi,
does anyone know where i could get a plugin for image gallery like tastespotting, foodgawker or notcot? i would like to have that as a page in my latest blog soon. is awsom pixgallery suitable for that?
thanks in advance!
Nate
January 7, 2010
The KPicasa plugin is also a very slick way to put an entire photo gallery into a wordpress page or post. check out a demo on my site.
Pasyuk
February 3, 2010
Hey! There is another and one of the best on my mind flash gallery. You should include it in this list. Named GRAND Flash Album Gallery – multi category flash skin based photo gallery with powerful admin. Thanks!
Professional Photographer
April 1, 2010
Thanks for this great list. I was also looking for a photo contest rating plugin. So thanks Frank. I use a lightbox plugin which transforms the normal wordpress gallery into a beautiful lightbox thing. I like it a lot.
Shain
April 27, 2010
I am looking for a Picture gallery+ News Description for my news site!
Thanks !
Gojeg
June 1, 2010
Nice share! But I’m still looking for the simplest gallery plugins.
Flaunt Books
June 9, 2010
There is a really simple image voting plugin for blogs here:
http://flauntbooks.mybigcommerce.com/products/Image-Voting.html
Suhaana
June 14, 2010
THats really great!
Doug Nienhuis
July 13, 2010
I tried NextGen Gallery, and there are many things about it that puzzle me. It works well when it comes to uploading images and putting them in galleries. However, it seems very awkward and incomplete in terms of handling single images.
1. Inserting a single image into a post requires many many mouse clicks.
2. When you go to select your image from a gallery, you only see 10 images on a page. If your gallery is large, it is extremely slow and difficult to find the image you want.
3. When you go to select your image from a gallery, the thumbnails are so small that you can’t make out which picture is which.
4. Inserting a single pictures allows three options: Thumbnail, Full Size, and Singlepic. These are either too small or too large. This is actually worse than the standard selection that WordPress offers.
5. Singlepic is the only useful size for inserting a single picture. However, you can’t add a caption to it when it is in your post.
6. When you insert an image from a Nextgen Gallery, you can’t see the image in the Visual mode. All you see is the code. So you have no idea what pictures you inserted. It is listed with an Image ID, but this Image ID has no meaning.
7. Once images are inserted, you can’t manipulate them in any way. You’d think a plugin would be more advanced than the standard WordPress system, but Nextgen is much more limited. Using the normal WordPress system, you can see the image you’ve inserted, you can add captions, you can align it left, right, or center, you can make it bigger or smaller by percentage or pixel size. You can do none of these things with Nextgen.
8. When you add images to a Nextgen gallery, those images do not appear in your regular WordPress Media Library. It is either one or the other.
9. I have many other issues, but I think they have to do with the theme I’m using. Nextgen and this theme don’t seem to like each other very much.
I feel like I must be missing something, since Nextgen is constantly included in people’s list of the best photo plugins for WordPress.
Anyone have any solutions or workarounds to these problems? For now, I’m going to go back to just inserting links from Flickr.
Rangkaian
August 13, 2010
its good colection, I will try it soon, Thank you…
Cassandra
August 18, 2010
Hi,
Did anyone ever find a good photo contest plugin? The one written in Italian is useless if it can’t be written in English. I’m running a contest for charity and desperately need something that will let people enter and vote. Let me know!
London Photographer
August 21, 2010
Great list – I’m really impressed with the variety there is out there that allows you to create pretty much fully functional portfolio sites out of WordPress. Another great plugin worth looking at is the Photo Galleria plugin that creates very nice smooth thumbnail/sliding images straight out of the native WordPress gallery feature – http://graphpaperpress.com/2008/05/31/photo-galleria-plugin-for-wordpress/
adam
August 25, 2010
Which of those are applicable in wordpress 3.1 please let me know. I’m planning to insert lots of pictures in my post but most of the plug-in does not work properly in version wordpress 3.1.
mattscradle
aHousekeeper
September 6, 2010
Thanks, the post is really helpful. I was looking for an adaptation of the Slimbox2 script for WP, but ended up choosing the Lightbox.
FancyBox was another viable option but I like the Lightbox / Slimbox design more.
aHousekeeper
September 6, 2010
@adam, according to the WordPress plugin pages FancyBox is 3.0.1 compatible, with no complaints at all.
bas relief paintings
September 15, 2010
Wow, Nice collection of plugins. I was looking for some gallery plugins for my website. Honestly I don’t know which one is better, but I think I will go with NextGen because I’ve seen that elsewhere.
Thanks
yuri
September 24, 2010
I used Simple Viewer gallery and it has very attractive feature: possibility to load from public flikr account images with specified tag. It’s just great, because you can use same images in a different galleries in rather automatic way. Sadly, free flikr account is short in volume and Simple Viewer does not support other image hostings. Do you know which gallery has similar functionality, or possibility to enable some sort of EXIF (actually IPTC) filters?
Srikanth AD
October 3, 2010
Thanks for the post, I’ll try out the WordPress Gallery Slideshow plugin.
wwwdev
October 28, 2010
thanks for keeping the plugins all in one place so i can experiment.
Manuel Perez
November 13, 2010
Thanks for the post! I installed and setup the Fancybox for WordPress! It worked on 3.0.
Vishwakumar
December 7, 2010
Gr8 Collection!!
egorman
January 7, 2011
I’d like to create a gallery of thumbnails on a wp page. Then I need to allow registered users to download hi-res version of that thumbnail?
This is for a press/media wordpress site for my company that holds photos the media can download and use for publication.
Brandon
January 13, 2011
I wish photosmash would work on mysite, but I have something blocking the jquery from working properly. May have to go with another one of these cool plugins. Thanks for the share.
service apartments gurgaon
January 14, 2011
awesome plugins..really like of them, but now I’m using some NextGen Photo Gallery plugin. May be that is also good to use.
anyways thanks for this nice information about some useful photo plugins.
Hostbie Wordpress guide
February 2, 2011
that’s very Nice pluign and I m going to plug in my blog
Thanks once again!
Career guide
February 2, 2011
I wish it would work on mysite, but I ‘ve something blocking the jquery from working properly. May have to go with another one of these cool plugins. Thanks for the share.
Felix
February 16, 2011
Hey,
have featured-content-gallery once installed! is a little difficult, but it works very well. Also looks very sexy!
Regards,
Felix
Dorik
February 23, 2011
try this gallery, I like it, http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/oqey-gallery/
Martie
March 3, 2011
Thx so much for your info! I’ve been searching for days for a slideshow plug-in that I, as a NOVICE, could understand & use. NextGen was exactly what I was looking for. Thx for the info!
JP
March 9, 2011
What if I want to put a gallery in multiple blog posts? It seems to attach to only one post. Any way around that?
Digital Friend
March 28, 2011
Great thank you, I really like Fotobook, just hope they release an update for the latest wordpress and a few people say it isn’t working, thank you for the list again! Ross
liesl
March 31, 2011
Hi I’m new to wordpress. i have a wordpress.com blog and i’m looking for a photo gallery plugin (not a photoblog). But it seems like u can’t upload or use any plugins or extras? What to do, is there any solution besides starting up a new blog on blogger or wp.org?