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I have used the heck out of this application. It can be very simple yet completely robust. I have used this product since May of 2007 and have not found another to take its place. I use it on all my sites- somehow or another, in fact this last year I have built a shopping cart to go with it for my flash photography website clients. I use it for flash headers, image portfolio’s, video viewing and for a client proofing area.
It is completely customizable, very flexible and extremely elegant. It comes in three versions:
1) A component used with Adobe Flash.
2) A web engine for Adobe Lightroom.
3) A self-contained standalone form.
Compare each here.
View examples here.
Their support forum and video tutorials are great for the DIY group

On top of that if comes with additional products:
1)SlideShowPro Director; for server side application for uploading and managing your content.
2)SlideShowPro ThumbGrid; for customizable thumbnail navigation.

I am not familiar with the standalone or the Adobe Lightroom versions, but I am quite familiar with the Adobe Flash component. I am also not yet familiar with the ThumbGrid addition. I do use the Director and highly suggest it to any who are looking into SlideShowPro.

This is why I love SlideShowPro: You create the flash file upload it once and never have to open the flash file again. It reads and displays the images and other text dynamically via XML. And if you use SlideShowPro Director like I do you upload any new images, add any variety of titles, tags, captions, hyperlinks, arrange images in albums and then add albums to galleries, add music for your albums, all sorts of cool stuff and abracadabra it all displays dynamically on your website.

Plus if you have Adobe Lightroom and you use SlideShowPro Director, there is a Lightroom plugin that allows for direct export of your images from Lightroom to your Director account which helps with speeding up your workflow.

Ok now for my own plug: If you love what you see from the SlideShowPro website and want to add this elegant robust application to your website but think that you can’t quite do it yourself? I would be glad to help you out. Just request a quote and mention this post or slideshowpro and I would be happy to give you a smoking deal.

My links:
Simple Image gallery click here
Flash header click here
Entire website including the shopping cart I built (for shopping cart login under clients) click here

Anything I missed? Or other applications you would suggest?

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Ok for those of you who HAVE heard of it I know what you are asking, “How in the world did you get a permit?”

To explain: Yes this is a managed hike. Only 20 permits are issued per day, and they are issued through a lottery system (I am not an authority on this you may be able to get a walk-in permit as well- not sure). I have since heard that this is one of the hardest hikes to get a permit for.

So how did I get a permit for it you ask? I did not! :) My friend actually arranged the permit through his work and sold it on raffle at an IHC foundation banquet. I was asked to donate my time as a Photographer and gladly accepted.

So without further ado, and for your consideration I present The Wave!

My suggestions: There are other phenomenal arches, and sights (as seen in the pictures) that are beyond the actual wave.
I am also including the GPS coordinates of the route to the wave. Also, I would try to plan on doing it in the spring or fall as opposed to the middle of summer like we did. Note the image below. Needless to say it was HOT

And finally, our group of six was the only Americans on the hike that day. We met a great couple from Germany and made great friends very quick. So work on your foreign language, and people skills.

And here are the coordinates.

Parking lot at Wire Pass
37°01.1749N
112°01.4967W

The Wave
36°59.7386N
112°00.3583W

Top Rock Arch
36°59.6724N
112°00.2889W

Alcove
36°59.5730N
112°00.3326W

Melody Arch & Grotto
36°59.4680N
112°00.314W

Dinosaur Tracks
36°59.860 N
112°00.650 W

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3. Introduction to your new WordPress Blog

Thats the mandatory stuff!

Finally, just browse around the admin area becoming familiar with wordpress.

On to your first post:
Click on Posts, notice the post Hello World!, hover over it and the options will show- just delete it
Goto Posts>>Add New. Add the post title. Then the box below is the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. This is where you type your post. To add images place the cursor where you would like the image added then above the WYSIWYG editor hover over the little icons next to the Upload/Insert text. Find the one that says Add an Image and click.

Once the image uploader has loaded click Select Files.

Choose the images you want to upload and click upload. Once your images have uploaded you add the title, dont worry about the caption or description. On Link URL select File URL(this makes it so if someone clicks on the image in your post it takes them to the actual image). On Alignment choose whatever you want, if it doesn’t matter then just select none. Choose the preferred size. Then click insert into post.

This closes the image uploader and adds the image. If you have more than one image to upload repeat this process, or if you uploaded more than one image, you’ll notice that it only inserts one at a time. So click the upload image icon and when the image uploader is loaded click the tab at the top that says Gallery,

find your next image click show set the options and click Insert into post.
Once all text and images are in order and ready, you’ll notice other boxes below the WYSIWYG editor. Dont worry about those except for the discussion box and the All in on SEO Pack.
The Discussion box simply just select if you want to allow comments or pings for the post. Comments you know. Pings are if someone else blogs about your specific post, it automatically finds that persons blog post and puts it as a comment under your post.
The All in One SEO Pack is for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). You can leave this blank. If not you fill this box out with the intention of getting organic (unpaid for) traffic from search engines. So for a second you trade places with your prospective viewers. Think, if I was searching the internet for this exact information (ie. wedding photography, child photography, photo journalism, whatever your post may be about) what keywords would I be typing and what titles would catch my attention. Then fill that info into these boxes. If done right this has potential to drive alot of organic traffic to your website.

Now you will notice the boxes on the right side. The Publish, Post Tags and Categories.
Here’s the idea behind categories and tags. They are used for archiving your posts. According to how I built your blog theme the categories display on top next to the home button (remember max of 8). These should be determined by the type of photos you take and clientele you are after. The tags are more specific and can span several categories. For Instance, You post about a wedding you did in Hawaii. The category could be Wedding and/or Travel. The tags could include Hawaii, Beach, the camera you used, Outdoors and/or photoshop techniques or actions-whatever. So tags could include posts in different categories, Maybe while in Hawaii you took pictures of a family too. Follow? Just dont have the same tags as you have categories.
Ok on the publish box these are pretty self explanatory. The thing to note here is the ability to post either in the past or in the future. If in the past it places it chronologically in your posts. If in the future, it dosen’t post until that time. Click Publish and your set.

If you get bored or ambitious you can create pages. There might not be much need for them since we will cover most everything within your website.
Questions?
Call or email.

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Ok here’s a quick run down (I’ll get better at this I promise.)
1. First, I drew the sun and rays in Illustrator.
2. Then I found the VW bus and pine tree online- opened in Photoshop erased the backgrounds.
3. Then applied the artistic >> cutout filter to both the bus and tree.
4. Then composed the sun, rays, bus and tree until satisfied.
5. Placed the Polaroid mock up received from client (my wife :))
6. Found a great free old paper texture from bittbox.com
7. Placed the texture on top of the all ready composed image.
8. Changed the blend mode on the texture to hard light and didn’t mess with the opacity.
9. Arranged the typography and used different blend modes for each.
10. Finally I burned the midtones and highlights around the edges.
11. Voila, there you have it.

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Thumbnail image displays with the use of “Thumbnail For Excerpts” plugin.

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