OK, here is my mission; completely install a customer example photo gallery found here http://www.cardprinting.net/ in 2 hours or less. The basic process starts from Adobe Illustrator CS or Corel Draw 12. This is the format all customers work is saved in. There are aproximately. 300 files I positive need to access export and create a photo album with full navigation.

Heres how I did it. Instead of opening each file in its native program I tried opening CDR and AI files in Adobe Photoshop. Guess what? It works with the ai files but not the cdr files. Why is this important? Because 90% of my files are in ai format! Illustrator only allows you to open 1 file at a measure , Photoshop allows you to open as many as your computers resources may handle. At the identical time Photoshop converts each vector based image to a bitmap, which is required for the web. Now, you could create a course of actions to complete this more efficiently, but I want to remove or retouch some undesirable from each image. I am a perfectionist so I want these images looken grand AND loading fast for the web. Personally I find Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Fireworks offer the best export filters for the web.

So now I have 300 images looken great, properly cropped and optimized for the web. What is the best way to create a Photo Album from so many images? Again lets refer to my favorites for this, Macro Media or Adobe? I work with both for different projects and really can not pick a most acclaimed here! They are both excellent for this. Macromedia Dreamweaver has a function found under commands>create photo album, shown here http://www.weprintcolors.com/screens/screen_dw_create_photo.htm. You will need Fireworks installed for this to work. Go ahead and fill in all the text fields that are required information shown here http://www.weprintcolors.com/screens/screen_dw_create_photo_menu.htm. It is important you take the measure to craft your words carefully, especially in the first field as this writing is written into every html document generated. Check the appropriate format, rows and columns etc. Check the box for file names on or off and check the box for, create navigation page for each photo. OK thats it youre ready to fire away, click OK. Amazing, eh?

Well I am kind of busy right now working on my next project. In my next post I will talk about the identical process of generating a web based photo album using adobe photo shop for the entire process.

Cheers,

Robert

Robert is the selling director of an online print and design firm http://www.weprintcolor.com. Robert covers all aspects of graphic development and digital media designs.