Photo and Pictures

You can create a photo blog with large images using Blogger if you make the template so that it allows greater width. The reason for the article on the photo blog with broad layout is an email from a reader on my Swedish site Bild och foto:

“Thanks for a great page that is very useful. Many hours are spent here … I want to create my own photoblog, but I have looked around at others blogs and I have some requirements …. I want to write a short text and display images. I have looked at the service that Blogger provide and tried a little but I cannot upload images that are 800 pixels wide. Do you know if there is any guide to wordpress for my English skills are not very good ..
Grateful for answers. ”

I assume that you know how to create a photoblog at Blogger. You must edit the template a little so that you can fit in your large images. I use the simplest template ‘Minima’ and then I adjust the colors so that images are highlighted. I like a relatively neutral dark gray others might want to have white or black. You can see at my photoblog what colour i like.

The next step will be to edit the template itself. You go into the “Layout” page and select “Edit HTML”. Scroll down until you find “# outer-wrapper” and adjust it so that the width is 1024 pixels. It should now say “width: 1024px;”. Then adjust the “# main-wrapper” to “width: 810px;” and “# sidebar-wrapper” to “width: 180px;”. Do not forget to finish off by saving the template or you will lose your new settings. Now, your large images will fit on the blog.

Now we come to the next step and that is that you should be using Flickr to easily store and even paste images in blogger. You certainly can use Photobucket or even Bloggers own image hosting. If you use Bloggers inbuild service your pictures will end up att Picasaweb on your Google-account. Please remember to read the Terms of service so you know what rights you have on the chosen hosting service. Flickr also comes with the ability to embed slideshows and that is easily done in Blogger.

If you don’t know how Flickr works you can take a peek at Webware’s article about Flickr for beginners. I usually scale my images so that they have their largest side no greater than 800 pixels. I do it for two reasons: firstly, the pictures load more quickly in the browser, but also it is a protection so people or companies steal your images. If the want to use the high resolution image, they must contact me. Do not forget to sharpen the image after you’ve changed the size. You always lose sharpness when you downsize.

Now, when you should make your posts on your new photo blog with the broad template so you simply go to the Flickr image that you want to post on the blog. You select the “All Sizes” and select the 800px size that you have uploaded. Below the picture is a box where you just select the code and then you paste it into your blog post. Publish and then your ready and can blog wildly on your new wide photo blog.

If you want to have just one picture on the front like me. Go to “Settings” where you will find under “Formatting”. Here you can edit the number of posts on the front page.

This entry was posted by Bengt on Thursday, February 12th, 2009 at 2:05 am. It is filed under Photo Services and has these tags: blog, flickr, online, photo, photo service, photoblog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.