PhotoPress is a photo gallery WordPress plugin designed for photographers.
Peter Adams, a professional photographer and long time WordPress advocate, is the plugin’s founder and principal developer.
It is an integrated suite of image management and gallery presentation features that allows users to design photography-centered WordPress websites.
The goal of the plugin is to make WordPress easier for photographers to use by combining critical image management and presentation features into one modern and free plugin.
It gives users the ability to create beautifully-designed image galleries, as well as extract, store and publish any and all EXIF/IPTC/XMP metadata embedded in your images.
There are four main features included in PhotoPress:
- Gallery block
- Child pages block
- Image metadata management
- Slideshows
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Gallery Block
The Gallery block offers users the widest-range of capabilities among the features included in PhotoPress.
With native Gutenberg live editing, it is easy to use right out of the box, and allows users to choose either grid, masonry, justified, or mosaic styles.
The Gallery block has dynamic responsive images, and also allows for adjustable gutter spacing, uniform image cropping (optional), and the ability to hide captions if desired.
Image height and column width are both adjustable as well, and image reordering can be done inline. You won’t find fixed images anywhere in PhotoPress.
All images can be easily linked to Photopress slideshows.
Child Pages Block
Another popular PhotoPress feature is its child pages block.
A dynamic Gutenberg block, the child pages block gives users the ability to create a gallery of just child pages for any post.
This can be a useful feature when needing an index of gallery pages.
Image Metadata Management
PhotoPress users are able to customize how they manage their image metadata.
They are able to define unlimited custom image taxonomies, extract embedded EXIF, IPTC, and XMP metadata from image files and store it in taxonomies, as well as create and extract “child taxonomies” from embedded metadata fields.
This feature also includes Exif and Display Image Taxonomy Terms widgets, and gives users the option to generate custom image ALT text via metadata templates.
Additionally, the plugin simplifies licensing by allowing photographers to embed licensing info into image files during upload. This includes licensor, licensor URL and statement of rights.
Slideshows
Converting a collection of photos into an easy-to-view presentation is simple thanks to the PhotoPress Slideshows feature.
Photos can be light-boxed into full page slideshows, and have a clean and simple thumbnail navigation option.
Users can configure their own caption displays, using the image titles, captions, and/or descriptions.
There are two caption layouts to choose from.
The Four Phases of PhotoPress
The four features listed above are the initial features built into PhotoPress upon its release, but more are set to come.
The plugin has been in development for more than 15 years, but on September 14, creator Peter Adams posted an article titled “It’s Time for PhotoPress.” In it, Adams outlined the four phases of rolling out PhotoPress.
Phase 1
Phase I was completed upon release, offering users multiple gallery layout options, fully-responsive images for Gutenberg galleries and image blocks, a customizable and full screen slideshow, XMP image metadata extraction, transformation, and loading layer that utilizes WordPress Core’s image taxonomies, and first class support og image licensing and copyright metadata standards.
Adams’ goal for phase 1 was to make PhotoPress the JetPack of image gallery plugins by adding critical photography features that were missing from WordPress Core.
Phase II
Phase II will focus on creating purpose-driven photo themes. Each theme will be designed to deliver on tasks that are important to both professional and amateur photographers.
The Ansel theme was designed to make beautiful web portfolios. The Dorthea theme is perfect for making a searchable stock photo archive. And the Gordon theme can be utilized for photojournalism and exhibits.
All three themes are designed to easily integrate with the PhotoPress plugin to ensure a hassle-free experience.
Phase III
The third phase centers around building and launching a true PhotoPress website-as-service to compete with WordPress.com. The goal is to allow photographers to sign up with a credit card and design a beautiful website from scratch for their photos in a matter of minutes.
This will be a paid offering, and users who sign up for it will receive WordPress with the PhotoPress plugin and themes pre-installed.
Phase IV
The fourth and final phase of the rollout will be providing onboarding and design help to photographers.
This will also be a paid offering, and will give photographers quick access to PhotoPress experts who can help get users setup and/or customize the design of their site or sites.
Adams did not provide a timeline for remaining phases, but each phase is set to support the PhotoPress mission, which is to “dramatically lower the barriers to publishing photography by supporting the development and advocacy of WordPress.”
Premium Support
PhotoPress is a free plugin, but users can gain access to premium support by purchasing a support membership.
Whether or not you need the premium support, purchasing a support membership helps fund the development of the plugin.
There are three levels of support:
- Supporter ($15): The introductory premium support plan. For photographers that want to support the on-going development of the plugins.
- Amateur ($29): A premium support plan perfect for amateur or pro photographers that need some help or advice using the plugins to setup a portfolio website. Includes email-based support as well as installation, setup and usage guidance.
- Professional ($99): The top-tier premium support plan is perfect for photographers with more complex websites. If you plan on using PhotoPress and will require hands-on help getting things setup, then this might be the support package for you. The Professional plan includes prioritized email-based support, as well as installation, setup and usage guidance.
While it does offer paid premium options, the plugin itself is free and there’s no charge to get started.
Phases II-IV are set to bring even more photographer-friendly features to PhotoPress, but even with just the features released in Phase I, it’s well on its way to being a very useful photo gallery WordPress plugin.
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