by bocavermelha-l.b.

Sharing photos is an incredibly popular activity and the Web that has spawned numerous awkwardly named web sites to help you do just; Flickr, Zoomr, Fotki, just to name a few.

Real estate photography is an art unto itself however – Kris Berg can show you how to do it right (see Some Homes Just Scream Shoot Me). Athol Kay, on the other hand, shows you how it can go wrong… oh, so wrong (see Bad MLS Photo of the Day).

But getting the right shot is only half the challenge. Recently, I was putting together a gallery for some of my photos and was looking for interesting ways to present them on my personal web site. I did some digging around online and found some great free, open source Flash galleries that anyone with a rudimentary amount of knowledge of Web programming can begin customize.

(For more on adding a simple Flash slideshow to your site, read Splash Some Flash On Your Site)

If you are feeling a little creative, each of these galleries could easily be adapted to show-off property photos on a single property web site or create a gallery of current listings, or “recently solds” for your business site.

Most of these scripts load images and image titles dynamically from an external XML file – just tell the script where your photos are located (presuming you’ve already FTP’d them up to your server) and it with generate the final product on the fly.

1. Polaroid Gallery puts on your photos on the table. Literally. This script will even load images dynamically from your Flickr feed. It the creates a table full of Polaroids that you can sort through and move around using your mouse. Check out a full screen example.
2. Flash Carousel slideshow was created by Saverio Caminiti – it creates a carousel like effect that you can control the spin and pitch with your mouse. It even resizes dynamically – check out the Flowers example.
3. PostcardViewer – It outputs a series of photos that looks like a set of postcards shuffled on a surface. You can navigate through them using your arrow keys or mouse. See PostcardViewer Demo.
4. AutoViewer – Very similar to PostcardViewer, AutoViewer outputs a linear sequence of images. You can add captions to each of the individual photos. See AutoViewer Demo.
5. SimpleViewer – If you’re looking for a more fully featured gallery that will show a thumbnail and high-rez sample – SimpleViewer is a very popular application that will generate a gallery with a customizable interface (color, positions etc. can all be modified) on the fly for you. See SimpleViewer Demo.

Bonus – For Windows users who use Google’s Picasa to manage their photos. PhotoFlip Gallery is a template for Picasa that lets you create an online photo book (complete with the sound of turning pages). Check out a Demo.

Mac users should check out iLife 08’s .Mac Web Gallery – which has some very nice looking templates, though it does require a .Mac account to use.

Finally, if you’re looking to drop just a little bit of coin, you can get some really slick looking applications for your site.

1. SlideShowPro – extremely robust gallery Flash component with loads of additional features you can tweak to your liking – even plays videos. Requires a full version of Adobe’s Flash MX or Flash CS3. 29 bucks.
2. PhotoFlow by Flashloaded – create a knock-off of Apple’s CoverFlow effect. See demo. $59.95.
   • Also, check out this tutorial to see how you can use this script to create an AppleTV Style photo wall. See demo.

So if you’ve got the shots, show ‘em off!

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