48. USING THE WEB MODULE

THE WEB MODULE allows you to place a series of images on a standalone website. To be honest, it’s one of the least-touched modules in Lightroom. Adobe hasn’t made that many changes to it over the years, with the exception of updating a series of templates for HTML-5 support. Other than that, it’s been the same module from the very beginning.

Start by organizing the images that you want to place on a website into a collection (Figure 48.1). Once your collection is complete, you can move to the Web module. You’ll notice that a lot of the text options for the website can be changed directly in the center workspace (Figure 48.2). Simply click on the text you want to change—such as Site Title or My Photographs—and a text field will open, allowing you to insert whatever text you want. You can also use the panels on the right to add or change information and modify the appearance of the site.

One field you should pay particular attention to is the Web or Mail Link field at the bottom of the Site Info panel (Figure 48.3). This adds a link with your contact information to the website. Make sure you enter your email address immediately following “mailto:”—do not leave any space between the colon and your email address.

The Color Palette panel allows you to choose the color of various page elements on your website. Click on the color swatch next to the feature you want to change, and select a new color from the color bar.

Figure 48.1 When you make a collection of your images it is a lot easier to control how they are viewed on your webpage.

Figure 48.2 You can make changes to the website information with the panels on the right, or directly in the main workspace.

Figure 48.3 When you enter your email address, make sure you don’t delete the colon following “mailto.”

You even have the option to change the number of rows and columns in your grid by using the Grid Pages option in the Appearance panel (Figure 48.4). Play around with the options in the panels until you get the look you want. You can add things like drop shadows and image borders, adjust the size of your images, or even add a watermark to your images.

Once you’ve adjusted all of the available options and you’re pleased with the look of your page, it’s just a matter of clicking on Export in the lower-right corner of the module (Figure 48.5). This will create a folder with all of the HTML files, content, and resources for you to use on a website (Figure 48.6). Give the folder a name, select where you want to store it on your computer, and click Save.

I like the concept of this module and appreciate that it’s available, but to be honest, very few people use it. There are a few key issues that prevent people from using it. One of the biggest problems with this module is that it requires you to have some experience using an FTP to upload this folder of information to a website. This also requires you to have a website already set up where you can upload this information—something that sits outside the realm of experience for most users.

Another issue is that if you are uploading information to a website, more often than not, you already have an existing website with a substructure that you want to adhere to (e.g., WordPress, Joomla, etc.). In instances like this, you’ll want the album that you create in Lightroom to fit the overall structure of the website you have already built. Unfortunately, this is not possible. When you use the Web module, you are creating a stand-alone webpage that offers no navigation back to an original website.

Finally, with the inclusion of collections that can be synced online with Lightroom (Lesson 14), you have a mechanism that you can use for adding your images to an already existing website, as well as an online repository where you can place the link for the website directly into social media pages like Facebook and Twitter. So the benefits of the Web module are already built-in with online web collections.

Figure 48.4 Use the Grid Pages option to select how many images you want in each grid.

Figures 48.5–48.6 When you click on Export, Lightroom will create a folder that contains all of the information you need for your webpage.