Getting on the Midnight Train…

If you think you’re seeing things, you’re not. We had a number of requests from some of our new users to provide a website customization theme ...

If you think you’re seeing things, you’re not. We had a number of requests from some of our new users to provide a website customization theme that they were more familiar with. Fortunately, our website customization option is very flexible so it’s possible to emulate any number of looks. This particular theme is called “Caboose” and it has a number of interesting possibilities, and Jason Rothe took the liberty of inserting his own logo, and chose our embeddable slideshow rather than using just a static image. Here’s another variant from Kulay Photography:

Using one of our website themes is simple and you can have a fully-enabled e-commerce website in a matter of minutes. Some of our users are pretty technically-inclined and instead of choosing a website theme, they’ve gone in with their knowledge of HTML & CSS and made their site their own. Sander van der Borch from The Hague did just that.

Warren Diggles decided to “dig” into his customization and came up with a very different look. He also set up a CNAME so that he could use his own domain instead of PhotoShelter.com.

Of course, we have other themes that you can choose from like the recently released “Induro.” Chris Hornbecker used the “White Sand” style to set up his site:

(Please Lebron. We need you in NJ)

It’s worthwhile to note that when you get a PhotoShelter Stanadard or Pro account, you’re not paying for a portfolio website because it’s much more than that. The ability to deliver high-resolution files to client or enable e-commerce to sell prints or stock are just two of the tons of features that PhotoShelter provides. If all you want is a portfolio, there are certainly alternatives, but we’ve actually seen a number of products that cost more than PhotoShelter while offering a lot less. PhotoShelter falls under the category of “Software as a Service” — if you’ve heard of Salesforce.com, the concept is simillar. You pay a monthly fee to get a suite of hosted services. No servers to maintain, no software to install, and any time there is an upgrade, it’s automatic.

Did I mention we’ve had two upgrades in the past 30 days?

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. Last week, we also created the ability to name “trusted clients” from your account. So any one you designate as a trusted client can have high-resolution download access to anything from your archive instead of inviting them on a gallery-by-gallery basis. It’s great for photographers who have a regular clientele, and the agencies love it.

We also made our embeddable galleries configurable. You can now pick a size, background color, and link destination through a configurator. If you didn’t get to check out the embeddable galleries, here’s a cool one from Michael Durham (how the heck did he do that?):

Finally, I’m sad to report the passing of one of the members of the extended PhotoShelter family. Ed J. Szalajeski passed away at the age of 38 following open heart surgery. Ed signed up with PhotoShelter the day after we opened our doors in 2005, and was a long time member of SportsShooter.com. Rest in peace, brother.