A picture is worth more than a thousand words. For any blog, this holds true – and photos can become an integral part of any blogging operation. Photos allow for readers to get a glimpse into a blog author’s life, and makes for the perfect gateway in creating long-lasting connections.
I’d like to take the time now to share with you some of my favorite WordPress Photo Gallery Plugins – along with some of the most popular plugins amongst the blogging community.
A List of WordPress Photo Gallery Plugins
1. Flickr Photo Album - This WordPress Photo Gallery plugin is my all time favorite, as it allows for the integration of your Flickr photos into your own blog. What’s wonderful about this plugin is that it allows for seamless automation of photo gallery creation. As long as your blog is hooked up to your Flickr account- when you post photos to Flickr, new images are added to your blog’s photo gallery. Flickr is a powerful social imaging medium, and using it as a connection tool will bring great benefits to your blog.
2. WP Photo Album - The WP Photo Album plugin is an easy-to-use, simple photo gallery plugin. It gives you the option to setup albums and categories – and upload photos via the WordPress backend.
3. NextGEN Gallery - Known for being powerful and all-inclusive, the NextGEN Gallery plugin for WordPress aides in creating great photo galleries within any blog. Along with its many great features is the ability to use a Flash Slideshow option.
4. Fotobook - The Fotobook plugin uses Facebook’s API model to bring your Facebook photos into your blog. This plugin also has the ability to pull images from multiple Facebook accounts – which is helpful for blogs maintained by more than one individual.
5. WP-Gallery-Remote - Throughout the photo gallery industry, Gallery is amongst the best. This plugin allows your WordPress blog to pull images from a remote Gallery installation. Using this plugin will enable any blog owner to harness the great power of Gallery – while still using a WordPress based blog.
6. Picasa Photos - This plugin pulls images from a Picasa image account, and displays the images in a Widget within your WordPress installation. Great plugin for low maintenance photo integration.
7. Flash Photo Gallery - The Flash Photo Gallery creates image galleries much like the one in Adobe Photoshop CS2, and it even allows for integration within WordPress MU installations. Flash Galleries can be inserted into any page within your blog with a simple code tag.
Conclusion
Images are a powerful blogging tool. They add life and color, create a sense of “belonging,” and stir up the imaginations of readers. It’s important for bloggers to remember that the integration of photo galleries and images within a blog should not be overlooked – as the benefits from using such features can be great.
I know that in my own experiences on the web – I enjoy browsing through photo galleries of my favorite bloggers. It helps me to understand the blogger more as a “person” and not a blog facade.
Share with us how you incorporate photos into your blogging experience!
Photo by fergusonphotography
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"You’re such a smart boy!" were his first accolades heard. So, it’s no wonder that this phrase became the title of his business, Smart Boy Designs.
Read more about Christian 
{ 46 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi,
Thanks for the tip. I once added a slide image feature of Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings into the sidebar of my blog. I got this feature from BlogCatalog. After seeing the images for close to 2 weeks, I decided to remove this feature. I got so bored of looking at the same old pictures. I would think readers of my blog might experience the same boredom as I had.
Serene Low
Important information, very glad you posted this. I enjoy learning new things everyday so I like subscribing to blogs like yours. Derrick
I really love the idea of photo’s in a blog too I am quite new to the blog experience and at present am trying to figure how to get a picture to show in the preview of all the blog post .. like on yours Smart Boy.. How do I do that!?
Twitter: smartboydesigns
May 11, 2009 at 9:10 am
What I do is rather simple to get a photo to show in the preview. I just add the photo above the text – and then add my “more” tag in Wordpress after the image code. Let me know if you need further explaining.
What blogging platform are you using?
Cheers Smart Boy, I used the method you suggested and it looks fab
photo’s in your blog really add to the visitor’s experience I believe. It is a great way to visually improve an otherwise dry and ‘texty’ matter such as blogging, seo, internet marketing and such…
Just what I was looking for. Thanks for giving some options, I will check them out
Thanks for the post. I am going to try the Wordpress picture plugin. I have been meaning to get around to it. It is now on my todo list.
Guy
great review about the photo, i had been finding this. NExtGen plugin cause me a lot of problem when use it. I wanna try flickr now
But which one is the best to display the photos properly, full screen? slide show?
The flash one seems the most professional (for an amateur photographer like me) , I’ll give it a go,
Cheers for that
U.
I love the links! I want something that’s not too complicated for my non-techie clients whom I install WordPress for. Any suggestions?? I’m doing a kool, small travel website with lots of diving, snorkeling and dhow pics from the Kenyan coast.
Is there a way to add a photo gallery for each of your posts? I featured male fitness models so I have tons of pics to feature per posts which I don’t want embedded on the post but either a clickable pic for one two three pics and the rest on a gallery format.
Twitter: smartboydesigns
September 2, 2009 at 5:52 am
Max – the Flickr photo plugin seems to work very well, and is easy to use. Kaleb – some of the photo galleries I’ve listed have the ability and option to link to a whole new gallery for each new post. These would definately be of use in your situation.
Cool. Will be testing Flickr and Picasa later.
Thanks!
Important information, very glad you posted this. I enjoy learning new things everyday so I like subscribing to blogs like yours. Derrick
Yes! thank you Smart Boy
Yes! thank you Smart Boy
Thanks for the posts Christian! I stumbled across your blog when researching some Wordpress plugins and I like your style. I subscribed and look forward to more. Feel free to check me out as well and perhaps we can JV on some things. I look forward to connecting..
Twitter: smartboydesigns
February 12, 2011 at 12:41 am
Will surely be checking out your blog shortly.
The KPicasa plugin is slick if you want an entire photogallery onto a wordpress page. Check out my website for a demo. All you do is just make a page or post with a tag in it.
5 out of 7 use third-party websites. I’m looking for a Wordpress-only solution so that leaves me with two options. Flash Photo Gallery looks awesome but Google can’t index images inside a flash movie. The other option, WP Photo Album, spits out errors if your host has safe mode enabled. Still looking…
7. Flash Photo Gallery
Quick question installed in WordPress says its active, cannot see a configure section down the left of tools etc, only option is to edit the whole code.
Could someone point me in the right direction to actually use this to create a gallery.
Thanks in advance.
Thanks for the info! I’m looking to make a photo page on my blog and want to give it a special touch. I appreciate this post. It has exactly what I’m looking for:)
Susanna
Thanks for the post. I would like the ability to present an image in my sidebar, based on the tags of the respective post. Are you aware of any plug-in that does this or how I may accomplish this?
Superb links great review about the photo. Thanks for sharing.
Fantastic heads up man. Thanks for rounding ‘em up and sharing them. People with awesome taste, sharing awesome plugins, rock.
Fantastic heads up man. Thanks for rounding 'em up and sharing them. People with awesome taste, sharing awesome plugins, rock.
I tried Nextgen and didn't like it that much. Going to try the Galley one next.
Wow, thanks for list wp plugin
Twitter: smartboydesigns
February 16, 2011 at 8:27 pm
You’re welcome. I really enjoy the WordPress Flash slider gallery.
I have used Picasa and flash photo gallery, they are both amazing to work with . With Picasa I love to give a new look to my pictures the way I want.
Thanks for consolidating these plugins here. Very helpful to see the variety with the description. Now I have to figure out which works best on my site
Thanks!
Twitter: smartboydesigns
April 28, 2011 at 8:16 am
I’ve gone back and forth in so many ways when it comes to developing a plugin for my blog in regards to photos. I seem to like each one for different reasons. As of now I’ve just decided to use Flickr, and have my little sidebar “teaser” in the corner.
Cool and thx…been meaning to put up a photogallery for a few weeks now for our site. Now if I can just figure out the tabs and categories features I’ll be golden…lol…cheers M8…
Twitter: smartboydesigns
June 15, 2011 at 8:45 am
I think if you could spend time doing anything, it would be to fix up the photo gallery on your blog. It’s such an added benefit, and really helps to create fantastic design. Photo galleries are so beautiful!
Looking for a photo gallery that does the following…
1. Standard Gallery features for admin, uploads, etc
2. Ability to send the picture being viewed to another site (IE, WalMart, Walgreens, etc) for printing at the viewers expense.
Reason being, I have several thousand images from a recent family event, and REALLY don’t want to send CD’s or a simple link to a ZIP to the hundreds that were in attendance.
Any idea if somethng like this exists?
Twitter: smartboydesigns
June 17, 2011 at 12:23 pm
I haven’t seen a photo gallery plugin like that, but I do know Flickr would probably be your best option. Members of your family could download the pictures they want from the Flickr photostream.
Nice list! Do you know which one works well with all browsers and can be uploaded by post and category?
Twitter: smartboydesigns
July 11, 2011 at 10:14 am
I really like the NexGen Gallery. You are able to make separate categories -and then you’d be able to add whatever category you’d like to different posts.
Hey pal, there is a really cool one named oqey gallery, you can get it http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/oqey-gallery/
Nextgen is a superb plug-in, has worked wonders for me.
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Twitter: smartboydesigns
September 19, 2011 at 10:39 am
Glad to hear it works well for you. I love it!
For those who are still contemplating on what plugin to be used, NextGen works for me too. It meets my requirements in blogging.
Peeps, I’ve seen the future & it’s SOME HOW finding a way to embed your Facebook page albums into your posts/pages so that you DON’T have to have NextGen on your site AND have yet more frigging images on FB. Ya know what I’m sayin?
Is there a RANDOM pic plugin that grabs images from a FB album to show in my right or left sidebar?? That would be a KILLER plugin. As Jean Luc Picard would say, “make it so!”
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Flickr Photo Album really works for me. I never tried anything else but I guess since you have put it in your list I’m going to see if and try it for my self. Having a lot of option really am very helpful, right?
Twitter: smartboydesigns
January 3, 2012 at 4:37 am
I use FlickrRSS now, for the images you see at the bottom of every page here on the blog. I really like it. Works well, simple & gets readers involved on Flickr.
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