BIG NEWS. Today, we're very happy to announce the first browser-based version of the Jalbum application! That's right - Online Jalbum brings the power of our desktop version straight into your browser!

The main goal of Online Jalbum is ease of use. We hope that the online version will be an easy way to start with Jalbum, and if you want to have more control you can download the full application for even more flexibility.

Here are some of the goodies in the initial version:

- Multi-photo upload
- Arrange photos by drag and drop
- Add captions
- Customize your album with skin and style (more skins to come)
- Publish to: yourname.jalbum.net
- Easy sharing to Facebook, Twitter, Digg etc.

Online photo editing by Pixlr.com

By using JAlbum it's easy to present your own images and videos in a nice looking gallery on the web. However, embedding material from the Internet (as for example Youtube videos) in your album, is not yet natively supported by JAlbum.
Thanks to JAlbum's rich application interface, skin developers may add this functionality to their JAlbum skins. That's the case for the LightFlow skin. Since its version 3, LightFlow can also embed content of other web sites such as:

- images, hosted on image servers like flickr, ImageShack or ImageHost.org etc.
- videos, hosted on video portals like Youtube, Daily Motion, Google Video etc.
- and even whole web pages

Benefits

How it works

The principle is simple: in Jalbum's user interface, you can add to each photo a link (URL) pointing to an external source as the following screenshot demonstrates.

Once generated the album, the photo will be shown as a thumbnail image to represent the external source, in your web album. When an album visitor clicks the thumbnail image, the external source will be displayed embedded in your album in place of the conventional slide image. Here is the embedded Youtube video:

 And the following screenshot shows an example where JAlbum's website has been embedded in an album:

 
Have a look at the example album, to see the results in real life.

If you want to know more about, have a look at LightFlow's tutorial, where you find an illustrated step-by-step tutorial how to embed a Youtube video.
Embedding other videos than Youtube (Daily Motion, Google Video, etc.) is very similar.
Just give it a try and surprise your album visitors!

It’s a popular hobby, and with the advent of digital cameras, it has become easier than ever for any aspirant to become a photographer. But photography as a hobby and photography as a profession are two completely different things, so if you want to go beyond just clicking all that catches your eye and make a living out of your passion, here are the first steps you need to take to become a professional photographer:

• Know your craft: Unless you know what you’re doing and are extremely good at it, you’re not going to be able to make it as a professional photographer. Learn as much as you can about techniques and methods from books, other photographers, and through experimentation. Some aspiring photographers prefer to learn through a degree, but others feel that it is a waste of time as photography is more an art that must come from within and be practiced to perfection rather than learned at college.

• Work with other photographers: An apprenticeship with other photographers could teach you more about photography and also help you break into the professional photography scene. You make the right connections and once you’ve gained enough experience, you know you can earn your own gigs.

• Create a good portfolio: Irrespective of whether you do any professional work or not, build your portfolio so that people know what you’re capable of. Store all your work online and back it up at secure locations. Send out your work to people who are looking for photographers and work your contacts till you secure a break.

• Choose a niche: While you won’t be able to break into your chosen niche at once, you could continue to develop your skills in this area even as you work in other areas of photography. Everyone aspires to work in a glamorous area of photography like travel and fashion. But it’s not easy to get jobs in these fields unless you’ve proven yourself. So unless you’re prepared to go freelance and take your chances (you’ll have to spend your own money and hope you’re compensated for your pictures), work at any photography job you get till you get your break.

• Practice: And no matter how good a photographer you are or think you are, continue to hone your skills and pick up new ones with experimentation and practice. The more you do, the better you become.

It’s not easy to become a professional photographer who earns well, simply because too many people want to do it and all of them are equally qualified. So be prepared to face failure for a long time before you taste success. It’s best you don’t give up your regular job to focus on professional photography until you’re successfully established in your chosen field. And even though the job may not be as exciting as you thought it was, gain some all-round experience before you think of specializing in a certain area of photography.

 

This article is written by Kathy Wilson, who writes on the subject of Online Photography Colleges . She can be reached at her email id:  kathywilson1983@gmail.com.

Kathy is a graduate in English literature and currently persuing her masters in Online Journalism

We're adding more joy to the Holiday festivities by offering 15% off on Jalbum accounts! Now is the time to get more storage and more album home page customization for your precious photos. Still looking for X-mas presents? Give the fun of Jalbum. Upgrade here.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

 Photo album by Mike Mendoza

Photo album by avacado

Photo album by ptbonn

Photo album by snay1345

Hi developer,

Did you know you can improve and extend Jalbum by writing plugins for it? We provide an open Java based API for extending Jalbum. We have just released a number of plugins together with source code for you to use as inspiration for your plugins and to enable you to contribute to a better Jalbum. We have updated our Developer center with a new skin development tutorial, updated reference manuals and a brand new section for Jalbum plugins. Hope you like it!

Low Depth of Field means that only a small "sliver" of the picture will be in focus, and the remaining parts of the picture space will be softly out-of-focus. This is very helpful for People photography, as long as the point of focus is always the subjects eyes.

There are two main ways to obtain low depth of field. Purchase a 50mm f1.8 lens, and set the lens to f1.8. Focus on the subject's eyes, and everything else should go out of focus. The closer the camera is to the subject, the greater the effect.

If you currently only have a zoom lens that came with your camera, you can still get a good effect without buying a new lens. Set the zoom lens to the longest setting, such a 200mm, and the f-stop at its lowest number, such as f5.6. Similar to the 50mm lens, the closer the camera is to the subject, the greater the effect. You may need to use a tripod however when using such a long lens. The longer the focal length, the greater the chance of camera shake.

Thanks to professional photographer Mark Hemmings (www.markhemmings.com) for writing this photo tip.

Some users have asked us for a minimalistic way to present albums on their home page that doesn't include the Jalbum header and footer for site navigation. Many of you are professionals who use Jalbum to display your portfolio. We now have a "Portfolio mode" for you! To activate, sign into your page, then go to settings and tick "Portfolio mode" (available on Premium and Power accounts only). Here are some users who already found this new feature:

mikedl pbblloret   pedaal   lisacarmel   Kortman JonsPhotography   alesd   chrispack