Author: David Ekholm

It’s sound human nature to avoid doing repetitive tasks. jAlbum was once developed as I didn’t want to manually prepare 120 images for the web and create the needed HTML. Even if jAlbum has a good number of batch processing features, you may find yourself doing manual repetitive work, for instance deleting 1-star images, looking…

In the past 18 years we have never stopped improving jAlbum. The last two years are no exceptions. Here we present what we think are the top 8 reasons to update jAlbum based on recent improvements. 1 Be compatible The world around us is changing, so are web standards and the use of mobile devices.…

18 years have passed since we first released jAlbum 1.0. We've now reached v20. Not that many software titles stay around for so many years so we're proud that jAlbum is still relevant, and now it's better than ever. There are about a dozen changes in this release, but here I'll focus on the top…

I was recently interviewed by web software and services review site WebsitePlanet.com. If you're curious about what keeps a founder like me going after so many years with jAlbum (started in 2002) and my views on the trends and risks in this industry, you'll find this interview interesting. I'll promise that reading it will give…

I'm delighted to tell you about the news for our new jAlbum 19 release. The highlights consists of a significantly improved search bar and an embedded spell checker. This is naturally a free update for you who are on a current support & update plan (sign in here or see jAlbum Help for your status). For…

The recently released jAlbum 18.4 sports a completely rewritten web server under the hood (Jetty 9). Historically this web server has only been used to share galleries straight from your computer (See Tools->Share), something only a few users use, but it now also serves previews to both jAlbum's embedded web browser and any external web…

We've just added search to jAlbum! Now you can type your way to the right setting while using jAlbum instead of browsing though complex user interface panels in your hunt for that font size or color setting.   What would internet be without Google? We'd have to remember a ton of pages and navigation paths…

jAlbum 18 has just been released. The main improvements in this version is a faster album uploader and the new Project Gallery – the subject for this blog post. With active regular use of jAlbum over some time you end up with a huge amount of album projects. Finding the right one isn't always easy.…

Present your best images. The new review mode of jAlbum 17 helps you to quickly compare images side by side, zoom, tag and rate them.  Taking photos is only part of the work. One easily ends up with hundreds of images. Now comes the challenging part wading through this pile in search of the best…

jAlbum has been reviewed in "Top 10 Website Hosting", a review site dedicated to guiding you to reliable hosting solutions founded by people tired of fake reviews. Read what they have to say about jAlbum and our hosting solution in this article.

The newly released jAlbum 16.2 comes with two new handy improvements, both a result of requests from you. If you're missing something, let us know! Adjust camera date jAlbum now has a function to adjust the EXIF camera date of JPEG images (i.e. the "date taken/original" date). The function works on both individual images and…

jAlbum 16.1 has an interesting new folder linking behavior called "Mirror content". What "Mirror content" does is to create a folder tree mirroring the structure of the added folder, just like when you copy a folder to jAlbum, but the mirrored tree is filled with file links to the contents of the added folder instead…

Oiled-up and shiny! “Don’t keep adding features I don’t need. Fix the annoying issues instead!” Luckily such user comments are rare, perhaps because we put as much energy into fixing things as to developing new stuff. The new v16 is no exception. It actually focuses on fixes. Just like your car needs service every now…

The jAlbum family of skins has got a new member – Zigzag. This skin has a modern, responsive and clean design suitable not only to create galleries, but whole sites. We think Zigzag will be ideal for many smaller web sites presenting the works of not just photographers, but any smaller business, organization or things…

We're proud to tell that jAlbum 15 has been awarded Editor's Pick in Informer.com – one of the leading software catalogues today. jAlbum's flexibility, ease of use and high quality result were the main factors that motivated their top rating. Read full review.      

PresentingjAlbum 15 Get slim with jAlbum 15! Get jAlbum 15 » Release notes → Now in Italian! jAlbum 15 now speaks Italian too. Thank you Filippo Bottega for providing this! I’m proud to introduce jAlbum 15 to you. jAlbum 15 offers a smorgasbord of improvements from the inside out. It’s hard to pinpoint one specific…

jAlbum 14 is here! After a long wait, we’re proud to announce the availability of jAlbum 14 – our most important update in two years. If you have an active support & update plan, this is a free update too! Here are some exciting highlights. As always you find the full list in our release…

Hi, Are you an old time jAlbum user and haven’t decided to go for the current jAlbum version? We’ve made improvements in many areas since jAlbum 11 so I really feel you should give the current jAlbum a try. If you renew your license you’re guaranteed to get any future updates within 12 months for…

In jAlbum 13.7 we've introduced support for HiDPI images (See Settings->Images). By activating this option your images will look much sharper on HiDPI screens like those found on modern mobile phones and tablets. HiDPI screens are screens that have far smaller pixels than ordinary computer screens so they pack more "dots per inch" than ordinary…

I was recently interviewed in depth by the people at HostingAdvice.com. HostingAdvice has been around since the 90's and specialize in testing and reviewing hosting services and giving advice on site building tools and such. They also run tutorials on various topics that relates to running web sites. A great resource to check out. In…

jAlbum is appreciated for its ability to manage huge amounts of images. Its Explorer-like user interface, support for deep folder hierarchies and flexible image organizer probably contributes to this. We've now fitted jAlbum with an elegant zooming ability. Zoom in gradually to get a better detailed view of each image without having to leave the…

After a long wait, we’re proud to present jAlbum 13 to you. In this blog we’re going to talk about two improvements that stand out: Collaborative albums Powerful file organizer Fair licenses Before moving more into these improvements, let’s first mention the license terms: As promised in our blog post from Feb 25, we have…

Haven't we all been there, buying the new cool camera, mobile phone or graphics card just to realize it's not the latest and greatest a month thereafter? It's naturally inevitable that technology moves forward, but the feeling of just missing a new release is annoying. The same holds for software licenses. At jAlbum, we're now…

We’d like to summarize some improvements made lately with the release of jAlbum 12.3 and 12.4. We hope you find that some of the things mentioned here justifies an update. Just works better In the recent months several improvements has been made to making jAlbum working as smoothly as possible, this includes minimizing RAM memory…

After a rather long break we finally have jAlbum 12.2 out. I’d like to share some of the highlights with you. As always you’ll find the full list of enhancements in our release notes. New full screen slide show jAlbum has a rewritten full screen slide show that simplifies the process of approving images. The…

I guess you've all seen theme images that gets cropped like this in the Turtle skin: Now, we've made a plugin for jAlbum 12.1 and onwards that helps you set the desired crop focus, so your theme images or folder thumbnails will look like this instead: Get the plugin here, then right click an image…

We’re excited to tell you about the improvements that have been added to the long-awaited v12 release of our desktop software. It’s been a year since the last major release, where we added support for 164 video formats. This version focuses on improving the user experience: It is faster than ever, including both the user…

We’re excited to tell you about the improvements that have been added to the long-awaited v12 release of our desktop software. It’s been a year since the last major release, where we added support for 164 video formats. This version focuses on improving the user experience: It is faster than ever, including both the user…

I'm excited to tell you that we've opened up a marketplace for you where you can offer your images for sale with great ease. Classic stock photo marketplaces require you to pass a frustrating manual approval barrier. Any photographer that has experience of being rejected knows this frustration. Our partner Mostphotos has a new take…

In this tutorial photographer Ted Lansing illustrates how to use jAlbum to create professional Web galleries for photographers. Based on the design and implementation of www.tedlansingphotography.com the tutorial describes the concept and steps to integrate jAlbum galleries into an existing site. Don't be overwhelmed by the length of this tutorial. It is kept at a…

When using jAlbum you should feel that you're in full control of how your images are managed. Some software titles that handle images give me gray hair! This is because I don't know what they are doing to my images – some just start indexing my hard-drive collecting all the images. Hey, I didn't ask…

It is now as easy to make video galleries as image galleries. jAlbum 11 can adopt over 160 video formats for the web – re-encode, compress, scale rotate and trim your videos! Videos – a natural next step A picture is great for story telling. Everyone know the saying "a picture is worth a thousand…

This post puts the spotlight on an often overlooked gem in jAlbum – the seach feature of the Turtle skin. Many people and organisations use jAlbum to present huge amounts of images, whether it is catalogues of vintage cars, handicraft or event images for the local sports club. It's not uncommon to see albums consisting…

We just released jAlbum 10.4. It should perhaps have been labeled jAlbum 11 cause it's packed with improvements and important bug fixes, but most of the changes go under the hood, so we decided to stay at 10.4. There is actually only one change you can notice in the user interface (hint: right click an…

Happy new 2012 everyone! I hope you've had a relaxing Christmas vacation.  Yesterday we released jAlbum 10.3. The main improvements this time are as follows: More memory conservative Supports reading JPEG images in the CMYK color space Support for hidden sub albums Can generate seach engine friendly file names As always, you can see the…

I'm excited to tell you that we've been able to boost upload speed up to 10 times with the new jAlbum 10.2 release! This speed increase applies when uploading albums to external sites. (Uploads to our hosting service are already accelerated). The improvement is possible by uploading multiple files simultaneously. The exact speed gain depends…

Have you noticed that the “Photo book” button is back in jAlbum's toolbar? This time this button will let you produce printed photo books with far more customization options than we could offer last year. We've teamed up with Blurb – one of the leading photo book producers – to offer you an easy and…

Going for a two digit version number calls for something out of the ordinary. With jAlbum 10 we belive we will meet your expectations with several improvements geared towards the needs of professionals. Let's go through some of the highlights. Read about all the improvements in our release notes. Full xmp metadata supportjAlbum 10 now…

Hi everyone, I like free. (Don't we all?) Since 2002, jAlbum has been free of charge for both commercial and non commercial use. We have charged for our storage, but not for our application. However, a majority of our users use jAlbum for their own sites and don't feel they need a jAlbum account. At…

Skins extend the way jAlbum presents albums. They are as easy to install as double clicking a file. Now with jAlbum 9.4 we're introducing jAlbum Extensions that makes it as easy to extend jAlbum itself. Extensions have actually been around for quite some time (many parts of jAlbum are pre-bundled extensions), but it is not…

If you wish to apply a certain image effect to all images or thumbnails of an album, like grayscale, cropping or watermark, then you have two basic options: Using the "Edit mode" image filters or the "classic" image filters. Both options have interesting properties. Let's look into them: Edit mode image filters These image filters…

With jAlbum 9.3 we have made it easer to control who gets to know about your album updates and who gets to see your albums. Most people don't want to "tell the world" when they upload a family album and may have hesitated to "Publish" an album using jAlbum in the past. We hear you!…

We are continuing to celebrate the coming of spring: This means spring sale on jAlbum accounts! This is a great opportunity to prepare your jAlbum account with more space for the summer season. You get 25% off the price on both Premium and Power accounts until April 1. With more space for your images, grab…

Jalbum 8.13 (released today) aims at improving Jalbum as a backup and restore service for your images. As you face the upload confirmation dialog, there is now a new checkbox that lets you include high resolution images with your album.   These images are uploaded just after your album has been uploaded, so including high…

 Jalbum 8.10 is out. The most noticeable addition in this version is that you can now view and edit image captions in Jalbum's thumbnail view as well as in the edit view. This means less clicking back and forth between view modes and better overview of your album! If you prefer the classic filename view…

Most albums made with Jalbum include a small credit notice about Jalbum and the skin used at the bottom of the web page. We think these credit links help album visitors discover us and the skin used. We see them as brand stamps, not ads. However, many of our professional users would prefer to present…

I was really happy to see the improvements made to v1.3 of the Turtle skin. Laza, the author, has made two cool improvements and an important bug fix. You can now add Facebook like and Sharing buttons for Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, MySpace, StumbleUpon and Email. Also, the already good Google Maps integration just got…

This Jalbum release is the first for years to contain a new default skin. The old classic skin Chameleon has had to give way for another animal, the Turtle! The Turtle skin comes from the same talented author that brought us Chameleon and the recently talked about Compact skin – Laza, so you can expect…

To be truthful, the Jalbum experience on Linux hasn't been up to date with what you'd expect from us. This has been due to a number of reasons: • The installer script was non-standard and didn't set up icons and file associations properly. Nor did it add Jalbum to the Applications menu of Ubuntu Linux.…

This release includes several enhancements and bug fixes, requested by our community. Our non English speaking users will enjoy a translated image editing section. Mac users will notice that Jalbum interacts better with Finder. Skin developers will appreciate that making skins for Jalbum is now easier than ever. A skin can now easily set suitable…

Sports The Olympics are just around the corner. What could then be better than a skin that focuses on sports! This well polished newcomer has an initial set of styles for the Olympics, American football, baseball, soccer, ice hockey, running and skiing. One unusual feature I found was the ability to add a background header…

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…

  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…

    We're mostly hanging at the Jalbum HQ here in dark Sweden, but now we've decided to attend one of the largest photo events, Photo Plus Expo in New York, next week. It is held in the "Jacob Javits Center", Manhattan. We will network as much as possible with the big guys (Canon, Nikon,…

  Are you good at web design? Do you want millions of users to see your design? Then you should become a Jalbum skin developer. Our software has been downloaded more that 5 million times, and over 24 million web albums are estimated to have been published with Jalbum to web sites all over the…

  I'm a happy guy these days. We have a brand new site up and running and Jalbum 8.4, our application, is just finally released. More convenient Do you know what is the most asked question I get? It's "How do I delete a published album?". You can now delete published albums via our site…

We're on a roll in the Jalbum HQ. We have a brand new site up and running and Jalbum 8.4, our application, is just around the corner now. We are basically just awaiting translations from our wonderful translators around the globe. The new version is a lot more convenient to work with. We'll tell you…

    This release looks pretty much the same on the outside, but don't let the surface fool you. Jalbum 8.3 is packed with improvements under the hood. For instance, twice the speed on smooth image scaling, and a significantly faster and tighter album publishing. We've also made it easier to import settings from previous…

Users have asked me how to make several albums using the same settings as an album they've previously made (and tweaked the settings for). There are several ways of doing this, but to simplify this task I've put together a Jalbum Tool that imports the settings of an existing album project onto the currently loaded…

If you have an inkjet printer you might have asked yourself why there is no print support within Jalbum. Well now there is! I've now developed a printing plugin for Jalbum using the new plugin system of Jalbum 8. This is what it is capable of: It prints full size images (using the max dimensions…

Today we have released Jalbum 8.2. With each release we have two main goals: Simplify the workflow for newcomers Empower advanced users At a glance, these dual goals might seem contradicting, but we firmly believe this is the balance we need to strike in order to satisfy the many existing users and at the same…