Many sites want to promote their images without necessarily selling anything. Usually, the reason for their site is to inform people about their collections. This type of website slightly differs from a site whose main function is to promote and eventually to attract a market.
Online libraries, or galleries have to carefully display their images, and provide pertinent information on their images.
Here are some ways to do this.
- Start with clear thumbnails, which can be clicked to view an enlarged version of the image
- When making thumbnails, make sure that the smaller images are clearly visible, so that they direct the viewer to the enlarged version.
- The thumbnails should really include the whole image, rather than a cropped section, to make it easier to identify what the image is.
- A long, scrollable thumbnails page is a good idea whenever possible, since viewers often don't want to click to the next page just to get another list of thumbnail images.
- A good number of thumbnails to have per page is between 20 and 40.
- The enlarged image of the thumbnail can open up in a new window or a new page. Either way, the viewer will have to click the new window closed, or link back to the original thumbnail page.
- If you're going to open a new window, make sure it is large enough to fit the image and the text, and your viewer doesn't have to scroll up or down to find all the information.
- I tend to prefer linking the larger image onto another page. That way, I can write as much as I want when describing the image.
Here are some good examples which use online galleries using the list I've described above.
- Armenian miniature illustrated manuscripts: This site displaying 20 thumbnails per page, each one clearly visible. The large version opens into a new page.
- Virtual Museum of Canada featuring here A.J. Casson's work: Again with clearly identifiable thumbnails. The larger version opens into a new window. This window is a little cumbersome, since it is scrollable, and you have to adjust the size to see all the image.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art with a page on Christian artworks in Ethiopia: Notice how the main page has extensive writing with cropped off thumbnails (not recommended.) But each thumbnail opens to another page of a larger version. You can even enlarge the image more by opening it in a new window. Text is a very important part of this web museum, which is why they've opted to have the image open primarily in a new page, rather than a new window.
