Creating Web galleries: Calling a colour directly in a gallery

I'm in the middle of a standalone flash slideshow/gallery (different than the LRB XML Flash gallery!) and came across an issue which corresponds to both galleries.
Basically to make the Flash more effective I needed to be able to change the background colour of the flash. This is defined in the flash call in the HTML normally. The OBJECT code uses param name="bgcolor" value="#000000", with EMBED using bgcolor="#000000". So I just drop in a nonCSS variable to call the Web colour? Wrong.. Or so I found out.

If I define my variable in the galleryInfo.lrweb file
["nonCSS.flashBG"] = "#000000",

And then call it in my HTML using either
$model.nonCSS.flashBG
or
<%= model.nonCSS.flashBG %>

I don't get the colour appearing. I get AgColor(0,0,0,1). Now 99% of my learning coding came from looking at other galleries, but I hadn't seen a way to do the conversion from Lightroom to Web colour (or at least noticed it!). Fortunately Andy Rahn suggested using AgColorToWebColor( nonCSS.flashBG ). Now it was a bit cryptic, because it didn't tell me how to call it. Was it a string? or a quote? Eventually between digging and trying everything (literally), I came up with the answer.

There is probably a shorter way, but here's what I did:
galleryInfo.lrweb: In the model section I define 2 variables:
["nonCSS.flashBG"] = "#000000",
["nonCSS.flash.bg"] = function() return string.format( "%s", AgColorToWebColor( nonCSS.flashBG ) ) end,

In my HTML I call nonCSS.flash.bg
OBJECT
param name="bgcolor" value="<%= model.nonCSS.flash.bg %>"
EMBED
bgcolor="<%= model.nonCSS.flash.bg %>"

To give me control over colour in the Gallery itself, I define a colour chip in the colorPalette section of views:

WPGPanelUI.label_and_color_row {
bindingValue = "nonCSS.flashBG",
title = "Flash Background Colour",
},

Hopefully this will help some of you with getting on with creating your own galleries. I intend doing a series of posts creating galleries from scratch for Lightroom News soon. I did eventually find examples of where this is used inside the default HTML gallery, but didn't understand what was happening with it until Andy sent me in the right direction.

Spaces, sorts and masks.

I'm taking a little time out from my writing cram to point out a few recent posts from other sites.

Matt Kloskowski has a great video tutorial on colour spaces with Lightroom and Photoshop, including Photoshop colour settings over at Lightroom Killer Tips.

Speaking of Matt, he also has 2 Edge Lightening presets for download.

Ken Milburn has a cool tip on using Auto Mask in brush mode of Lightroom 2 beta to extract a person off a background. The final output can be used to create a layer mask in Photoshop. Check out his tip over at the O'Reilly Inside Lightroom blog.

David M. Knoble has updated his sorting tip for Lightroom 2 Beta over at Outdoor Images blog.

George Jardine says Farewell to Adobe.

I sent George Jardine some nice comments after his recent video from Martin Evenings Lightroom 2 book shoots. He surprised me by telling me it would be his last. He's leaving Adobe. After 4 1/2 years there, he's moving on. George's enthusiasm for Lightroom is what really got me hooked way back in early Beta 1 of version 1 of Lightroom. I think that was Jan '06 (time flies!). I've always looked forward to his posts and now they are at an end. at least from the Adobe perspective.

George, I wish you the best in future endeavours. Enjoy the break, and don't be afraid to come back to doing more podcasts!

Video Podcast #53 has been posted, with Martin Evening

Video Podcast #53 has been posted, with Martin Evening
While Martin is a fellow editor on Lightroom News, he's by far a more experienced photographer than I. So I have to say, it's great to see this second video on the photo shoot for material for his new Lightroom Book. Discussing the content, he alludes to the book being more workflow related. I'm already dying to read it!
George Jardine has really pulled out the stops on this. The quality of the editing and camera work is great and really fits the material. Well done lads!

As usual the podcast can be had from George's iDisk: http://idisk.mac.com/george_jardine-Public?view=web
This podcast is labeled ‘20080312 Video Podcast - Martin Evening Book Project’ in the Public directory.
Or, it can be found on iTunes by searching under Podcasts for ‘Lightroom’. The RSS feed is:
http://rss.adobe.com/www/special/light_room.rss

(Via George Jardine on Lightroom and Digital Photography.)

SWPP: Professional Imagemaker

All of you SWPP members should check out the new issue of Professional Imagemaker magazine. It just came in the door and I notice they printed my Lightroom Develop article! It covers the beta and includes sections on skin retouching, negative clarity and and spot removal, as well as fixing underexposure etc. It begins on page 78.

I wrote this not long after the beta came out, but I wasn't sure when it would be published. Again if you do read it, feel free to leave comments here! You can see a web version here:
http://swpp.co.uk/pi-june-2008/index.htm, but it's quite small.

Web Gallery production and other news.

Lightroom-Blog has been quiet recently. Trust me it's not intentional. I'm actually very busy with Lightroom related things, along with actually working!

I've gone as far as I can with the Flash Gallery I mentioned before and I'll be releasing it when I get time to write a quick readme/instructions for it. I will probably supply a logo free version file for those making donations(and then asking-helps with the mind reading!).

I'm updating HScroll to Version 2.0 at the moment. It's mostly ready, but I'm awaiting the V2 release so I can add any new gallery features that might appear.

When I initially created the menu system for both Scroll galleries, it was to ease creation of a website for users, something not possible with Lightroom default galleries. Both Matthew Campagna and Joe Capra took the menu idea a step further in the meantime with Pages and LRG Complete. Not to be outdone, I've created a single page that creates a whole website with a home page, about page, contact page and 3 galleries with 20 photos in each. There is a full menu system. This is also awaiting a V2.0 release, but I could drop code to make it 1.4 compatible easily. You can see an example of this gallery in action here.
The contact page uses a PHP form rather than a straight email address. I wrote this myself to prevent 3rd party licensing issues with scripts. I may include this in the standard HScroll gallery also. The final version of this website gallery will also have a few nifty features, so I'll probably be accepting donations for this, as it was a lot of work.
Please leave comments here, letting me know what you think. The contact form in the sample is not connected, I don't want mail from it!

I'm also very busy with rewriting sections of my Lightroom book for GMC pubs. I had it mostly finished when V2 loomed on the horizon, so I'm now hastily rewriting old sections, while adding in new things, such as Local Corrections. This is a basic book, under commission from GMC, but it does contain more advanced tips also. More details will follow as I'm allowed to release them!

During the waiting period I also started a potential eBook on creating web galleries. It's about 2/3rds done, but on hold for now. I'll get back to it after the Lightroom book is done. It's not a full sized book, so I don't think it will make the print phase at any stage.

I'll be doing more speedlink posts also, just to keep up activity here!