How to add a photo gallery plugin to your WordPress blog
If WordPress’s built-in photo gallery feature isn’t meeting your needs, there are literally hundreds of free and premium plugins you can use to spice up your image galleries. TripWireMagazine has a nice list of their Top 40 favorite photo gallery plugins (although the majority of them are premium).
One of my favorite free photo galleries is Portfolio Slideshow. I like it for it’s simplicity, ease to implement and no-frills functionality. You can literally get it installed and working in less than two minutes.
Here’s a look at the Portfolio Slideshow’s gallery landing page:
Click for a full demo on the developer’s site.
How to Use the Portfolio Slideshow Plugin
1) Login to your WordPress site.
2) Click Plugins → Add New in the left-hand navigation pane of the admin.
3) Search for “Portfolio Slideshow”.
4) Click “Install Now”.
5) Once the plugin is installed, click the settings link if you want to alter the plugin’s baseline functionality. I’d recommend skipping this step until you get a slideshow up and running to see what you’d like to change.
6) When you’re ready to create your slideshow, create a new page or post within the WordPress admin.
7) Give your page or post a title.
8) Click the Upload/Insert link above the post/page editing pane.
9) Upload the photos you’d like to feature in your slideshow.
10) Click the Insert button to add the photos to your post.
11) Now, in the body of your post, paste the following shortcode:
[portfolio_slideshow]
12) Click the blue “Publish” button on the right-hand side of your WordPress post-editing page.
That’s it. Your slideshow should be up and running. To customize its appearance or for more advance settings, check out the plugin’s FAQ page on WordPress.org.
Alternate titles: This post is a tutorial on how to use the Portfolio Slideshow plugin for WordPress.