most downloaded free wordPress image gallery plugins

Photo Gallery is best way to showcase your images. many plugins gives features of animated gallery. collection of free wordPress image gallery plugins.

Photo Gallery, picture gallery, or slideshow are the best way to showcase your images/photos to your readers. There are a lot of different methods to create them, and the alternative you’re most likely to be using Flash or JavaScript. Now Jquery slider plugins are very popular these days. There are many wordperss image gallery plugins which gives you really great features of animated gallery. Here is nice collection of wordpress gallery plugins.

Free WordPress Image Gallery Plugins

Below is the most downloaded image gallery plugins that we have chosen directly from the wordpress plugin directory. To make it even easier for you to choose, I also added live demo link under every image plugin! All of the resources in this post are categorized and hopefully you will find a number of new plugin that will be practical for your own work.

Using Lightbox, Thickbox, and Fancybox Effect

NextGEN Gallery

NextGEN Gallery is a full integrated Image Gallery plugin for WordPress with a Flash slideshow option.

NextGEN Gallery is the most popular WordPress gallery plugin, and one of the most popular WordPress plugins of all time, with over 7.5 million downloads.

It provides a powerful engine for uploading and managing galleries of images, with the ability to batch upload, import meta data, add/delete/rearrange/sort images, edit thumbnails, group galleries into albums, and more. It also provides two front-end display styles (slideshows and thumbnail galleries), both of which come with a wide array of options for controlling size, style, timing, transitions, controls, lightbox effects, and more.

Demo | Download

Shadowbox JS

Shadowbox is an online media viewing application that supports all of the web’s most popular media publishing formats. Shadowbox is written entirely in JavaScript and CSS and is highly customizable. Using Shadowbox, website authors can display a wide assortment of media in all major browsers without navigating users away from the linking page.

Javascript libraries supported are: None, YUI, Prototype, jQuery and MooTools. Prototype and jQuery are used from the Javascript libraries included with WordPress, YUI is loaded from Yahoo APIs and Mootools is loaded from Google APIs.

This plugin can also be used as a drop in lightbox replacement, without requiring you to edit posts already using lightbox.

By default this plugin will use Shadowbox for all image links, movie links, audio links and YouTube/Google Video links including those generated by the

shortcode.

Shadowbox is licensed under the terms of the Shadowbox.js License. This license grants personal, non-commercial users the right to use Shadowbox without paying a fee. It also provides an option for users who wish to use Shadowbox for commercial purposes. You are encouraged to review the terms of the license before using Shadowbox. If you would like to use Shadowbox for commercial purposes, you can purchase a license from http://www.shadowbox-js.com/.

Demo | Download

Lightbox Plus

Lightbox Plus permits users to view larger versions of images, simple slide shows, videos and content all in an overlay.

Lightbox Plus ColorBox implements ColorBox as a lightbox image overlay tool for WordPress. ColorBox was created by Jack Moore and is licensed under the MIT License. Lightbox Plus ColorBox for WordPress implements ColorBox as a lightbox image overlay tool for WordPress. ColorBox was created by Jack Moore and is licensed under the MIT License. Lightbox Plus ColorBox permits users to view larger versions of images without having to leave the current page. Lightbox is able to add a lightbox to WordPress gallery images, display simple slide shows, video, forms and external content in overlays. The use of the dark or light background, which dims the page over which the image has been overlaid, also serves to highlight the image or video being viewed. Lightbox Plus ColorBox captures the image title for display in the overlay.

Lightbox Plus ColorBox uses WordPress’ built in jQuery library. Lightbox Plus ColorBox also uses the PHP Simple HTML DOM Parser helper class to navigate page content for inserting the Lightbox attibutes into elements.

Demo | Download

Lightbox Gallery

This plugin changes the view of galleries to the lightbox.

If you would prefer the prior Lightbox to Colorbox, you need to get the script from the setting page.

The Lightbox Gallery plugin changes the view of galleries to the lightbox.

•     Lightbox display of Gallery
•     Tooltip view of caption of images
•     Displays the associated metadata with images
•     Divides Gallery into several pages
•     Extends the default Gallery options
•     Additional settings are set in the option page
•     Switch to the Highslide JS display

Demo | Download

jQuery Lightbox

Used to overlay images on the current page.

As the name shows, this is just WordPress’s version of the jQuery Lightbox Plugin written by balupton, working perfectly with WordPress 2.2 or up, and fully compatible with K2

Demo | Download

Shutter Reloaded

Darkens the current page and displays an image (like Lightbox, Thickbox, etc.), but is a lot smaller
(10KB) and faster.

Shutter Reloaded is an image viewer for your website that works similarly to Lightbox, Thickbox, etc. but is under 10KB in size and does not require any external libraries. It has many features: resizing large images if the window is too small to display them with option to show the full size image, combining images in sets, redrawing the window after resizing, pre-loading of neighbour images for faster display and very good browser compatibility.

This plugin offers customization of the colour and opacity settings for the background and colour for the caption text, buttons text and the menu background.

There are options to enable it for all links pointing to an image on your site (with option to exclude some pages), or just on selected pages. It can be enabled only for image links with CSS with option to create a single set or multiple sets for each page.

The plugin can also “auto-make” image sets for each Post, so when several posts are displayed on the “Home” page, links to images on each post will be in a separate set. See the built-in help for more information.

Demo | Download

FancyBox for WordPress

Seamlessly integrates FancyBox into your blog: Upload, activate, and you’re done. Additional configuration optional.

You can easely customize almost anything you can think about fancybox: the border, margin width and color, zoom speed, animation type, close button position, overlay color and opacity and even more advanced option like several options to group images into galleries, and more…

By default, the plugin will use jQuery to apply FancyBox to ANY thumbnails that link directly to an image. This includes posts, the sidebar, etc, so you can activate it and it will be applied automatically.

Demo | Download

Lightview Plus

Seamless integration of Lightview (similar to Lightbox, Thickbox, Floatbox, Thickbox, Fancybox) to create a nice overlay to display images and videos.

A wordpress plugin which implements lightview 3.0 of Nick Stakenburg.

Lightview does the same as lightbox, but in a much nicer way. lightview-plus plays videos from YouTube, blip.tv and Vimeo.

This plugin automatically enhance image links to use lightview. It has the same functionality as the wordpress plugin fancybox plus

This plugin needs jQuery now!

Demo | Download

Page Flip Image Gallery

FlippingBook WordPress Gallery plugin helps you to create Image Gallery with Page Flip effects on your blog.

Do you need to show your photos or publication to the best advantage and post them in a photo gallery speedy manner, don’t you? You need to make a bright and memorable presentation, portfolio or image gallery?

Try FlippingBook WordPress Gallery plugin – image gallery with page flip effect.

Demo | Download

Yet Another Photoblog

Convert your WordPress Blog into a full featured photoblog in virtually no time. Use the full range of WordPress functions and plugins: Benefit from the big community WordPress has to offer.
What is YAPB / What can you expect?

•     A non invasive WordPress-plugin that converts wp into a easy useable photoblog system
•     Easy image upload – All wordpress post-features can be used
•     On the fly thumbnail generation – Use multiple thumbnail sizes where and when you need them: Thumbnail generation gets controlled by the theme.
•     EXIF data processing and output
•     Self-learning EXIF filter – Your own cameras tags can be selected to be viewed.
•     Full i18n-Support through gnutext mo/po files
•     YAPB Plugin Infrastructure for extended functionality
•     Ping additional update-service-sites when posting a photoblog entry.
•     Nearly every WP-theme can become a photoblog in virtually no time.
•     Out of the box configurable “latest images” sidebar widget
•     You’ll get a photoblog system based on wordpress – Decide if you want to post a normal WordPress article or a photoblog entry. Be free to use all available extensions / plugins of the WordPress platform 😉
•     Be the owner of your own photos on your own webhost

Demo | Download

WP-SimpleViewer

The WP-SimpleViewer plugin allows you to easily create SimpleViewer galleries with WordPress. SimpleViewer is a free, customizable Flash image gallery. Images and captions can be loaded from the WordPress Media Library or from Flickr.

Add SimpleViewer Flash image galleries to your posts and pages. Easy to use and several options to make it fit your needs.

Demo | Download

Lazyest Gallery

Lazyest Gallery is an integrated image gallery with automatic thumb and slide creation, comments on images, and a slide show.

Create a photo gallery from your existing photo directories.

If you are new to Lazyest Gallery, please consider Eazyest Gallery. Eazyest Gallery is the successor to Lazyest Gallery and is far better integrated with WordPress, and compatible with popular plugins.

This gallery basically needs just two settings: Your image directory and your gallery page. Lazyest Gallery automatically creates a photo gallery with folders, sub folders, thumbnail pages and slide shows.

If you want more, the gallery offers a multitude of options by featuring a smart back end management site. You can sort photos through folders and add captions, comments and descriptions with minimal effort. If you are tired of uploading photos through the WordPress server, this plug-in will make it a breeze with their FTP auto-indexing integration.

Demo | Download

 

flickrRSS

This plugin allows you to easily display Flickr photos on your site. It supports user, set, favorite, group and community photostreams. The plugin is relatively easy to setup and configure via an options panel. It also has support for an image cache located on your server.

Allows you to integrate Flickr photos into your site. It supports user, set, favorite, group and community photostreams.

Demo | Download

 

Flickr Photo Album

This Flickr plugin for WordPress will allow you to pull in your Flickr photosets and display them as albums on your WordPress site. There is a pretty simple template provided which you can customize to 100% match the look and feel of your own site.

The plugin is customizable in a number of different ways. There are options to allow you to hook it up with a number of different Lightbox-style popup overlay display libraries. Third party commenting services such as Disqus are also supported, allowing your visitors to comment on your photos without hopping over to Flickr.com. A simple Flickr widget is also included to let you easily include your photos into your blog’s sidebar.

On the backend, this plugin will add a new Flickr icon to your WordPress edit screen which will allow you to easily insert your Flickr photos and albums into your blog posts with just a couple clicks. You can either have your inserted photos link back to your WordPress Flickr photo album or directly to your Flickr.com photo page.

Demo | Download

Flickr Gallery

Quickly and easily add Flickr galleries, photos, and even custom search results into your WordPress pages and posts.

Using the “shortcodes” system in WordPress 2.5 and up, this plugin will allow you to quickly and easily incorporate your Flickr photos into your WordPress pages and posts.

Features include:

•     A quick gallery of your recent photos, photosets and most popular photos.
•     Easy database caching (just click a checkbox)
•     Displays the photos from one photoset
•     Displays all of a user’s photos with given tags
•     Displays the results of a custom search
•     Inserts a single photo into your content
•     Embeds Flickr’s flash movie player for videos
•     Authenticate to display your private photos
•     Lightbox script makes it easy to browse photos without leaving the page
•     Plugin API to let sites configure the tabs in their gallery
•     View photosets in the gallery mode without leaving the page
•     Lightboxes are now generated for every gallery mode
•     WordPress MU Support
•     Pagination in galleries
•     All images smaller than “medium” will load in the lightbox effect (if enabled) when the user clicks on them.
•     Add a “Collections” tab to the default gallery
•     Select which tabs the gallery displays
•     Set the lightbox to display larger than “medium” photos if the user’s browser window is large enough.
•     Easier “Web” based authentication to the Flickr API.
•     New: Show the photo’s description inside the lightbox alongside the larger photos.

 

Release Page | Download

Scissors

This plugin adds cropping, resizing, and rotating functionality to WordPress’ image upload and management dialogs. Scissors also allows automatic resizing of images when they are uploaded and supports automatic and manual watermarking of images. Additionally, images that are resized in the post editor are automatically resampled to the requested size using bilinear filtering when a post is saved, which improves the perceived image quality while reducing the amount of data transferred at the same time.

Please note that WordPress versions 2.9 and newer are not supported!

When the first version of Scissors was published in October 2008 it was available only in English and German. Since then translations into new languages have been contributed by the following kind individuals. Thank you for your time and initiative!

Scissors enhances WordPress’ handling of images by introducing cropping, resizing, rotating, and watermarking functionality.
For WordPress 2.9 – 3.0 please download here :http://dev.huiz.net/2010/01/03/wordpress-plugin-scissors-for-v2-9/

Demo | Download

GRAND Flash Album Gallery

Grand Flagallery – powerfull media gallery content plugin. Easy interface for handling photos, image galleries, audio and video galleries.

With this gallery plugin you can easy upload images, create music and video playlists, create photo gallery, group pictures in photo slideshow and add descriptions for each image, mp3 or video – Grand Flagallery is the smart choice when showing the best of your product or describing in brief any event. Grand Flagallery can easily beautify your site with photo gallery, mp3 player, video player, banner rotator, nivo slider or nice slideshow widgets. SEO optimized, compatibility with Google Reader, FeedBerner, etc.

Demo | Download

 

Featured Content Gallery

Used to create a customizable rotating image gallery anywhere within your WordPress site.

Featured Content Gallery creates an automated, fully customizable rotating image gallery anywhere within your WordPress site. Choose your images and display categories, pages or posts with custom overlay text and a thumbnail carousel. Custom options include gallery size, color, style and more.

Demo | Download

 

Dynamic Content Gallery

Creates a dynamic gallery of images for latest or featured content selected from one category, a mix of categories, or pages.

This plugin creates a dynamic gallery of images for latest and/or featured content using either the JonDesign SmoothGallery script for mootools, or a custom jQuery script. The plugin dynamically creates the gallery from your latest and/or featured content by either automatically pulling in the first Image Attachment from relevant Posts/Pages, or by specifying image URLs in a DCG Metabox in the Write screen for the relevant Posts/Pages. Additionally, default images can be displayed in the event that Posts/Pages don’t have an Image Attachment or manually specified image. A Dashboard Settings page gives access to a comprehensive range of options for populating the gallery and configuring its look and behaviour. The DCG can be added to your theme as a Widget, or by using a template tag.

For best results, make sure that your theme supports Post Thumbnails, introduced in WP 2.9.

Compatible with network-enabled (multisite) WordPress 3.0+, though available plugin options are slightly reduced.

Demo | Download