Using Virtual Galleries allows you to organize your web storefront more easily. A virtual gallery is a gallery that looks the same as a regular gallery to your customers, but only contains the photos you want to include. The photos in it are not actually copies, so they don’t take up space on your website. 

1) To create a virtual gallery, go to your account page and click on “Create V-Gallery”.

2) Give the gallery a name that reflects the photos you are going to add to it. For instance, you could use virtual galleries to separate the various stages of a wedding, by labeling them “pre-wedding”, “getting ready”, “formal portraits” or just “brides favorites”. 

3) Go to the source gallery and click on the “select button” under the photos you want to include in the virtual gallery. 

4) Go to the drop down menu labeled “Add to a Virtual Gallery” and select the virtual gallery you want to use to display the photos.

5) You will notice that the virtual gallery now contains the selected photos, as does the source gallery. The photos in the virtual gallery do not take up website space. They are merely pointers to the source gallery. 

 

If, for instance, your source gallery contains too many photos for easy viewing, you can divide everything into virtual galleries and un-publish the source gallery. Your customers will see the virtual galleries and not the source gallery. They can order photos from the virtual galleries and never know the difference.

 

Your can also create a virtual gallery to display a special group of photos, such as “photographer’s favorites” and publish both galleries. 

 

There are a few things to remember when using virtual galleries. You can only move photos to a virtual gallery that is at the same level or above the source gallery. If the source gallery is in a group, the virtual gallery must be in the same group. 

 

The virtual gallery, since it is only a mirror of the source gallery, inherits all the attributes of the source gallery or galleries. For instance, the photos in the virtual gallery have the prices they had in the source galleries. If you put photos from several galleries in the virtual gallery, they will also inherit the passwords you may have set on the source galleries. 

 

You can also use Virtual Galleries with the Bride’s interface in a group. To see how to use the bride’s interface, go to the “Creating groups” instruction sheet.