Flickr Makes Slideshows an Easy Win for Artists

I've built my own website and worked as both coder/developer/ and designer for years. One of the things that always eluded me was a nice succinct way to feature my art in a rotating format that was also easy to update. I've been a professional web designer for years and the best method available to most artists was Flash. Flash can make looking at your artwork appear far more professional, glossy, and add a new level of creativity to your site to showcase your work. But Flash is expensive and difficult if you don't know how to use it or can't afford a developer to build it for you.

Today Flickr has made it easy to grab a small snippet of code and embed a flash slideshow into any webpage. Visit the deedee9:14 homepage and play the slideshow on right of the screen to see an example of this live.

How was this done? Here are a few easy steps that anyone with basic knowledge of how to edit html can use. Artists rejoice.

1. Create a photoset on Flickr that contains the artwork you want to showcase. Please be aware of Flickr's terms regarding safe or objectionable content if you're a new user setting up your account for the first time. Here's an example of the set I'm using on my homepage: http://flickr.com/photos/badgurl/sets/72157606503409874/

2. When looking at the set as shown on the link above, find the slideshow link up on the top right of the page to view the flash slideshow of your artwork.

3. Once the slideshow is playing (it'll be on a black background) you'll see an option on the slideshow screen for share.

4. Under share there is an option for "Grab the embed HTML". Copy the snippet of code and paste this code into the webpage you want it displayed. Since the options are numerous and varied depending on what html editor or application it is you're using, I won't go into much detail about how to place the code.

5. You can tweak such elements as the size of the embedded flash slideshow and the aspect ratio until it's just right. For this site I set it to match similar sized page elements like the logo.

For more helpful handy tips, check out the Flickr blog.

All thanks to Flickr for making this easy for people everywhere, especially artists. If anyone has issues making this work let me know and I'd be happy to help. Now you no longer have to know Flash in order to get a professional looking slideshow on your website.