Overview

Through PhotoShelter's powerful manual customization mode, you may use HTML and CSS to fully customize PhotoShelter's page templates. You may use a theme as a base, or you may design completely from scratch. You can use PhotoShelter as a standalone custom designed site, or you may mirror your PhotoShelter pages to your existing blog or portfolio website, which instantly adds a fully branded shopping cart, image distribution and tracking system, social media tools, and much more - at a fraction of the cost of doing it on your own.

We've seen amazing uses of manual customization, whether it is blending PhotoShelter into an existing site...

... or using only PhotoShelter's provided pages to achieve a very unique design:

The available page templates include:

Available functionality includes:

• My Homepage (includes featured galleries)
• Gallery List
• Gallery Display
• Gallery Image Display
• Gallery Slideshow
• Gallery Collection Display
• Advanced Search
• Search Results
• Search Results Image Display
• About Page
• Contact Form
• Login Page
• Signup Page
• Signup Success Page
• Search Page
• Up to 2 Custom Pages
• Shopping Cart
• Lightboxes
• "My Account" Client Area
• My Purchases
• My Downloads

Use Your Own Domain Name

PhotoShelter's website customization allows you to link your PhotoShelter account to an existing domain using what is known as a CNAME (an alias you set up through your domain registrar).

For detailed instructions, please see our Using Your Own Domain Name (CNAME) help page.

FAQs

Are you just using HTML frames to accomplish this?
No, PhotoShelter allows you to insert your HTML into various templates, and use our code "widgets" to provide various functionality on the page.

Do I need my own website?
No! While PhotoShelter website customization does a great job at augmenting an existing website, it has the power to stand on its own.

Why can't you keep my custom domain name on all customized pages?
Many PhotoShelter pages interact with the shopping cart, lightbox or other features which require the user to be logged in (authenticated). Because of our concern for your security, all authentication is done on our secure web servers using SSL encryption. Besides the large cost to secure your own SSL certificate, there are technical considerations regarding domain name crossing and session authentication that make a full vanity domain solution impractical. Our solution is similar to other e-commerce sites (e.g. Yahoo! shopping), while still allowing far greater control over page layout.

I'm a wedding photographer. Can I set up galleries for my clients from which they can purchase images?
Certainly! PhotoShelter websites are designed for all serious photographers and support the full e-commerce workflows with PayPal or a merchant account. You can set up invite-only, password-protected or public galleries for your clients to browse and purchase images.

Do you host my website?
We host all pages created through our interface, but we cannot host anything created elsewhere. You may, however, certainly integrate your PhotoShelter site and an outside hosted site through a shared site navigation.

For example, you might add a "search" link to your site navigation. This link might point to:

http://archive.mysite.com

Alternately, you can just link to a PhotoShelter URL which we provide to you.

What technologies do I need to know in order to use this?
You will need an in-depth understanding of HTML and CSS to properly configure manual customization, but you may certainly use a Theme, even if just as a starting point.

I'm not comfortable with HTML or CSS. What can I do?
You have two basic choices: 1.) Hire a PhotoShelter Certified Consultant to help or 2.) Use a theme to customize code-free.

I don't have a website yet. What can I do?
We can recommend a qualified web designer to help you design your site. Contact us for details.

Do you have some examples of websites that are using this?
Yes, our tour provides links to numerous examples.

Can you show me some of the technical documentation?
Technical Documentation here

How do I set up my domain name with customization?
Please refer to this Technical Documentation.