Introducing the Photo Workshop theme for WordPress

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Jared Cruce website using Photo Workshop theme for WordPressThe Photo Workshop theme for WordPress is finally here!  After months of development, redevelopment and re-redevelopment (you get the point), we are now turning the keys over to all you WordPressers to see what you create.  (Check out Jared Cruce’s new commercial photography website for an example of the Photo Workshop theme live in the wild!)

Photo Workshop is an all-in-one solution for photographers and creative entrepreneurs who want the ability to show a portfolio of images or videos and pitch workshops, events, or products. The theme includes new features that were just released in WordPress 3.0, including Custom Post Types (details below) and Menus and also includes new theme display options including Slideshows with optional caption, thumbnail and navigational controls.  The theme also includes image theft protection (right clicking on images is disabled), iPhone video display options, custom colors, homepage design options and two custom widgets.


Designed for Professional, Entrepreneurial Photographers

If you are a professional or amateur photographer, I have three questions for you:

  1. How good is your website at generating leads?
  2. Do you have interest in diversifying your business model or growing your income?
  3. Everyone has a website these days.  How is your different?

If you are like Jared Cruce, it’s time that you step up to the challenge and adapt your business model to the changing industry demands.  Not only does Jared have killer photography portfolios, but he also offers adventure photography workshops in the beautiful Oregon backcountry.  Using the Photo Workshop theme, Jared can update his portfolio, create private, password-protected galleries for his clients, market his photography workshops, and generate leads (form created using Gravity Forms).

Custom Post Types

WordPress 3.0 introduced a new feature called Custom Post Types.  This feature makes it easier for developers to create custom write panels with additional input fields that are specific to the content that you want to publish.  Think of it this way:  You are no longer limited to using posts or pages for publishing in WordPress.  So long boring tubular post and page templates!  Hello beautiful custom post type templates!  The custom post type we developed for this theme is what we refer to as a “Workshop”.  Each Workshop has a predefined number of fields, such as Title, Description, Location, Date, Price, Testimonial, Sponsor Info, Images, etc.  These fields are displayed using a special template file to create the Workshop (or could be an Event/Product…it’s very flexible) landing page.  Here is a video overview of how the custom post types work:

Slideshow Options

One of the most requested features has been to add controls for the slideshows in our themes.  Not only did we add controls, but we also added captions, both of which can be optionally enabled or disabled on the theme options page.  You can also control the height of all slideshows, the transition or fading time and the length of time each slide is displayed.  Did I mention that these slideshows even work on the iPhone and iPad?  Yeah.  Pretty cool, eh?

Design Controls

We know that not everyone is a coder.  This is why we dedicate so much of our development time to building killer theme options into all of our paid themes.  Photo Workshop contains optional homepage design controls including a welcome message, slideshow, full-page video, featured posts and a widgetized region.  Check out this video overview of the new theme options (complete with AJAX saving and conditional options based on user-defined selections):

So, what do you think? What interests you most about this theme?

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Posted by , at Graph Paper Press

Thad is the founder of Graph Paper Press. Previously, he produced online multimedia and documentary projects for USA Today including the inauguration of President Barack Obama and many others. He lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife Abby.

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22 thoughts on “Introducing the Photo Workshop theme for WordPress”

  1. I like it but…

    I think I would prefer to be able to add the workshop bit to modularity, is this possible?

    info [at] edstonephotography [dot] com

  2. It could be done, but would require a bit of copy/paste/hacking. You would need to know a bit about WordPress' template hierarchy, a wee bit of PHP knowledge (mainly copy/paste stuff to include necessary template files from the functions.php file) and you would need to copy over the CSS styles. The good thing is, 95% of the work has already been completed. The remaining 5% would be up to you to port over into Modularity.

  3. This looks excellent!

    I slideshows look awesome – would it be possible to use the image slideshow format on another theme?

  4. Glad you like it, Shawn! Yes, it would be possible to use this on another theme, but you would need to do some pretty hefty copy/pasting of files. There are about 10 files that work together to make this thing work properly (theme options, javascript files, CSS styles, page templates, etc) and unless you are an experienced PHP developer, I would not recommend trying to port this into another theme. We will, however, be including this slideshow into all of our future themes 😉

  5. Is it possible to add the workshop page template into Modularity so that i can use with the F8 theme? Looks great, thanks!

  6. I found your link through http://weblogtoolscollection.com/news/topic/pho
    I tries the demo. I liked it. A-lot.
    I had a look to your other themes. They look great.
    You advertise it as a free theme. Yet you ask for a subscription.
    Ok. I signed up. But I can not download the theme. It is nowhere to be found.
    Am I missing something? Please enlighten. Thank you

  7. Yep, we plan on releasing this on VS in August! Also, we have some BIG BIG plans related to Visual Society and WordPress hosting, which we plan to formally announce sometime in September.

  8. It is, but it requires knowledge of PHP, HTML, and CSS. The good thing is, most of the code is already written for you. All you would need to do is copy/paste code and files. But that, too, requires some familiarity of code.

  9. I think I am going to buy this theme. Is it possible the 'hero images' on Home Page to make clickable? And one more thing worries me – the news section. Is it removed completely?

  10. Yes, the homepage images can be links. We can provide you with this customization tip in our support forum.

    And yes, the news section is 100% optional from the theme options page. No code modification required, just a simple button click.

  11. Is there a way to auto re-size the images to fit in the components of the theme. I joined the quarterly subscription and I am trying to find this solution.

  12. If you setup your Settings -> Media options to the sizes described in the theme’s instructions file, then auto-sizing should happen perfectly for all images added to posts and pages.

    Auto-resizing images appearing on the homepage slideshow, however, i not possible. You must use an image editor to crop your images to the dimension you choose on the theme options page.

  13. if theme is purchased – do you have to use that silly photo service you guys are pimping? instead, could the “photo archive” section be linked to flickr? even if flickr doesn’t work, i need to know if the service you have teamed up with can be disabled. i don’t like it.

  14. I have now have this theme. It looks great and will work well with my business. Although, a bug I am finding is, I have modified all the colors yet they do not change when saved. My site is still the original blacks and grays that are the default colors.

  15. Photo Workshop is a great photographic theme option for the WordPress, which has certain features.

    Theme Options
    Slideshow Controls
    Customize Colors
    iPhone Video Support
    Standard Graph Paper Press Theme Features:
    Compatible: IE 7 & 8, Opera, Safari, Google Chrome, and Firefox.

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