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I would like to setup a local website to act as a gallery/management-system for our photos and videos. (I can run 2 servers one for videos and one for photos)

I currently have about 1.5 TB of Pictures and around 4TB of HD home videos, stored on Synology 12bay+ NAS.

We are a large family and people keep asking me if they can have this video or that picture. What I would like is a way to have a photo gallery and a video gallery of everything that we have placed on our LAN (Something like picaso/smugmug but not online just locally, including the ability to do things such as editing tags using the web interface). I'd like to keep the images/videos on the NAS, just have a system to view/manage them (Would need to be Mac compatible, ideally web-based). Does any such system exist?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ possible duplicate of What photo management software to use on local network with NAS and both Mac and Windows clients? \$\endgroup\$
    – mattdm
    Jan 20, 2012 at 18:46
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    \$\begingroup\$ For me this does not sounds like a duplicate. The referenced question talks about some kind of client software, whereas this question is more about a server software. So for me this is different questions. \$\endgroup\$
    – Johan Karlsson
    Jan 22, 2012 at 9:17
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    \$\begingroup\$ I agree with @JohanKarlsson here...I think there are some key differences between this question and the possible duplicate mattdm linked. \$\endgroup\$
    – jrista
    Jan 22, 2012 at 17:51

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One of the simplest solutions would be to install the Gallery on the Synology server. It is a web based gallery software. It is listed on Synology list of Gallery software and it a rather proven solution. Since it is listed on the Synology list, it is actually tested by the Synology team. There are more Gallery software listed there, but I have no personal experiences with them. However you could take a look at them as well. We use Gallery at my work to share photos and it works without any problems.

The Synology server has a built in Photo software. I have tried it and I did not like it at all. It indexes all the photos on the Synology server and makes photo albums from it. I want to be able to select the best pictures to be on the public gallery. I also found the indexing to be very slow.

If you want to share the photos only locally, you could use DLNA. I use it for browsing the pictures from my Sony Playstation 3, which is connected to a projector. Any DLNA client could be used, such as Boxee, a Mac or PC. But judging from your question, you are looking for a web based solution. But the DLNA solution is something worth mentioning.

It is also possible to create web pages and enable the web server on the Synology. This is just a matter of a button click to enable it. This way you could create some kind of welcome page and entry point to all the pictures found in the Gallery. Please note that if you use a Gallery only solution, you do not need to do any HTML hacking and creating web pages. But if you are confident in making a web, this could be a nice addition to the Gallery software.

Using a web based solution, including the Gallery software, gives the opportunity to share the photos to the outside world as well. The Gallery software has built-in user handling, which force users to use a username and password. If you are going to share the photos to the outside world, I would recommend to register your server at DynDNS or similar. This is also done easy with the Synology management software. By doing this you could have an easy to remember web address.

As you could see there are a number of things and possibilities with the Synology server. I see no need to have a separate server to act as your gallery server, since you already have a Synology server that has a lot of power. I used to have a Linux server at home, but since I have bought my Synology server I do not have a need to have a Linux server. The Synology server is much easier to maintain, thus saving you a lot of time.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Hi there John, thank you you so much for your input, i have tried gallery it didnt work the way i wanted it to :) also the software that comes built in the synology box is very basic and slow in indexing :( thanks so much :) \$\endgroup\$
    – zbug
    Jan 25, 2012 at 18:09
  • \$\begingroup\$ I agree that the photo station has very slow indexing. Therefore I do not use it. But this could be turned of if you are going to use Gallery or anything other than PhotoStation. \$\endgroup\$
    – Johan Karlsson
    Jan 25, 2012 at 19:44
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If you have the ability to run a webserver with php on Linux, then Gallery is one of the best options for web gallery.

You can also use Lightroom to build HTML galleries.

For both images and video, using a DLNA server is a great option, as you can then use PS3, BluRay, Boxee or other similar viewer to see images and movies. I have a WD Live drive that has Twonkyserver built in that works well. I believe Synology NAS have DLNA built in as well. This will allow other devices to browse images and movies, without you having to do anything at all. If you don't have a DLNA set top box, search here, or a WD TV can be found cheap.

I prefer the DLNA route, as there is nothing to maintain, build or manage.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Just remember that your private LAN-only web server can use all the same tools that are available for public internet web servers. \$\endgroup\$
    – Skaperen
    Jan 22, 2012 at 2:59
  • \$\begingroup\$ hi there! :) thanks i have tried both gallery and LR and aperture. im currently using aperture and was looking for something with a good web interface ( LAN ) so im thinking i should go with a DAM server. Still looking \$\endgroup\$
    – zbug
    Jan 25, 2012 at 18:10
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Definitely have a look at The OpenPhoto Project. You can think of it as a modern version of Gallery. A sample site is at http://current.openphoto.me and you can find more information at http://theopenphotoproject.org.

I'm the lead developer so you can ping me any questions at [email protected]. I'm positive that it'll meet the requirements you're looking for :).

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  • \$\begingroup\$ trying to install it right now.. its a hassle to install ! wish it was simpler to install. wish me luck ! \$\endgroup\$
    – zbug
    Jan 25, 2012 at 18:11
  • \$\begingroup\$ Hi again, i just managed to install the software. Thank you so much Jaisen for your quick reply in helping with the installation. but i have to say its nothing even close to what i am looking for. your software has a lot of potential tho and hope to see it grow. thanking you again for your support and help \$\endgroup\$
    – zbug
    Jan 26, 2012 at 4:33
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    \$\begingroup\$ ...and has apparently bitten the dust: "Trovebox was initially started by Jaisen Mathai as a Kickstarter project ...Trovebox was originally known as OpenPhoto until being rebranded in January 2013. ... The company announced that they would shut down on March 15, 2015." (source: Wikipedia) \$\endgroup\$
    – matt wilkie
    Feb 14, 2015 at 19:28
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another option to look at is the open photo project

http://theopenphotoproject.org/

running a private server with it might solve many of your needs. The hosted version at http://openphoto.me/, but if you want to run your own server, the code is there for you.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ sorry about that. grabbed the wrong link. edited to correct. \$\endgroup\$
    – chuqui
    Jan 24, 2012 at 0:03
  • \$\begingroup\$ thanks :) will try this right now and let you know how it goes :) \$\endgroup\$
    – zbug
    Jan 25, 2012 at 17:39
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I am co-founder of the Daminion Software and I suggest you to check out our Daminion Server. This is the low-cost network-based photo management solution for home users and small teams. It focuses on media cataloguing and multi-user access. Of course many video formats are supported.

Today there is no problem selecting decent photo management software for personal use from the wide range of products available.

However, single-user photo organizers fall short when you need shared access to your media archive library between multiple users on different computers. Although there are many articles on the Internet that explain how to share standalone photo management tools using shared locations or via Dropbox, none of the hacks guarantees affordable performance and controlled access to the media archive, or protection of your assets from damage caused by simultaneous users attempting to write to the same database file. This is because multi-user capabilities have never been part of the original architecture of these products.

Yes, there are a bunch of enterprise level DAM systems, but these are beyond the budgets of most small teams, and especially home users.

Daminion supports both local and shared catalogs, which can be opened in separate tabs simultaneously like the pages in modern web browsers.

Below is the screenshot of the Daminion Client Workspace: enter image description here

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Could you link the image to a higher resolution version (or embed a version that is a little larger? Looks like there is a lot of interesting stuff there, but its too small to make out at this resolution. You might want to clarify what you mean by "low-cost"...the price for the minimal 3-user license is very high at over a grand, and I wouldn't classify that as affordable for the majority of users like the OP, and he indicated his family was rather large...so a the minimum 3-user license would likely not be enough. \$\endgroup\$
    – jrista
    Jan 24, 2012 at 1:26
  • \$\begingroup\$ Finally, while the software looks and sounds pretty nice with its multi-user shared access (definitely cool)...the OP mentioned a Mac requirement. As far as I can tell, this is a product that only runs on Windows, which would disqualify it according to the OP's requirements. \$\endgroup\$
    – jrista
    Jan 24, 2012 at 1:37
  • \$\begingroup\$ Have not used this software yet. a friend of mine tried to install it at work and for some reason it didnt work. we will try installing it again tom. and its not Mac compatible so hmm needs for it to be really good for me to consider buying a small windows machine for this. \$\endgroup\$
    – zbug
    Jan 25, 2012 at 18:13
  • \$\begingroup\$ Hi guys, sorry for the delay with answer. I didn't found a way to subscribe to a topic comments. Daminion is for Windows only, and if you own Mac, then the only option to launch Daminion is to install a virtual tool like Parallels Desktop (PD). For Daminion Server we can even reduce the final product price for the amount of necessary PD licenses. But you still needed to obtain Windows licenses. \$\endgroup\$
    – Murat - Daminion Software
    Jan 26, 2012 at 16:11
  • \$\begingroup\$ zbug, could you please ask to your friend to contact us to support at daminion.net and describe an issue. Usually we solve the critical issues within a 1-3 days. \$\endgroup\$
    – Murat - Daminion Software
    Jan 26, 2012 at 16:12

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