Pixplug Help

Uploading Photos To Your Site
There are seven methods you can choose from to upload photos to your Pixplug account. We'll cover each method on this page so you can become familiar with all of the options.

Method One

Album Manager > Photo Controls > Add Photos
The most common place to upload photos is the Album Manager. Go to to the Album Manager and select an album you want to upload photos to. In the Album Manager click Photo Controls > Add Photos.

This will open the Add Photos page for the Album you selected. Click on the Browse for Photos button.

After clicking the Browse for Photos button you will see a Select Files window appear.

Depending on whether you are running Windows, Mac or Linux, you can use different keys on the keyboard to let you select multiple photos. For example, on Windows you can hold down the Control (Ctrl) key to select specific files within a folder or you can hold down the Shift key and drag to select a group of photos.

For this example I've selected six pictures from a trip I took to Paris, France a few years ago. I used the View Menu in the dialog to change the view from list to Thumbnails so I could see what photos I wanted to pick out.

After the photos were selected I pressed the Open button on the dialog and the photos showed up in the uploader. It is important to note that the uploader will only support .jpg, .jpeg, .gif and .png files. You have to convert your files to one of these formats if it is something else before you try to upload them, otherwise our uploader won't recognize them and will not show them to you in the Select Files window.

Below is how the files look when they came into the uploader:

After selecting the photos, they will appear in the Uploader. Before uploading, you can tag the photos with words so that the photos will be included whenever you search photos. You can do this at anytime, however it is very easy to do before uploading. A tag is simply a way to associate a keyword with the photo so that you can look for the photos later.

In this case all of my photos were taken while I was in vacation in Paris which is located in France. So I am going to enter in three tags: Paris; France; Vacations. I separate each tag with a semicolon (;)

Tip: You can use multiple words in each tag such as My Vacations or Paris France 2008 and the entire tag consists of the string of words. The semicolon is what separates the tags so you can use spaces, numbers or even phrases while tagging your photos.

Now I'm going to upload the photos by clicking the Upload Photos button.

As soon as I click this button the upload begins. Each photo is uploaded in the order that it appears in the list. You can cancel the upload at anytime by clicking the Cancel Upload button. The photos that have already been uploaded will still be processed. The ones remaining in the list will not be uploaded.

You can see the progress of the upload each photo is highlighted as it is uploaded. Once the photo uploads it is removed from the list.

If an error occurs during uploading such as your internet connection is interrupted, a specific file has problems, there is a server error, etc, you will be given an alert at the end of the upload and any files that did not upload will still be in the list.

When the upload is complete you will see the Upload complete message and a full progress bar.

Method Two

Album Viewer > Edit Album > Add Photos
One of my favorite ways to add photos to my albums is when I'm looking at my pictures in a specific album. As I am usually logged into my site I see special menus that the visitor does not see. One of these menus is the Edit Album menu that appears in the Album Viewer below your photos.

When I am in an album and viewing it I can go to the Edit Album menu and then choose the Add Photos option. A dialog containing the Pixplug uploader appears and lets me add photos directly into my album while I'm viewing it.

As you can see the controls for this are the same as those we just went over so we'll skip going over them again. Just know that you can add photos directly to your album whenever you're logged in and working in your Album Viewer using this method.

Method Three

Pixplug Uploader Application
We've built an uploader application that you can download from our site and run on either Windows or Macintosh operating systems. Go to the Album Manager > Photo Controls > Add Photos page and you will see the download links highlighted in blue.

Click to download either the Windows or the Macintosh Uploader Application. In this case I will download the Windows Uploader Application.

As soon as I click the link a File Download dialog appears. Click the Save option and then select where you want to save the application to. The file is 3.3 MB in size so it should not take long to download.

The Mac and Windows versions of this program work exactly the same so follow these instructions whether you are on a Mac or Windows.

Double click on the application to open. You may get a security warning from Windows saying to only run this if you trust the source. Click the Run button if this appears.

Enter in the email address associated with your account and the password you setup with your account and then press the Login to Account button. You'll see a logging in progress bar while the application checks your credentials with our servers.

Once you are logged in you will be asked to select an album or create a new album. If you want to create a new album leave the menu like it is and type in the name of the new album these photos are going to be placed into:

If you want to select an album that is already on your site, pull down the menu and choose one of the albums from the list.

After you have created a new album or selected an album from the menu, click the Select This Album button and the Pixplug Uploader interface will appear. You'll be pleased to see that it looks very familiar. We built it using the same interface controls as the other uploaders we've already covered so far, but with a couple of extra features we think you'll appreciate

The first thing you may notice is that there is a new control on this interface that allows you to decide WHEN you want to start the upload. Picking out photos and then uploading them can take a long time and can tie up your internet connection. We built an upload scheduler into our application that lets you pick when the upload starts. This way you can choose the photos you want uploaded and then schedule the upload to start whenever you desire - maybe at night time or while you are at work.

You can also upload a batch of photos to one album and then switch to a different album by clicking the Switch Albums button.

IMPORTANT: DO NOT CLOSE THE APPLICATION BEFORE THE UPLOAD IS COMPLETE. The photos have to finish uploading before you close the application. If you have the photos scheduled to upload later you can MINIMIZE the application to get it out of the way, but leave it running or it will not startup on its own. It has to be left running for it to upload correctly.

Method Four

DreamSuite and Mystical Tint Tone and Color Effects Software
We make a Special Edition version of special effects software and presentation slideshow software that is available to you if you have a certain level of account membership. These programs let you do some amazing visual enhancements like Hand Tinting a photo or creating a highly animated slideshow and you can then publish your photo(s) directly to your Pixplug account. The Free software is called DreamSuite Series Special Edition, Mystical Tint Tone and Color Special Edition and Pixtivity Special Edition. When you launch the software, apply your effect and then press the Upload to Pixplug button as shown below.

The example above is from DreamSuite Special Edition with a 35mm Frame effect applied to a photo. Once the effect is applied all you have to do is click the Upload to Pixplug button and the following dialog window will appear:

Enter your email address and password for your Pixplug.com membership login and then press the Login to Account button. You will see a Logging in… progress bar while the software validates your account on the server. If there is an error, check your login information again and make sure your internet connection is active.

After the login is complete you will see Step Two become active where you can upload your photo with the effect on it to a new album:

Or you can select from an existing album that is already on your site:

After you have chosen the album you want the photo to upload to, press the Publish to Album button. You will see a Preparing upload... progress bar while the upload is completed.

When the upload is successful you will see the following screen update:

You can go directly to your album and view your new photo by pressing the View Album Online. Your photo will be added to the END of the album so if you have multiple pages of photos, click on the last page and look for the last photo in the list.

When your upload has completed you can press the Close Uploader button to close the dialog and return to the software so you can do another photo effect.

Method Five

Pixtivity Special Edition Presentation Software
Pixtivity is available to certain level of account owners and gives them the ability to create powerful and engaging visual presentations that can be presented on Pixplug.

After you have created your presentation in Pixtivity on of the last steps is to preview it locally and then to publish it. This last step is on the Preview and Publish tab:

On the Preview and Publish tab there is a button called Open Pixplug Manager. Click this button and the following dialog window appears:

The first step is to click the Add New Account button. This lets you fill in your login information for the account you want to publish to:

When you have entered your Pixplug account login information click the Continue button and your account will be verified then added under the Account menu on the Pixplug Manager page:

You can have as many different accounts as you want under this menu. So if you have permission, you can publish photos to a friend's site too. After you select the account from this menu press the Publish to Account button and your presentation will upload to Pixplug.com:

If you have not saved the presentation yet you will be prompted to do so.

IMPORTANT: THE NAME YOU SAVE YOUR PRESENTATION AS WILL BE USED TO NAME THE ALBUM THE PHOTOS GO INTO
Pixplug will create a new album and place all your pictures that are in the presentation into that album. The name will be taken from whatever name you save the Pixtivity presentation as on your local computer.

You will see the following dialog giving you the progress of the upload as the presentation is generated and then uploaded to the site:

Once the presentation is uploaded you will be taken to your homepage and can then find the album name for the presentation:

To find the presentation go to the Album Photos page and look for the Pixshow link:

You can also find the Pixshow on the Album Viewer page under the Slideshow > Watch Pixshow link:

The Pixshows are a really cool feature as they can contain music, animations, effects and unique transitions:

Method Six

Apple Aperture Plug-In
Many professional photographers and photo hobbyists who work on Mac have grown to love Apple's Aperture software. We've built an easy Plug-in to let you export your photos from Aperture directly to your Pixplug account. After you've downloaded the Pixplug_Aperture.dmg file, you will see this icon:

Double click the icon to mount the .dmg disk image. You will see this icon appear on your Mac:

Double click on this icon to open up the drive. There will be two files inside the drive:

You can read the manual for additional information on the Pixplug Aperture Plug-in. It is saved as an Adobe Acrobat file. You will have to have Adobe Acrobat (free from Adobe.com) installed to read the manual.

Your next step is to open up your hard drive and find the Applications Folder. Open the Applications Folder and locate Aperture. Right click on the Aperture icon and you will see a menu appear:

You want to select the Show Package Contents option. This will open up the following screen:

Find the Plug-Ins folder.

All you have to do is drop the PixplugApertureExport.ApertureExport Plug-in from the Pixplug .dmg drive into the Plug-Ins folder and you've just installed the software. Good job!

After you have installed the Plug-In launch Aperture. If Aperture was already launched, you will need to quit and launch it again before the Plug-In will show up.

Once you have a photo open, go to File > Export and choose Pixplug Export…

This will bring up the Pixplug Export software:

Enter in your Login information for your Pixplug account and then press the Login button. The software will verify your login with the Pixplug servers and will then display a list of your albums that are already in your account.

Press the Export button to upload the photo to your Pixplug account.

Method Seven

Apple iPhoto Plug-In
Mac users love the iPhoto software that is included wth their Macs! We've built a Plug-in that supports uploading all your favorite photos from iPhoto to your Pixplug account. Once you download the Pixplug_iPhoto.dmg you will see this icon on your Mac:

Double click this to mount the Pixplug_iPhoto drive. Open the drive and you will see a manual and a file called PixplugExport.iPhotoExporter inside of it.

Now you need to open your hard drive and go to your Applications folder. Find the iPhoto application and right click on it. You'll see a menu appear:

Select the Show Package Contents option and a new window will appear that looks like this:

Locate the Plug-Ins folder and then drag-and-drop the PixplugExport.iPhotoExporter into the Plug-Ins folder. That's all you need to do - you've just installed the software. Good job!

Now you need to launch iPhoto and select some photos. Go to the File > Export menu.

The Export Photos dialog will then appear. Click on the Pixplug Export button at the top:

Enter your Pixplug login information into the dialog and press the Login button. The software will verify your login with the servers and will then display a list of all available albums in your Pixplug account:

When you're done, click the Export button and your photos will be uploaded to the album you've chosen. It's that easy!

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