Skip to main content

About Publisher

A main menu item in Backlight's Admin area, the Publisher is where you will create collections, and upload photos.

The term "Collections" can refer either to an Album Set (a collection of albums), or an Album (a collection of images).

A fresh install of Backlight starts you off with a single, ready-to-use collection: a top-level album set named "Galleries". Within this collection, you may create albums, or you may create album sets to further organize related albums into categories.

You may also create additional top-level album sets, parallel to the default Galleries collection, though it is often best to do so sparingly.

Within a top-level set, you may nest album sets within album sets to whatever organizational depth you require.

Unless you intend the collection to be hidden, you should add top-level collections to your Menu Set(s), as there is no other way into them without a direct URL. It's unnecessary to add nested collections to your menu set, though you may choose to do so as a matter of preference.

Once into a top-level set, one can easily drill down through its nested collections; breadcrumb menus allow upward navigation.

Creating Multiple Top-level Sets​

Websites can quickly become sprawling monstrosities, wherein users become paralyzed by indecision. Rather than overwhelming the visitor with choices, use compact menus and narrow avenues of exploration to keep them on the critical path, ensuring they find what they came for, or funneling them into your best work.

To this end, we recommend most Backlight users to organize their collections under the single, default "Galleries" set.

However, you may have good reason for creating additional top-level sets. For example, you might use Galleries as your public exhibit space, while creating unlisted or password-protected areas for Clients' or Family collections. Alternatively, you might prefer to separate your personal work from your professional work.

In Backlight's admin, select "Publisher" from the menu, then create new top-level sets from the Top-level Set list.

If using the Lightroom Publisher, a top-level set will be created automatically for each instance of the Publish Services plugin. To create additional top-level sets, create Multiple Publishers.

Backlight Publisher vs. Lightroom Publisher​

Backlight offers a Web-based publishing interface, accessible via the Publisher menu item in Backlight's admin. The Backlight Publisher allows one to create and organize collections, upload images, and more. It's easy to use, and available to all users of Backlight, regardless of software preference.

For Lightroom users, Backlight's Publish Services Plugin for Lightroom is a convenient means of creating, organizing, and updating collections, and uploading images and image metadata. Get started with Publishing Albums from Lightroom, and see Lightroom Publisher for more information.

Commit to using one publisher or the other for all of the following; it's best not to mix publisher for these tasks:

  • Creating, editing or moving albums
  • Creating, editing or moving album sets
  • Creating or editing top-level sets
  • Publishing or uploading images
  • Publishing or updating image metadata

Despite this warning, Backlight's Publisher includes features that can be used by everyone, even those managing their collections from within Lightroom. For example, use Backlight's Publisher to:

For those not using Lightroom, here's a quick video demonstrating my personal publishing workflow with Backlight's Publisher:

And for Lightroom users, our original "First Look" video demonstrates the Lightroom-publishing workflow: