Houston, TX: Via this article, we will cover what artist need and how to go about setting up a virtual gallery for themselves on the World Wide Web. Artist can now have his or her very own galleries, even if it is on the Internet where it can be visited by virtually anyone any time.

We will cover from photographing the art to photo editing, and software needed to build a site, registering a domain to getting a web host service that will uploading the site via a web hosting service. We will cover a little bit of information on SEO for your site.

These virtual galleries are a product of our times. It has been coming for a long time. It started with the advent of the computer. But more recently due to the Internet it has come a medium for artist to showcase their art to the whole world.

Artist, Ray Gatica we will shed light on how an artist can set up his or her own virtual gallery. Gatica builds and maintains has been creating and maintaining websites. His non-commercial site is GaticaArt.com.

Of course, the first thing you will need to proceed is have a computer or access to one. Some of the software that you will need is the digital camera software, PhotoShop or similar photo-editing program. And web building programs FrontPage, Dream Weaver or similar, and of course Internet access.

Taking the photos: We start with photographing your art. Day light is the best light for taking the pics. Taking photos in daylight requires planning; you want a nice sunny day without clouds to cause shadows on the work. The best times to take photo outside are when the sun is at ten AM and around two in the afternoon – so that the sun is around thirty-five degrees on the art surface. This way the sunlight will not cause a reflection on the picture’ surface – thereby eliminating hot/bright spots or color washout.

Digital cameras are your friend. Opposed to the old 35 MM cameras, digital cameras make it easier to shoot your art and they can be easily uploaded to a computer, where they can be opened in a photo editing software to do the editing without losing any quality from the scanning process. An important tip: when shooting, use a camera tripod to steady the camera. This allows for sharp and properly focused pics. This is important even with the digital cameras. Also, take more than one shot, so that you will have the option pick the best one from the few.

After selecting you r best shots you have the options of using a scanner if you used the old non-digital camera. If you used a digital camera you will have the images in your computer after transferring them in. Either way the next step is to open the images in PhotoShop or comparable photo editing software. I have been using PhotoShop for over ten years. In editing the photos you may need to balance them, crop them or balance colors or sharpen/focus them a bit. You will also have to size them to whatever size you need, depending on what you will use them for. For Shows they usually have to be save in a certain size. The show will let you know the requirements. To size the image or canvas size go to the image or canvas size menu, you can and set the size parameters there. When done save the image in a JPG format.

Web Building Program: After all that you are ready to build your site. If you do not have a program of this type there are two that I am familiar with, FrontPAge and Dream Weaver. These programs can be found for Windows and MACs. This is more complex so you will have invest time on learning the programs. To learn these programs find someone that can help or, take a class at your local college.

Building the site will be a series of writing content and importing images and tying in all the pages with links to form the various pages and site.

The site should also include assorted pages with your art and biography, Press articles, and as much related literary content you can put together. Websites are about a lot of content, so the best way to set up a site is to create numerous pages with content. See SEO Below.

After building the site with all your images you will have to register a domain name: for your Universal Resource Locator (URL). Your specific domain name will be your address in the World Wide Web. This is what you will promote and. how people will find you on the net. For this do a search for ‘domain name hosting’ and some service providers will show up. On the average, the price for a domain name is around $10.00 per year.

After you have a domain name, and you have Internet access, you will require a web hosting service to upload to the Internet. There are numerous host provider services out there that also provide the hosting service. I use a company name Dotster. I have been pleased with them since they always answer the phone when I need help. When uploading the site for the first time you will need the hosting service to set up your service with pass words, username, and pertinent connection numbers.

After seeing you website on the Internet review it and make editions and make sure all the links work. I recommend you keep your site up and to date. It is recommended by Internet Marketing experts to keep loading content as frequent as possible, consistently.

Finally there is something called Search Engine Optimization (SEO), this is a relatively new concept to me, but it is the most important since the success of your website depends on it. To find out more about this do a search for Internet marketing and, Search Engine Optimization.

Gatica’s approach to building a site is: KISS “Keep it Simple Sonny”.

I like a clean, basic, straightforward website without extra unnecessary material that will slow down a site’s load-up time. Flashy, memory-laden graphics increase download time and are very frustrating to visitors to your site when they have to wait more than needed. I do not believe it benefits the site owners to have superfluous material. It is best if you build a site with information and literary content.

Artist Ray Gatica builds and maintains sites. You can see some of his site at airbrushmagic.net, muralsandbigart.com and the afore mentioned one.

Good Luck!

Author Bio: A professional graphic designer in Houston, Ray Gatica designs logos, graphics, a variety of businesses; Artist Ray Gatica builds and maintains sites. You can see some of his site at http://www.airbrushmagic.net, http://www.muralsandbigart.com

Category: Arts and Crafts
Keywords: Web site assistance, Website for Artist, website builder for artist, artisitc website, consultation