This is a list that sounds good, Ill post a review of any I try...
General Plugins for images, galleries etc
This plugin adds cropping, resizing, and rotating functionality to Wordpress' image upload and management dialogs. Scissors also allows automatic resizing of images when they are uploaded and supports automatic and manual watermarking of images.
Autothumb
Not really sure, guessing it adds auto resizing funtions.
It scans your content's source code for 
tags with width and height attributes and passes them to phpThumb, a great PHP image editing library, which handles the resizing and editing of the image.
Hungred Post Thumbnail (for use with ...more and the excerpt, also provides visual thumbnail editor in admin. )
WP Smart Image
- Choose the image to show throught a friendly widget in your post editor.
- Choose between the four presets WordPress sizes: Thumbnail, Medium, Largeand Full.
- Link the image to the article or leave it without a link.
- Showing images in the posts list, even if those images are not setting to appear in the content.
- Get the image url instead of the whole tag.
for maing post thumbs and other things, looks promising... is 2.8.4 compatible
it says it needs or works with this plugin...
I've installed WP Smart Image plugin - it works a charm! The most useful features were the ability to make the thumbnail link to post (so make my thumbnail a navigation), resize the thumbnail based on wps admin features, and add the thumbnail from within the new post panel... (once some images were added to the post, and draft saved, the available images would show up to be selected...)
To insert it in my thematic child theme, that was another story, needed to trial and error a custom function to add it how i wanted, hooking into the post header, so it sits above the post titles text... I cant post code here it dosn come out right, but mental note to post the function i used on thematic and to the plugin authors docs. anyway if your not using a child theme you will find it easy to just whack it into the loop.
Regenerate Thumbnails
With just one click, Regenerate Thumbnails will allow you to regenerate both sized thumbnails for all attachments. This is very handy if you've changed either of your thumbnail dimensions (via Settings -> Miscellaneous) after uploading images.
(kickass idea... remember this one...so necessary for updating the look of the site.)
WP Post Thumbnail
WP Post Thumbnail plugin adds an image upload, crop and save panel in 'Write Post' screen. It allows you to easily upload a .jpg image file. Once the image file is uploaded, you can crop it before saving it as your thumbnail. That's it.
Spend less time messing around with Photoshop everytime you need to make a thumbnail (or two) for your post. Also, saves you time and trouble from manually copy-and-pasting uploaded image URLs into custom key value fields.
(only compatible up to 2.6.2 - but once its updated to 2.8.4, it looks rad, as it gives the ability in the GUI to visually crop the thumbnail, good for clients without photoshop... using magazine style blogs... )
The attached Image
The Attached Image is a simple plugin that packs quite a punch. It shows the first image attached to the current post. For example. If you have your home page set to 5 posts and you use this plugin it will show the first image attached to each of those posts.
(shows first image in post... )
JH Portfolio
JH Portfolio provides an admin section for adding portfolio entries, this includes Project Title, Brief, a Main Image, category, main content, additional images, external links etc. The portfolio is ajax powered, so switching between portfolio entries is speedy, but still search engine friendly. There are also pre-made widgets for displaying the portfolio on the front end.
JH Portfolio is still in development but is stable.
(Looks promising, like the cutomising for a portfolios needs... check back on this, later on. )
Photogallery
- enable simple building of image galleries (it not uses built in media support) � it�s targeted for sites where is WordPress used as a CMS
- Plugin's second widgetcontains two widgets � one with the list of available galleries and second with images from the selected (or latest) gallery � this widget is aimed for the main page of blog on which is used
(Looks interesting. is new.)
PhotoXhibit
looks promising but not updated for over a year and not compatibale up to the latest version....
Dynamic Content Gallery
This plugin creates a dynamic gallery of images for latest and/or featured posts using the excellent JonDesign SmoothGallery script. By associating your gallery images with individual posts, using Post Custom Fields, the plugin dynamically creates the gallery from your latest and/or featured posts
(Good for a featured things frontpage slideshow... )
Enhancements to WP built in gallery
Cleaner Gallery
- Validates the aweful XHTML that WordPress spits out.
- Several options on how you want your gallery images.
- Allows multiple galleries in a single post.
- Ability to set the number of images shown in each gallery.
- Ability to exclude or include any images from your gallery.
- Doesn't load any JavaScript unless you choose to do so.
Faster Image Insert
This looks kickass - I'll definately check it out, might be one of those default plugins to use on all blogs.
BAM! THIS PLUGIN DOES KICKASS! it basically is everything you ever thought the wp upload image should have... I LOVE THE MASS EDIT FEATURE, it mass adds a title, alt text and size and alignment info to all the images you are uploading. Great for INSERTING IMAGES INTO THE POST, not using the gallery, but rather chucking a whole list of images into the post all at once, but being able to sort them before hand. It really is fast for portfolio type posts...
this plugin is the perfect compliment to the WP Smart Image plugin im using to make post thumbnails, and thus avioding altogether a 'gallery' building plugin, that will break your whole site if it breaks, this way, i am just listing my image in a post, and getting a nice wsiwug thumbnail adder aswell... which if it breaks i can revert to using the custom fields to add a plugin as i already have found the function for that.
Best of all, is now you can insert image(s) much faster, and precisely where you want them to be.
- No thickbox, using metabox with zero interface blocking, quite similar to the uploader in WordPress 1.5
- No hacking, default upload interface is not affected, only enhanced.
- Insert multiple images in gallery & library mode, without using shortcode; can also insert images in reversed order, and even control spacing between images.
- Mass info editing, change title/captions in one-shot.
- Smart switches: set default uploader, disable captions & toggle all items.
- Initial load time is still limited by server, because the default media manager is not fully client-sided.
Casrousel Gallery (JQuery)
(sounds good and simple if i ever need a carousel, (portfolio sites)...
This plugin tweaks the gallery tag ([gallery]) in Wordpress 2.6 thusly by replacing it with a javascript carousel.
BAM! check the demo. I like this.
it probably needs to have some smart loading feature though... load in background maybe or a loading gif... / fade in would be nice... and seems to have issue with IE7... but promising for upcoming sites needing a portfolio slider!!
Image Gallery Reloaded (Looks good...really good... )
A jQuery based Image Gallery Reloaded plugin replaces the default Wordpress gallery with a highly customizable mouseover slideshow and gallery for every post.
(This looks like 'galleria', has slick fade transitions, loading notification, and importantly, it uses WPs built in gallery, so if you get over it, you can disable it and you still have all your stuff in the right place. This I like.) with some cssing magic, i might be able to style thumbnails anywhere, and use for diff layouts...
Gallery Plus
The built-in Wordpress gallery has some options that are accessable through the use of shortcodes, but if you do not know them or the proper input they can be hard to use. Similarly, there is now wat to make system wide changes without having to use shortcodes on all your galleries. This plug-in creates an options page for some of those shortcodes along with adding other features that can extend the gallery's functionality.
(looks great for people using the gallery built in in wp) seems to solve my issue fo needing NO link to a full image as im posting the full image...
AutoNav Graphical Navigation and Gallery Plugin
I wrote this plugin to make it easy for me to write graphical page-based Wordpress sites. I wanted to address these issues:
I wanted to create websites with many nested pages, and permit the user to navigate among them by clicking on pictures within the pages, rather than having to use the Page List. I wanted to list child pages in tables, and have the size of the tables, and the number of rows, automatically computed to fit my layout, based on the thumbnail sizes.
This looks good for galleery type sites, using pages. (however, use needs to manually override the function that chooses first image in post aas the posts thumbnail, through a custom field... and it uses tables... but id like to try it because portfolio sites are all about the graphical navigation...)
Albumize
I wanted to take the convenience and ease of use of the built-in WordPress
[gallery] shortcode and add a little more functionality to it. By organizing your galleries as multiple child pages of one parent page, you can use this plugin to see a preview thumbnail and description of each gallery.(This is sort of what I want, but sort of not... only workss with pages, not posts. spose i could use pages, and use this... ) it compatible up to only 2.7 though...
PhotoGalleria
Photo Galleria is a simple, yet elegant, plugin for photographers, designers and Wordpress 2.5 users alike who want to beautify their Wordpress photo galleries using the jquery framework. The Photo Galleria plugin synchronizes Galleria with Wordpress’ built-in media manager. Simply upload photos as normal and the Photo Galleria plugin will create a photo gallery with fade-in and fade-out effects common on flash-based websites. All the transitions happen inline without having to navigate to multiple Wordpress attachment pages. Pretty neat, eh?
(sounds good... but not updated for a year not compatible with latest version... dh!)
anway mental note nice themes here for portfolios!
this fullscreen theme is great except id want thr whole theme to stay in the format of the front page, not click to posts with little thumb galleries, but browse and view all in this one nice slider... still, digging the big controls and full bleed style...
Custom Field Images
Custom Field Images provides a flexible way to associate an image to a post and display it anywhere on your site.
Easily insert image data
The plugin adds a custom meta box which is designed specifically for image data, making it easier to use than the generic custom fields box. There is also a button for filling the box automatically with an image uploaded through WordPress.
(This could be it, like a custom field, BUT with the upload button... then again, it could be just as hard to integrate as the first thumb maker i tried... actually not sure if it makes the thumb... anyhew IS RECENTLY uupdated, which is a good sign... )
PhotoQ Photoblog Plugin
PhotoQ is a WordPress plugin that turns your blog into a photoblog. PhotoQ is a plugin for photo enthusiasts: If you have a lot of pictures to post, PhotoQ is your ideal companion. With PhotoQ you can mass upload several photos at the same time thanks to its batch upload functionality. PhotoQ places uploaded photos in a queue which gives you a convenient way to manage photos to be posted.
would like to try this out...
heres a nice list of photoblog themes it integrates with, and for future ref
Improved Gallery
- Puts all the gallery css in a separte file, for easy customisation and faster page load.
- Adds an id attribute to the code, so that two or more galleries can have adifferent number of columns and still display correctly on the same page.
Post Gallery
This WordPress plugin gives you the ability to append any number of images (along with titles and captions) to your Posts (and Pages). Existing images can be resorted and removed at any time.
Could be used maybe for my thumbnailing needs, but with modification. Again, it wants the loop which im having trouble hooking into from the child theme.
But, its a nice field for if every post needed an image after it... or similiar...
Get The Image
I like using custom fields to define images for my posts, so that’s what this script was built upon. So, the script looks for the custom fields Keys that you define. If that Key has a Value (should be an image URL), the image is displayed with your post. If there is no custom field used, the script looks for the first image attached to your post. If there is one, then it grabs that image and uses it.
ok its not what I want, since I already have a custom field happing, and i dont want it automatically selecting the first image in the post, this setting needs to be chosen, it needs to be the best image, not the first, so, other than perhaps resizing the image, it dosnt offer functionality i can see over the custom field thing Ive got working...
**ASIDE im beginning to see the big hole in these photoblog themes, they all assume you want to view one image at a time. this isn't always the case... often photos belong to series, which need to be seen as a set of 2, or more... spreads, triptyches, etc etc... noone is doing this otgherwise i would have grabbed that theme by now...
side note:
heres a good tutorial for modifying the built in gallery to your needs. It recommends not using the gallery shortcode in your pos, but rather, make it happen iun the template, for updateability... dont quite understand this reason, maybe so you can add gallery parameters.... to all posts at once??
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