NextGEN Gallery Tutorial

If you’ve downloaded NextGEN gallery, but are now a little lost as to how to use it. Here’s a very basic tutorial. I’ll attach the PDF version at the end if you want to download a reference you can save and refer to in the future.

Here are some quick links to take you to right to where you want to go:
Adding Images | Deleting Images | Gallery vs Album | Adding a Gallery to a Page | Create a New Album

Go into the page you want to add the image to.

The NextGen lightbox will open up and click on the Add Gallery/Images tab.

1. Use the dropdown to choose the gallery you want to add the image to, or use the blank to name a new gallery.
2. Click the Add Files button to find the image on your computer you want to add to the gallery.
3. Click the Start Upload button to upload the images to the site.

If you’ve already added the gallery to your page, these new images will be automatically added.

Importing Images

If you want to add more than one image, you can use the Import function. Instead of using the Upload Images, just click on Import from WordPress Media Library or Import Folder.

Importing Images from WordPress Media Library

Once you click on Import from WordPress Media Library,  then use the dropdown to choose the gallery you want to import the images to or write the name of the new gallery you want to create in the box.

Then you will see a blue button appear that says “Select Images”.  Click on that button to bring up the WordPress Media Library and choose the images you want.

Hold down your Control (or Command on a Mac) to choose multiple images. Then click on the blue Select button at the bottom right of the popup window.

Then click on the blue Import images button.

If your gallery is already displayed on a page, these new photos will automatically be added.  If you created a new gallery, go to the Add New Gallery instructions to add the gallery where you want it.

Importing a Folder

After you have clicked on the image or green box icon, then choose Import Folder.

Select a folder to import. *The folder name will be used as the title of the gallery. You will need to upload this folder in advance through ftp or cpanel to your wp-content folder.

1. You may select to keep images in original location, if you keep this option unselected, images will be copied over to your NextGEN ‘gallery’ folder under /wp-content/gallery
2. Click ‘Import folder’. This will import the images in that folder on your server, to a new folder that will appear under Gallery > Manage Galleries

Go into the page where you want to delete the image and click on the green box to bring up the NextGen gallery lightbox.

Then choose the Manage Gallery tab.

Then click on the name of the gallery that contains the image you want to delete.

Scroll down to find the image you want to delete and hover over that image to bring up options at the bottom. Click on the last one to delete the image.

If you want to delete multiple images at once, simply check the box in front of the image and use the Bulk Actions dropdown at the top of the images to choose Delete images and then click Apply.

In general, you will be using galleries. Albums are only used on your Portfolio page so that there will be one image that links to your full gallery. The idea is that Albums have a “cover photo”. For some reason, this functionality is not available through the galleries and that is the only reason we have to use Albums.
You will only need to create albums once, and then all your new gallery images will be added to them automatically.

Go into the page you want to add the gallery to and click on the green gallery icon to open the NextGEN lightbox:

The Display Galleries tab will come up automatically. Then choose the way you want the gallery to display. I prefer the NextGEN Pro Masonry style (This is only available with the paid Pro plugin, but you can choose the NextGEN Basic Thumbnails if you have the free version). Make sure it is selected.

Then click on “What would you like to display?” at the bottom of the popup box.

Make sure you choose Sources: Galleries
Galleries: name of the gallery you want to show.
Then click on the Save button.
Don’t forget to click the big blue “Update” button on your page editor to save the changes to the page.

Click on the green gallery icon to bring up the NextGen lightbox.

Click on the Manage Albums tab.

Write the title of your new album in the blank box and click the Add button. For simplicity sake, I like to keep the name the same as the gallery, but just add “album” to the end to distinguish it.

From there, choose the gallery you want to show in the album and drag and drop it from the Select Gallery column over to the first column, which is the album. If you don’t see the gallery you want to add, click on the Show all link.

When you are done, click the blue Update button to save.
Click here to download this tutorial in PDF form.