Lensa – A Free Photo Gallery WordPress Theme | Blog

Lensa – A Free Photo Gallery WordPress Theme

December 2, 2012 by Meidika Rahmadiaji in Freebies, New Themes 56 Comments

The line separating professional and amateur photography has become thinner than ever as DSLR cameras really took off among bloggers, young adults and even teens and kids all around the world. Camera phones has advanced significantly in terms of quality over the past years that they can now produce images in very high resolution. With the rise of Facebook, Instagram and all social networks alike, online photo galleries are popping pretty much everywhere all over the Internet. A certain group of people, however, prefer to keep photos in their own space, publish them the way the want, and let them be accessed beyond the boundaries of social networks. To those special people, we present our brand new FREE WordPress theme that we call Lensa.

Having full-screen slideshow as one of its main features, Lensa is designed for those addicted to high-resolution photography. With a bit of JavaScript magic, your home page essentially becomes an online photo gallery that showcases your best shots in every detail possible. Photo captions and descriptions are also displayed overlaying the photographs to let you explain the story behind each of them.

Chances are that you’re already an avid user of social photo networks and have uploaded hundreds images of you (and your food) somewhere on the Internet. As we don’t want to let those uploads be left in vain, we add gallery templates onto Lensa that display photographs from various social networks such as Flickr, Instagram, Picasa, Pinterest and Facebook. What you need to do is connect the theme to the networks and it will automatically do the rest of the job.

Go check the demo site to experience everything yourself. Play around a little bit and you’ll realize that Lensa is not just another free WordPress theme. Don’t forget to check out our collection of photography themes, here.

About Author

Meidika Rahmadiaji

Famous for always being the tallest man among his colleagues, Meidika is man who loves spending his time with kids and music. 'Food' is his middle name and that's the reason he loves hunting for the best culinary in town. His critical sense of brand service leads him into desiring to satisfy client's and customer's needs by copywriting.

Igor

hello, I’m using your Lensa theme, it is really great theme. But i can’t somehove manage how to change language of “more” button in blog section. Please could you help me?
- http://about.me/wellfridhutagalung/ Wellfrid Hutagalung
  
  Hi Igor,
  
  You can change it manually by editing template-blog.php file in line 47. Thanks!
http://about.me/wellfridhutagalung/ Wellfrid Hutagalung

Hi Yavor,

Have you read the documentation to set up the gallery on the theme? You can find the documentation here http://colorlabsproject.com/documentation/lensa/ . And we don’t have Lensa with unlimited function. Thanks!
- Andrew McDonald
  
  Your documentation doesn’t explain in any detail how to create a page with the gallery template, and then use the gallery source = post to create page that only displays a selection of images from the WordPress media library. Stop pointing people to the documentation when it doesn’t answer the question at all.
andrzejmielcarek

I’v successfully instaled WP with lensa on testing host, but when a moving page on new,right address I see blank page. There is problem only when I’m using Lensa theme. With another themes it works at new host correct.
http://www.facebook.com/theClaytonScogin Clayton Scogin

I have just recently installed the Lensa theme and for some reason (nothing changed on my computer or otherwise) it will not allow me to edit pages. I can edit posts but when I try to edit a page it shows a blank text box with no right-side menu. Furthermore, when I’m on that page the “Screen Options” and “Help” dropdown boxes do not function.

I activated the standard Twenty Twelve theme and everything works fine. I would love to continue to use and explore the Lensa theme.
- Anang
  
  Hi Clayton,
  
  Which version do you use? because we already test the pack of Lensa, and there is work fine.
Chris Snow

I see that the ‘photographs’ section has categories, but how do you select a specific category for the portfolio?
- Calavera
  
  I was wondering this too. Say I have three different galleries and I want each one to show a different category of photos, can I do this?
  - http://about.me/wellfridhutagalung/ Wellfrid Hutagalung
    
    Hi Calavera,
    
    No, you can’t. You only can show a different gallery source each gallery page. We are planning to implement the gallery by category. Hope it will be published soon.
- Anang
  
  Hi Calavera and Chris,
  
  Galleries on Lensa is page template, so you can add
  new page, choice gallery as page template and select the source of
  gallery as you like. it can be from your post, or photograph post type
  or social network. So you can make galleries page with different source. You can read the documentation in this link colorlabsproject.com/documentation/lensa/
  - Andrew McDonald
    
    This doesn’t work. The Gallery Page template will only show all of my photographs, and doesn’t support the source type = post at all. In fact, when I select images from the WordPress media library, the gallery page template will show the wrong images. How did it manage that? It’s built-in WP function that you managed to break.
Ted

Great theme you guys. Only problem I have so far is the gallery template. I’ve set up a Page “Test Gallery” and I’d like to show only a limited selection of the 20 photos that are in my media library. The short code generated is [gallery ids="50,69,46,67,53,44"], yet the page always shows all 20 photos…?!? In fact, even if no code is inserted (i.e. blank page) all 20 photos are inserted… as long as I use the “Gallery” template nothing else changes… Any suggestions? Thanks !
- Anang
  
  Hi Ted,
  
  Gallery on Lensa its not using default shortcode gallery, there is using source gallery. When you select gallery page template as the template, on the top right will be appear new option. And you can select the source as you like to show on gallery page.
http://www.facebook.com/ErVaga Gabriele Milanese

Nice theme. I love it, i have a problem only with the facebook gallery, when i create the page the result is a fatal error. You can see it even in the demo page in the facebook gallery of Lensa Demo site.
- Anang
  
  Hi Gabriele,
  
  Thanks for your info. Error on our demo site it’s because expired session of facebook account. We already reset the account with go to FB Album settings on dashboard, and get connect again, and it’s work now. You can do the same thing, we hope thats work too.
krs

Great theme, easy to customize too! However, what is the optimal image size for fullscreen? When I upload my photos in 1024×768 (4:3 ratio) they turn out very blurry/dotted, compared to the original image. How can I prevent that the image is cropped and turn out with a high resolution and clean?
- http://michaelhutagalung.com/ Michael Hutagalung
  
  It dependds on your screen resolution. Uploading a 1500px wide would suffice although it will still look blurry on a 24″ monitor.
- http://www.facebook.com/saleemsadique Saleem Shaikh
  
  i used 800 x 533 working great try it
- YvieMYR
  
  how did you get the fullscreen slider to work? everything i have tried is failing and the only thing that shows up is an HTML code at the top of the screen
abman

hi!Great theme. But I can`t add a new Source of Gallery. For example I want to have two galleries from “Photograph source” with different photos. How can I do it? Thanks !
- http://about.me/wellfridhutagalung/ Wellfrid Hutagalung
  
  Hi, you can’t add two galleries with different photos if you use the same Gallery source. Also, if you choose the ‘Photograph’ for the Gallery source, the Gallery page will showing all photos in Photograph posts.
http://www.facebook.com/saleemsadique Saleem Shaikh

beautiful website may i know how u created the photo galleries di u used external plugin or same theme templates
wpFan

Hi great theme but a few questions: 1. I followed the instructions for creating a sticky post, but the front page slider seems to pull from “Photographs” section and not the “Posts” section. How do I fix this? 2. How do you determine which photograph shows up as the background on all the inner pages? I’d like to change this, if possible, to different background images on each page. 3. Regarding my last question, I installed a background image slider plugin so that I can add different background sliders to each page but am unable to get it to work. Can a plugin like this work with this theme? 4. The loading bar that appears on the homepage at the bottom– is it possible to remove this? Thanks!
- YvieMYR
  
  hey wpfan… can u tell me how you got your images to even show up on the frontpage slider?? everything i have tried is null and all i get is an html code that shows up on the top of my page
Toni

Great theme. The blog template doesn’t work on the blog page. Are there some special instructions for getting the same layout as the demo?
- http://about.me/wellfridhutagalung/ Wellfrid Hutagalung
  
  Hi Toni, have you changed the page template as blog template?
YvieMYR

OK… so I just cannot figure how to set up the slider on this theme. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
- http://about.me/wellfridhutagalung/ Wellfrid Hutagalung
  
  Hi, have you read the theme documentation? You can find the documentation here: http://colorlabsproject.com/documentation/lensa .
  - YvieMYR
    
    Hello, yes I have read the documentation. I tried adding pictures in the photograph sidebar (in the WP dashboard) and then making them a feature by clicking the radio button (or the star) and all that did was show the html for the picture with the slider code. I also tried making my latest posts sticky posts and that didn’t do anything. I don’t know what I am doing wrong.
    - http://about.me/wellfridhutagalung/ Wellfrid Hutagalung
      
      Hi, have you upload the thumbnail to Photograph post and set the thumbnail as featured image?
      - YvieMYR
        
        Hi, yes. When i go under the photograph section. I add the thumbnail on the set feature image sidebar. I also clicked the radio box that activates the star. Even if I add the picture to the actual post (where content is usually written) I still only get an html code line on the site. My site is MakeupYourRunway.com I will leave that coded line there so you can see what I mean. I’m sorry to keep pestering you about this but I do appreciate you assisting me. I really love this theme.
      - http://about.me/wellfridhutagalung/ Wellfrid Hutagalung
        
        Hi, please send us your WP Account details via email to sales[at]colorlabsproject[dot]com. We will try to check the problem from your admin panel. Thanks!
      - YvieMYR
        
        Thank you so much. The email is sent. I greatly appreciate the assistance.
      - http://about.me/wellfridhutagalung/ Wellfrid Hutagalung
        
        Hi, thanks! We are checking the issues now.
http://about.me/wellfridhutagalung/ Wellfrid Hutagalung

Hi, we are still investigating the problem now. Hope it can be solved as soon as possible.
wombi1973

Hi, also agree that this is a lovely theme, but for some reason I just do not see any images when I try to create a page with the gallery template and use the gallery source “post”. I created the page, selected the template and then added images to the post (and see in the media manager that the images are attached to this page). However when I view the page….nothing. Anyone have any suggestions?
- http://about.me/wellfridhutagalung/ Wellfrid Hutagalung
  
  Hi, you can see how to set up the gallery page in the theme documentation on Page Template section here: http://colorlabsproject.com/documentation/lensa/#toc2 .
  - wombi1973
    
    Hi. Yes I did all that. I created a new page with the gallery template and as the gallery source I selected “Post” from the drop-down list. I then added photos the the media library and they are attached to the new page (but I did not insert the gallery shortcode into the page because this is supposed to be not necessary). Then I save it all but when I display the page, none of my pictures appear!
    
    As a test, I changed the gallery source to “Photograph” (since I had uploaded one picture as the “Photograph” type) and this was then displayed. So it seems to be a problem if you select the “Post” as the gallery source.
    - Andrew McDonald
      
      I have the same problem. In fact, it gets worse. If you do create a post, insert a gallery from the built-in WP media library, Lensa will display a 404 error when you publish the post and try to view it. I don’t think any of the standard WP media features work, which is INCREDIBLY awful behavior.
Cindy

Hi, great theme but had a few questions:

1. Like above, I followed the instructions for creating a sticky post, but the front page slider only pulls from “Photographs” section and not the “Posts” section. How do I fix this? When I take off the featured photographs in the photographs section, my frontpage becomes blank.

2. I want to edit the footer settings but there’s no options. At the moment it says copyright 2012 lensa.

3. In some pictures in the Lensa documentation, the theme options has more extensive choices e.g. footer options but mine seems to be a truncated version

4. Whatever I do, the child theme for this theme doesn’t work – it gives the white screen of death.

Many thanks in advance!
- http://about.me/wellfridhutagalung/ Wellfrid Hutagalung
  
  Hi Cindy,
  
  Let me answer your questions here:
  1. Home page slider is showing the thumbnails from featured Photographs, not Posts. You have to set the Photographs as featured, not as sticky.
  2. You can change the footer credits by editing the footer.php from your FTP.
  3. Our free themes are not integrated with footer settings. We will update the theme documentation to fix this issue.
  4. The problem might be caused by the child theme.
  
  Thanks!
  - Cindy
    
    Hi Wellfrid,
    
    Thanks for clarifying!
    
    No 4. seems to be a persistent problem and I’ve tried everything I could. Here’s what I’ve used in style.css for my child theme:
    
    /*
    Theme Name: Lensa Child
    Theme URI: http://mysite.com
    Description: Child Theme for Lensa
    Author: admin
    Author URI: http://mysite.com/about
    Version: 1.0
    Template: lensa
    */
    
    @import url(‘../lensa/style.css’);
    
    Any suggestions as to why this is not working?
Roxanne

I also do not have an option for ‘featured image’. What should we do? This is how it looks:
- roxanne
  
  As you can see I checked the ‘Featured’ box and added a picture to the post itself, but this doesn’t seem to work.
Patrick

Hi,

When will we be able to create seperate gallerys from the same source?

I think you mentioned using categories?
http://www.notaruk.com/ Melynda Duke

Hello

This
is my favorite plugin of all time! The Flip Image is easy to use and it has
improved the appearance of my blog by 110%! Thanks Much

If you would like to see more cool word press plug in then
have a look here.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-flip-image-free/
Thanks.
Pras

I saw that a lot of you were unable to get the slider images on the front page to get working,like me.What worked for me is,I went through the process to create a a new photograph as per the theme documentation,but once I finished creating it,that is once i hit the publish button,You get a notification on top saying successfully posted or something similar in WordPress right? next to it is an option which says ‘view post’.Click that and it will take you to the photograph you just created,wait a while,it will display the title and content if any you used for the post and the photo itself in the background of the page.

Once this is done,your slider images should start working.
Solde

Sorry, I’ve a problem with the theme. I want to use the slideshow, but in archives, pages or categories, I don’t want to use an image in the background. Could I use a fix colour in the background for these sections? Thanks
Vishrut

I have successfully got the front page slider working. It pulls photos from “Photographs” section. How do I determine which photograph shows up as the background on all the inner pages? I’d like to change this, if possible, to different background images on each page.
Nikki

Hi there, I have installed the Lensa them, but how do I remove the comments section from the bottom, I have unticked the box in the Setttings, reading panel and yet it is still there
Vishrut

I have successfully got the front page slider working. It pulls photos from “Photographs” section. How do I determine which photograph shows up as the background on all the inner pages? I’d like to change this, if possible, to different background images on each page.
Patrick

Hi,
Great theme but two things
1) I asked previously when we can create different galleries from the same source?
2) How can I change the gallery template so that all photos in a gallery are displayed, or even the ability to set the number of rows? At the moment only two rows are showing. I see where to change he columns though.
Thanks
Chris

Hi,

A quick question – I am still exploring this after only a short time. How do I prevent the slide show from running in the background of pages other than the front page? I would really prefer a static background because the slider running in the background of a blog is very distracting. I assume I’ve missed something.
Thanks!
- ResidentAlien
  
  Alternatively, just having the slideshow pause whenever a page is overlaid and expanded would be good. When the overlaid page is minimized to the bottom of the screen the slideshow could run again.
ResidentAlien

Of all the tens of thousands of people allegedly using this theme successfully, does anybody know of a site that actually works the way the developers’ demo does? I have yet to find a single one in which the individual pages work as intended alongside a properly functioning slide show.

I have seen several that use the theme without the slide show, I guess because it’s free, and a few that have a slide show that partially works, and/or pages that might work if there were proper content … but so far, only the developer’s own demo does it all correctly.

I spent many hours on this one myself and am starting to think I’m not going to get further than anyone else. The slideshow doesn’t work as described even if all the instructions are followed – as others have already pointed out. If you can get it working correctly on the front page, it still doesn’t pause and resume correctly elsewhere.

On the internet, “free” doesn’t normally mean “second-rate”; many developers do fine and reliable work for free. Somehow that model hasn’t caught on in the world of WP themes, where even so-called “premium” themes generally don’t work as described and support from the writers is non-existent. I’m thinking this is just another example of the same, unfortunately. Sorry.

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