Essential lightbox features for your Squarespace photography website
For photographers, Squarespace is one of the top choices to showcase stunning portfolios online. Its intuitive interface, unlimited bandwidth, and secure platform allow you to focus on what matters most—your craft—without worrying about website maintenance.
As a photographer, you likely use image galleries frequently, as they are a key way for visitors to explore your work. The default Squarespace lightbox does a great job at providing a clean viewing experience. However, with the additional features from our plugin, Lightbox Studio, you can elevate the experience, providing more interactive, high-quality image displays for your audience.
Squarespace for Photographers
Let’s explore these essential Lightbox Studio features that will enhance any photographer’s website:
1. Zoom Functionality for immersive detail
Your visitors will want to explore every fine detail of your photography, and zoom is a must-have feature, especially on mobile. With Lightbox Studio, users can zoom in on high-resolution images—using a scroll wheel on desktop or pinch gestures on mobile—giving them a closer look at your work.
Lightbox zoom
Pro Tip: Ensure your images are uploaded at 2500px wide for the best zoom quality on Squarespace. This is the maximum width Squarespace supports, so uploading smaller images will result in lower zoom quality, and larger images will be unnecessary. You can also use Image Lightboxify URLs to overcome this width limit.
2. Connected Lightbox for custom grids
Photographers often create custom grids to display their images in unique layouts, especially with the new Fluid Engine in Squarespace 7.1. However, using Squarespace’s image block often means each image opens in a separate lightbox, breaking the flow of browsing.
With Lightbox Studio's Connect feature, all images within a custom grid can be viewed in a continuous lightbox. This allows users to swipe through the entire grid as if it were a single gallery, making it seamless for visitors to view multiple images in one session.
Pro Tip: The order of images in the lightbox respects the DOM order (the order they were added). Dragging images around might change this, so make sure to double-check the image order both on the page and in the lightbox.
3. Captions for Storytelling
Captions provide extra context for each photo, whether it's camera settings, location details, or a behind-the-scenes story. With Lightbox Studio, you can customize how captions appear:
Overlay: Captions display directly on the image.
Below: Captions are placed below the image.
Lightbox captions - Source yodeschamps.com
Additionally, Lightbox Studio lets you enable lightbox captions only mode, allowing you to hide captions in the main gallery but display them in the lightbox view. This feature gives you flexibility in how you present information to your audience.
Pro Tip: You can create Buy button and display them on the lightbox by following this tutorial
4. Download option for images
Sometimes you want to allow your visitors to download your images in high resolution, whether for portfolio submissions or personal use. Lightbox Studio offers an optional download button that appears in the toolbar, enabling users to easily download the highest-resolution variant of your images.
Lightbox download button - Source: darylbehrens.com
Pro Tip: The Classic layout of Lightbox Studio does not support the toolbar but it can show a download button, so make sure you select the right layout based on your needs.
5. Dynamic Lightbox galleries
In some cases, you might not want to display every image on the main page. Instead, you might prefer to feature a select few images and open a full gallery when visitors click on an image. With Gallery Lightboxify URLs, you can do just that.
You can define a Source page containing a gallery block or section, then link individual images to the gallery. Once clicked, visitors can view an entire gallery without cluttering your main layout with too many images.
Dynamic lightbox gallery - Source lemairephoto.com
Pro Tip: Gallery Lightboxify URLs work with any clickthrough URL, so you can easily apply them to custom grids or image blocks for a more curated experience. Squarespace portfolio pages is also supported to display their project page galleries in a lightbox
6. Video Lightbox
In today’s visual landscape, storytelling through various media has become essential for photographers of all genres. Whether capturing stunning landscapes, dynamic events, or intimate portraits, incorporating video can elevate your portfolio and create a more immersive experience for viewers. Video Lightbox feature allows you to seamlessly embed videos within your galleries, making it easier than ever to showcase both your stills and moving images.
Video lightbox - Source: markdelong.com
This feature is particularly beneficial for photographers who use a mix of images and video to convey a complete narrative. From behind-the-scenes glimpses to event highlights, videos can enhance the story behind each project, captivating your audience and providing a richer context for your work.
Pro Tip: Enable Video Lightbox for Grid gallery section by following this tutorial, making it simple to incorporate video into your portfolio and enhance your storytelling capabilities.
6. Product zoom lightbox: perfect for photography prints
If your website includes a print shop, the Product zoom lightbox feature will be a game-changer. It allows customers to zoom in on specific details of your photography prints, ensuring they can inspect the fine details, textures, and composition before purchasing. This is particularly helpful for larger prints where quality and resolution matter most.
Product zoom lightbox - Source: smoothcornerstudio.com.au
Pro Tip: Enable the lightbox effect on your product detail pages to let customers zoom in for a closer look. Be mindful of the slight differences in setup between Squarespace 7.1 and 7.0 templates, such as Brine.
Conclusion
For any photographer showcasing their work on Squarespace, Lightbox Studio offers an array of advanced features to transform the basic image gallery into an engaging, interactive experience. From zoom and captions to connected grids and downloadable images, these features will ensure your portfolio stands out while offering visitors an immersive viewing experience.
Ready to upgrade your photography website? Try Lightbox Studio today and see how these features can elevate your Squarespace portfolio.
