This tutorial will help you make a gallery using WordPress. Although this is a common thing with any theme, I will show you how it looks with Preferential as your theme.
Sample Gallery with Captions
First thing you want to do is prepare your images ahead of time. I am one who likes to keep things consistent so that I get a nice gallery that is evenly displayed within a page, post, or text widget. This means preparing images by cropping, sizing, and optimizing photos before you upload them. If you were to create a gallery with different sizes of images and some are vertical while others are horizontal, you get a very uneven gallery layout…however, sometimes you may not have the option to make them all the same.
- Create a page or open a page (or post) where you plan on adding a gallery
- Click on the Add Media button above the editor
- On the left side, click on “Create Gallery” and then click on “Upload Files” or if you already uploaded your photos, select them from your Media Library.
- Click on “Create a New Gallery” in the lower right
- Under Gallery Settings, select “Attachment” and “4” for number of columns
- Click “Insert Gallery” or “Update Gallery“
Default Thumbnail Size
By default, WordPress will use the small thumbnail size, usually 150×150 if this is set in your Media Settings. Normally what happens with WP Media Settings, is that every time you upload an image, WP will generate a thumbnail of each of the sizes you set dimensions for. If you don’t have these set, then you need to make sure your photos are the same size so that you can maintain a consistent layout. However, if you do have media settings in place, you can use a size attribute on your gallery short code (see further below).
To manage your gallery, such as thumbnail size, you can refer to the WordPress Codex documentation on how to edit your gallery shortcode:
Otherwise, while in your page where the gallery is, switch to the “Text” tab on your editor and add this to the shortcode:
size="medium"
Then click on Update to your page or post.