A photo slideshow?

I am a photographer and I want to update my website. I was thinking of having the banner be a slideshow of my best work. When the page loads have a picture show then fade out and new one appears, etc. How would you make this? I have access to Photoshop CS/imageready and Flash. I am a beginner in flash though.

If that is too complicated, etc. How would I make a banner that everytime I would refresh the page a different banner would appear. (Ex. www.gettyimages.com) Everytime you refresh a differeant image appears.

Thanks for your time!
Ryan

You can use PHP for the rotating images quite easy. As for the fading in an out, JavaScript would probably be a better alternative than Flash, but Flash would work. It's not really going to be easy, but I bet you could find a freelancer to slap something together for you in the 50-100$ price range.

Lightbox or similar is good for stuff like this.

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Your crazy Ryan, JavaScript better than flash...your crazy!!

flash is a bugger. But can be uber cool.

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If done right, I think JavaScript is definitely better than Flash for something like that. Unobtrusive JS is a great way to get effects that degrade gracefully

and if JavaScript is off? Flash is so much better, flash is a great program and makes it easy to do Photo Gallery's, Ryan just hates flash...cause he can't do it...lol

You know I can do Flash, Jacob I just like things that look good even if no plugin is installed...

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but most people have the flash plugin, and you know that. Flash is very popular to put on websites, and people want to see it!! They don't like to look at static content, they like to see some animation, and be entertained...okay, now I am done...lol

I believe while flash can enhance the user experience nothing mission critical should be built with it. But hey, thats me. Obviously there are times when Flash is the only way to go, but generally not.

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I completely disagree as flash is becoming even more popular because people have high speed connections, and they don't want to see the same old boring content, they like to be entertained...plain and simple. Misson Critical, I kinda agree, but mostly not so. I must say I believe alternate content should be displayed if the user does not have flash...but most people do.

yeah with sFIR etc its not so bad, and like I said it can be very beneficial.

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All I'm saying is you can create Flash like effects with JavaScript that are going to work no matter what. When I first submitted this site up for critique here, I had an Ajax driven portfolio that faded items in and out as you navigated through it. Apparently people didn't like it, but I had to say "It's not Flash, it's JavaScript" quite a number times. One of the other main benefits I saw in using JavaScript to make it was ease of update. All I had to do was add a line into an XML file and upload the new images. I'm not trying to start a huge debate here, I just thing Flash should be used for all or none of a site.

I personally have plugins turned off on my browser. If something is Flash, I have to click on it before it will show up. It's very nice because I don't have to let 20% of my processor be spent on Flash advertisments

True Ryan, but I will add this one point, When I build a photo gallery in flash, I set it up so that it uses ActionScript, and reads the picture URL, and the pictures width and height from an XML file, same as you did with JavaScript. As far as having flash turned off, you are one in a million...congrats on being special.

I am special.

I know...lol