Hey Everyone,
Just completed a site for a jewelry designer. She wanted everything to be bright and interactive, needed a simple but effective shopping cart system. The site needed to present items for sale as well as items that have been sold.

Major challenge: the client submitted over 200 jewelry photos of various sizes and with all manner of messy backgrounds. Had to do major work in Fireworks to remove backgrounds and set standard dimensions so they could be presented in galleries.

Project details...

Site URL:
www.cinsjewelrybox.com

Template:
JB Rasa with thorough custom CSS styling

JB Extensions Used:
Bamboobox for all gallery pages

Other Extensions Used:
SimpleCaddy for all shopping cart functions
Tabber on all product pages, with embedded Bamboobox galleries
YooCarousel for home-page tabbed area
Gavick Photoslide for home-page slideshow
Cassrina Hover Image Menu for main menu
RSForm Pro for all interactive forms

The client asked me to manage the site post-launch, so I'll continue doing updates and changes. I welcome suggestions or comments!

Thanks for looking,
Matthew

Hi Matthew,

I feel your pain in editing the photos - jewellary and varying dimensions - ouch

Looks good and meets the client requirements without being too much

Thanks for lifting the extensions - very handy and given me some ideas

I was kinda expecting to be able to click on the blocks on the home page

Have some Karma

Cheers
Paul

Paulus,
Painful, yes! But the client promised to take photos from now on with solid backgrounds and standard dimensions. Let's just say I got familiar with tracing around edges using Fireworks.

I think it's good to list extensions used. It always helps me when other people do that.

The surprise extension is Cassrina Hover Image Menu, which makes it simple to create menu items with different states based on graphics of your choice.

Yes, the blocks on the home page should be clickable. I created those blocks, with plans for the client to provide me with more material. She never quite got that material to me, so this will have to be expanded in the future.

Thanks,
Matthew

Hi Matthew,

I would have gone with photoshop and used some of its masking tools but hey it worked for you

I love a list of extensions on the site showcase - its a great way of seeing something different and new

Thanks for sharing

Cheers
Paul

Paul,
The product photos had really difficult backgrounds. Sometimes, it was nearly impossible to pick out the jewelry from the background. Also, the backgrounds themselves had a variety of shades and bits and pieces.

The good thing is that jewelry, unlike, say, nature photographs, has pretty clear margins, and predictable shapes.

This was my first time having to do such detailed photo editing. Even though it was frustrating, I learned a good workflow for this.

Thanks again for your comments.

Matthew