chu-gallery

chu-gallery

AI-assisted photo gallery creation with Smith/Colberg/Szarkowski-informed layout curation.

Philosophy

This plugin applies principles from masters of photo sequencing:

• Keith Smith — Group/Series/Sequence taxonomy; the gallery as a unified experience
• Jörg Colberg — Ruthless editing; visual rhythm; pacing
• John Szarkowski — The Five Characteristics for image assessment
• Nathan Lyons — Juxtaposition transforms meaning

"The individual pages have to give up their independence in order to form a union." — Keith Smith

See docs/photo-layout-principles.md for the complete philosophy guide.

Installation

From GitHub

# Add as a marketplace
/plugin marketplace add ericchu/chu-gallery-plugin

# Install the plugin
/plugin install chu-gallery

Manual Installation

Clone to your plugins directory:

git clone https://github.com/ericchu/chu-gallery-plugin ~/.claude/plugins/chu-gallery

Skills

Skill	Trigger	Purpose
gallery	/gallery, "create gallery"	Orchestrates the full workflow
review-image-batch	(sub-agent)	Reviews images and suggests layouts
generate-astro-gallery	/generate-astro-gallery	Generates Astro pages from manifest
extract-exif	/extract-exif	Extracts EXIF metadata to JSON
upload-to-r2	/upload-to-r2	Uploads videos to Cloudflare R2

Usage

Full Gallery Workflow

/gallery cabo-2025 "CABO 2025" cabo

This:

1. Extracts EXIF metadata from images
2. Spawns sub-agents to review images in parallel batches
3. Merges batch results into a manifest
4. Generates Astro page files

Individual Skills

# Extract EXIF from any folder
/extract-exif ./photos output.json

# Regenerate pages from existing manifest
/generate-astro-gallery src/data/gallery-manifests/cabo-2025.json

# Upload videos to R2
/upload-to-r2 ./videos/ cabo-2025/ --optimize

Layout Components

Component	Images	Purpose
FullBleed	1	Hero shots, climactic moments (max 2-4/gallery)
WideImage	1	Strong standalone shots — DEFAULT
OffsetImage	1	Verticals, quiet moments
InsetImage	1	Maximum restraint, intimate moments
Spacer	0	Visual pause between sections
TwoUp	2	Pairs with visual connection (max 2-3/gallery)
ThreeUp	3	Sequences, triptychs (max 1-2/gallery)
SplitLayout	2	Asymmetric pairs (max 1-2/gallery)
FourUp	4	Detail collections (max 0-1/gallery)
Chapter	0	Start new page section

Key Principles

Default to Single Images

80%+ of layouts should be single-image (WideImage, OffsetImage, FullBleed).

Multi-image layouts are rare exceptions, not defaults.

Lyons's Juxtaposition Test

Only use TwoUp when pairing creates meaning beyond either image alone:

• Temporal connection (same moment)
• Spatial connection (same scene, different angle)
• Formal echo (lines, shapes, colors)
• Transformation (together they say something new)

Visual Rhythm

Vary intensity like music:

LOUD → medium → quiet → LOUD → soft → pause → medium...

Never create monotonous sequences of same-weight layouts.

Szarkowski's Vocabulary

Assess images using the Five Characteristics:

• The Thing Itself — What reality is captured?
• The Detail — What fragments carry weight?
• The Frame — What's included/excluded?
• Time — What moment?
• Vantage Point — How does position create meaning?

Scripts

Helper scripts for the workflow (require bun):

Script	Purpose
init-gallery-manifest.ts	Create manifest from EXIF
merge-gallery-batches.ts	Combine batch review files
validate-gallery-manifest.ts	Fix common errors
generate-gallery-files.ts	Generate Astro pages
optimize-videos.sh	Optimize videos for web

Project Structure

chu-gallery-plugin/
├── .claude-plugin/
│   └── plugin.json
├── skills/
│   ├── gallery/
│   │   └── SKILL.md
│   ├── review-image-batch/
│   │   ├── SKILL.md
│   │   └── references/
│   │       └── layout-guide.md
│   ├── generate-astro-gallery/
│   │   └── SKILL.md
│   ├── extract-exif/
│   │   └── SKILL.md
│   └── upload-to-r2/
│       └── SKILL.md
├── scripts/
│   ├── init-gallery-manifest.ts
│   ├── merge-gallery-batches.ts
│   ├── validate-gallery-manifest.ts
│   ├── generate-gallery-files.ts
│   └── optimize-videos.sh
├── docs/
│   └── photo-layout-principles.md
└── README.md

License

MIT