radogado

Rado’s Native Lightbox instantly upgrades every WordPress gallery into a beautiful, full-screen lightbox carousel. Just activate and go — your existing galleries are transformed automatically, no shortcodes to learn, no settings pages to configure.
Built on <a href="https://nativecarousel.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Native Carousel</a>, it uses the browser’s own scroll-snapping instead of heavy animation libraries. The result is buttery-smooth swiping on phones, fluid keyboard navigation on desktops, and a total footprint of roughly 13 KB — smaller than a single thumbnail image.
Why this plugin?
<ul>
<li>Zero configuration — activate it and every gallery on your site becomes a lightbox carousel. Deactivate it and galleries revert to normal. Nothing is written to your database.</li>
<li>Truly lightweight — ~13 KB total (JS + CSS). No jQuery, no frameworks, no external requests. Your PageSpeed score stays intact.</li>
<li>Works with any theme — Twenty Twenty-Five, Astra, GeneratePress, or anything else. The plugin bundles everything it needs.</li>
<li>Accessible by default — full keyboard navigation, focus trapping in the lightbox, screen-reader labels on every control, and <code>prefers-reduced-motion</code> support.</li>
<li>Native scroll-snap — hardware-accelerated, 60 fps swiping powered by the browser itself, not JavaScript animation loops.</li>
<li>Dark mode aware — the lightbox overlay adapts to the visitor’s system color scheme automatically.</li>
</ul>
Features at a glance:
<ul>
<li>Full-screen lightbox with swipe, keyboard and mouse-wheel navigation</li>
<li>Compact thumbnail index strip with scrollable overflow</li>
<li>“Thumbnails only” toggle in both the Block Editor sidebar and Classic Editor settings</li>
<li>Endless (infinite loop) navigation</li>
<li>Lazy-loaded images with low-resolution placeholder blur while loading</li>
<li>Captions and alt text fully preserved</li>
<li>Featured-image click opens the matching gallery slide on single posts</li>
<li>Editor performance guard — caps image sizes in the block editor to prevent crashes with large galleries</li>
</ul>
How it works:
The plugin intercepts gallery rendering at display time and outputs <a href="https://nativecarousel.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Native Carousel</a> HTML markup. Your post content is never modified — the transformation is purely visual and fully reversible.
<h3>Third-party source code</h3>
This plugin bundles minified assets from Native Carousel, an open-source carousel component (GPL-2.0-or-later).
<ul>
<li>Homepage & documentation: <a href="https://nativecarousel.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">https://nativecarousel.com/</a></li>
<li>Source code repository: <a href="https://github.com/radogado/n-carousel" rel="nofollow ugc">https://github.com/radogado/n-carousel</a></li>
</ul>
The following files in <code>assets/</code> are the minified production builds:
<ul>
<li><code>n-carousel.min.js</code> — carousel runtime</li>
<li><code>n-carousel-preload.min.js</code> — image preloader</li>
<li><code>n-carousel.min.css</code> — carousel styles</li>
</ul>
The unminified, human-readable source is available in the GitHub repository linked above. No build tools are needed to work with this plugin’s own code — <code>gallery-lightbox.css</code> and the admin JavaScript files are shipped unminified and readable.
This plugin is also maintained as part of the niui theme project: 
<a href="https://gitlab.com/spacest/niui/-/tree/main/rados-native-lightbox" rel="nofollow ugc">https://gitlab.com/spacest/niui/-/tree/main/rados-native-lightbox</a>

Rado's Native Lightbox

Transforms WordPress galleries into lightweight lightbox carousels. Works with any theme — only ~13 KB.

justnorris

Village Client Area allows you to easily create password protected galleries where you can upload images form your photoshoots in a gallery and share the link with your client. 
You can also password protect your client galleries to make sure only they see their images.
At the moment, for full functionality, Village Client Area relies on ( but does not require ): Advanced Custom Fields Pro and Redux Framework.
Quick feature list:
<ul>
<li>Password Protection</li>
<li>Public Client gallery list with quick search (optional)</li>
<li>Image Proofing</li>
<li>Gallery discussions ( commenting on galleries )</li>
<li>“Themeable” Plugin API</li>
</ul>
A plugin designed for the working photographer:
This plugin comes with an intuitive image proofing that lets your client mark the images that he/she really likes and a comment area where you and your client can discuss the images. 
Village Client Area uses a custom post type that allows you to easily create and manage your client galleries. 
There is also a Quick Search option if you decide to create a public page where you display all of your client area galleries (only the featured images and titles are visible, the images themselves can be password protected).

Rado's Native Lightbox vs Village Client Area