Specific needs, is Coppermine for me ?

[sizetwo]

New to the board, and the CMS system. I have been using Pixelpost for my photoblog, but I am about to expand my website (http://www.repost.no) and I need something more customizable, hence the reason I am considering Coppermine. Could  someone tell me if Coppermine could fill these criteria (with tweaking on my end as well as possible plugins):

Description of the site I want to build: A local photography website for young photographers that want to showcase their work. It will b
e creative commons licensed.  The users surfing the site will be able to sort photos by categories, but also by the specific photographer.

1: The site will feature several photographers: Possibility to choose a specific photographer from the frontpage, as a category. When choosing the photographer, this will show a category view of the photos taken by that specific photographer.  When choosing the sub-category then (ie. "landscape") it should show that photographers thumbnails as well as the other photographers landscape images, however maybe smaller or on the side, differentiating them from the chosen photographer, but still available to the user.

2: A hierarchy-type logon with some users having different logon credentials (some users not being able to delete content etc.).

3: Include the original PSD/NEF/CR2 file if necessary as a downloadable file.

4: Based on some sort of category listing, include a small picture of the photographer and info next to the image he/she has taken when choosing a picture taken by that specific photographer.

I have tried searching for topics but I haven't really found anything matching all these criteria. I am assuming all this is possible, and if it is, does it require a lot of scripting to get this to work ?

Will Coppermine be able to do what I want it to do, or should I look at Joomla or other CMS systems for what I need ?

[Joachim Müller]

Will Coppermine be able to do what I want it to do

Not out of the box: you'd have to apply a lot of customizations to accomplish what you're up to.

New to the board, and the CMS system.

Coppermine is not a CMS by the way.

or should I look at Joomla or other CMS systems for what I need ?

I'm not sure though that the actual CMS have what you're looking for - sounds like you'll have to customize every product on the market to suit your needs, so you could as well look into coppermine.

The users surfing the site will be able to sort photos by categories, but also by the specific photographer.

How easy this will be to accomplish  depends on who will actually perform the upload. Will it be the photographers or you as site admin?

1: The site will feature several photographers: Possibility to choose a specific photographer from the frontpage, as a category. When choosing the photographer, this will show a category view of the photos taken by that specific photographer.  When choosing the sub-category then (ie. "landscape") it should show that photographers thumbnails as well as the other photographers landscape images, however maybe smaller or on the side, differentiating them from the chosen photographer, but still available to the user.

Can be accomplished with the use of keywords an custom fields, but probably only if you (as admin) are going to be the sole uploader.

2: A hierarchy-type logon with some users having different logon credentials (some users not being able to delete content etc.).

Coppermine knows two types of users: admins and non-admins. Only admins can delete other's comments. Coppermine doesn't come with moderator capabilities.

3: Include the original PSD/NEF/CR2 file if necessary as a downloadable file.

Again, this will only be an option if you will be the only uploader. Coppermine can't create the web-view (i.e. a jpeg) from a psd, so in fact the jpeg and the psd are going to be separate files and separate uploads that you (as admin) have to link. This will be a tricky task to accomplish anyway.

4: Based on some sort of category listing, include a small picture of the photographer and info next to the image he/she has taken when choosing a picture taken by that specific photographer.

huh?

I have tried searching for topics but I haven't really found anything matching all these criteria.

I guess there is no product available that can cope with all your requirements out of the box.

I am assuming all this is possible, and if it is, does it require a lot of scripting to get this to work ?

Yes and yes.

Quite frankly: Joomla, Typo3, Drupal etc. are content management systems - none of the has got the features you are looking for, and some of the features might be achievable using third party extensions (call them "modules" or "plugins" or "add-ons" or whatever), but we can't tell for sure, as we don't know those products in detail (at least I don't). However, it's not fair comparing a CMS with a web gallery: if you must, compare Coppermine's features with the features of our "competitors" like Menalto Gallery or 4images (see the quote below), but don't compare web gallery applications with CMS, because that comparison would not be fair nor applicable.
Here are some relevant feature comparsion links:

A similar posting on the support board of our fellow devs over at our open source "competitor" Menalto Gallery shows a pretty concise and up-to-date list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_photo_gallery_software
http://gallery.menalto.com/node/1184
http://www.gallery-addons.com/Gallery-Addons/Component/Media_Gallery_Feature_Comparison/
http://www.tonyleung.com/gallery.htm

[sizetwo]

Superb, thanks for the feedback. I will have to look into the documentation and see what I can build on if I choose Coppermine. And yes, no package will have the features I outlined without customization, its just a matter of wanting to choose the package that can get the job one after being worked on. Will look into other options and see what I en up using.

Again, thanks for good feedback.