Your First Site

As a photographer, all you need is a folder of photos and a few minutes. No programming, no installer, no account.

Download the Standalone edition for your computer from the Downloads page. Theme and plugins are already built in.
Make a folder for your site, for example My Portfolio, and unzip the download into it. Inside, create a folder named source and copy your photos into it. Each subfolder becomes a gallery; optional number prefixes like 01 set the order and are hidden on the website.
```
My Portfolio/
├── revela.exe        ← "revela" on macOS/Linux
└── source/
    ├── 01 Landscapes/
    └── 02 Portraits/
```
Start Revela: double-click revela.exe (Windows) or Start Revela.command (macOS), or run ./start-revela.sh (Linux). It notices the folder has no project yet and offers Create New Project. Answer the questions; Enter keeps the suggested value, and the base URL can stay empty for now.
Build by choosing generate → all in the menu. The first build turns every photo into several sizes and modern formats, which can take a few minutes; later builds only redo what changed. Your website appears in the output/ folder.
Preview by choosing serve, then open http://localhost:8080 (Ctrl+C stops the preview). After changing photos, build again and refresh.
Publish by uploading the output/ folder to any web host. The Deployment guide shows free options such as GitHub Pages, Netlify and Cloudflare Pages.

Prefer a terminal? Every menu entry is also a command, run in your site folder: ./revela generate all, ./revela serve.

Stuck? Choose check in the menu (or run ./revela check): it lists every problem in your project with a hint on how to fix it. If Windows or macOS blocks the first start, see Installation.

Next: the User Journey covers the everyday workflow in depth, Source Structure explains how folders become galleries, and Theme Customization shows how to change the look.