Lightbox gallery

A way of viewing images where clicking a thumbnail opens it in an overlay on top of the page.

Also called: lightbox, light box, gallery, photo gallery, image gallery, enlarge a photo, zoom a photo, full-screen photo, fullscreen photo, photo viewer, image viewer, photo grid

What it is for

It lets you look at media in detail without leaving for another page. It has navigation arrows, zoom, an image counter, and closes with a click on the background or the Esc key.

Where you see it

• E-commerce — viewing product photos full screen
• Portfolios — galleries of designers’ and photographers’ work
• Media galleries — viewing images inside articles

What it is called in code

• lightbox
• gallery
• <dialog>

See also

• Carousel (slider) — A block that lets you flip through a set of images or cards by scrolling sideways.
• Modal window — A window that appears over the page. Until you close it, you can’t do anything else on the page.
• Pinch to zoom — A multi-touch gesture for changing scale: bring two fingers together to zoom out, spread them apart to zoom in.