If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a picture gallery has to be worth so much more! Yes, WordPress absolutely has the built-in functionality of inserting an image gallery in your blog posts, but what if you want to go a little further?

One option is the free PhotoSmash Galleries WordPress plugin. In addition to offer an alternative way to show off the various photos and images that you would like to share with your audience, this plugin is one of the very few that also comes with a built-in rating system.

This way, you can very easily share pictures with your readers and get immediate feedback as to which they like a lot, which they like a little, and which they don’t like at all! Interestingly, it also provides the ability to let your users upload photos to galleries in your WordPress blog (which you can then approve or reject). They can also “favorite” images and view a special “favorites” page of their own.

Go to Smashly.net for more information, screenshots, and even a live demo of the free WordPress plugin.