Focus Gallery Reel Effect

What You'll Create

A gallery reel with focus effect - inactive images scale down while the active slide displays at full size with styled captions. Creates depth and visual hierarchy in horizontal gallery navigation.

The Problem It Solves

Default gallery reels show all images at the same size. When you want to create visual focus by scaling down inactive slides and highlighting the active one with prominent captions, you need CSS transforms and conditional styling.

Perfect For

Portfolio galleries, Project showcases, Photography collections, Featured work displays, Creative portfolios

What Makes This Different

This technique uses CSS transform:scale() on inactive images while keeping active slides at full size. Includes styled caption boxes with custom positioning, and the code targets gallery reels using their height value as a scoping selector.

Details

• Section Type: Fluid Engine

• Code Type: CSS

• Prerequisites: Gallery Reel section with captions

• Toolkit Title: Focus Gallery Reel

Learn This Technique

This is one of 150+ code techniques taught inside Standout Squarespace, where you get:

• The complete, copy-paste code

• Video walkthrough explaining how it works

• The principles behind the technique so you can customize it

• Access to our private community for support