You may have some great images that you want to display on your site, but if they are simply plastered on with no thought put in regarding their presentation, you may not get the visual effect you had hoped for. The following jQuery plugins can help you get the most out of your images to make your site as eye-catching as possible.
On the surface, the Awkward Showcase plugin is a content slider. When you dig deeper into its feature set, however, you find that it can do much more with your images than just display them in a slide form. Although the plugin is multi-faceted, it is easy to implement. It's also compatible across various browsers.
As stated, Awkward Showcase is a content slider that allows you to showcase your images in a fun, animated manner. Its real power comes from its multitude of options. You can see slides in different view modes. If you want vertical thumbnails, you can add them. The same holds true for horizontal thumbnails. To give your images more of an informative touch, captions and tooltips can be added, and they can also be positioned to your liking. There's also the option to have your content slider use a dynamic height setting to accommodate images of different sizes and orientations. In short, if you are looking to add your images to a slider but want some flexibility, this is the plugin that will answer the call.
AJAX-ZOOM is an extremely useful jQuery plugin that is great for anyone that has an online shop or deals in e-commerce. The plugin gives you the ability to zoom and pan images to provide a true 360 degree view. Whether you have 3d objects or high-res images, AJAX-ZOOM can help you display them in their highest form and at all angles. With its capabilities, AJAX-ZOOM is an obvious choice for sites that concentrate on the sale of products online. Some examples of sites where AJAX-ZOOM is an ideal fit are sites for cars, real estate, and shoes, just to name a few.
AJAX-ZOOM comes loaded with over 300 options. The plugin uses image tiles to quickly generate portions of images. It supports Gdlib and ImageMagick, and it can also integrate easily into a webshop, CMS, or website. An additional feature of AJAX-ZOOM that is worth mentioning is the fact that the plugin can watermark zoomed images on the fly to protect them from being copied and used on other sites.
Link: http://www.ajax-zoom.com/
jQuery.spritely
If you want to add a lot of animation to your site with little work, then jQuery.spritely is one plugin that you definitely need to check out. The plugin allows you to create animated sprites and dynamic scrolling backgrounds that can help bring a page to life. Best of all, it does all this while remaining lightweight in form so you can conserve bandwidth.
The jQuery.spritely plugin can be used on any HTML page. Once implemented, any part of the page can interact with the sprite, so your animation is hardly limited. The plugin's advantages are numerous. You can animate a background or have animated objects hover over parts of a page without affecting its elements. If a certain platform does not support Flash, using the plugin's animation capabilities gives you a solid alternative. The plugin also works across browsers and other devices, such as the popular Apple lineup that includes the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.
Link: http://spritely.net/
MobilySelect
The MobilySelect plugin works well if you have separate galleries or collections of images on a page that you want to interchange quickly. For example, one page may feature separate galleries of cars, planes, and boats. Using MobilySelect, you can click on a button that represents each gallery, and the existing gallery will be replaced or swapped out with the one you wish to view. This offers a clean setup that is free of clutter. It also offers some interesting animated effects.
MobilySelect shows the specified collection on startup. It features callback functions, and it also gives you the option to select between three types of animation. The plugin is just 2kb in size and is easy to use.
JavaScript 
More Top jQuery Plugins for Menus
