Looking for a multipurpose WordPress theme for building a portfolio or a photography site?
Oshine is one of the most popular multipurpose WordPress themes in the ThemeForest marketplace that lets you build any type of site, but excels at portfolio and photography sites. In this Oshine theme review, let’s look at its features and learn how easy it is to build a website like you imagined.
About Oshine
Oshine is an all-in-one theme, packed with lots of built-in features to let you build any sort of website you need.
Oshine is created by BrandExponents, an Indian WordPress theme development team.
It has more than 35,000 sales and is one of the top 25 best selling WordPress themes of all time in the ThemeForest market.
Although it is a multipurpose WordPress theme, it is primarily focused on building portfolio and photography sites that display many pictures.
Plugin Requirements
Upon installation, you’ll need to go to Appearance » Install Plugins to begin installing the required plugins. The Oshine theme requires you to install several plugins:
- BE Portfolio Post Type
- Colorhub
- Meta Box Conditional Logic
- Meta Box Show Hide
- Oshine Core
- Oshine Modules
- Tatsu and Typehub
- Meta Box Tabs
This theme recommends the following plugins:
- BE GDPR
- Master Slider
- Slider Revolution
- Meta Box Framework
- WPForms Lite
Master Slider and Slider Revolution are premium plugins that cost $45. As this theme is shipped with these plugins, you can use them without any extra cost.
Instead of Contact Form 7, we recommend WPForms as the most beginner-friendly WordPress contact form builder.
One Click Import
Oshine offers 51 stunning demos to import with hundreds of pre-built sample templates, so you can build a site like a demo site with just a single click.
You can tweak these demos as much as you like with the help of Oshine’s drag and drop page builder.
The Drag and Drop Page Builder
The powerful drag and drop builder allows you to build a website exactly like you imagined without touching a single line of code. With the visual previews in the backend, you can create a page without having to switch back and forth from your dashboard to your site.
You can access the Tatsu builder right from your WordPress post editor.
Unlike other WordPress page builders, it’s super easy to work with Tatsu builder.
No learning curve at all. All you have to do is to click and edit.
The best part is that you can even build footer and header with Tatsu builder. All you have to do is to click on the footer/header menu and start building.
Tons of Options to Customize Hero Images
Oshine gives you lots of customization options for hero images in your page editor. You’ll find options to customize background, style, canvas settings and more.
Oshine Options
With Oshine, you’ll get full control over the appearance of your site. The theme is also bundled with a child theme that inherits its functions from the parent theme. Every change you make on the child theme will be retained even if you’re updating your parent theme to the latest version.
Page Templates
Oshine offers 7 different page templates to pick from. They are…
- Blank page template
- Gallery
- Page with sidebar
- Page with sidebar and title
- Page with title
- Portfolio
- Split screen left
- Split screen right
In the page editor, you’ll find the layout options for every page template. This way you can make unique designs for every page. Aside from that, it offers 46 prebuilt templates along with the drag and drop builder.
Many Other Cool Features
In Oshine, features are endless. If you’re still not convinced to use the theme, below are a few more…
- Unique layouts: Oshine provides 20 different header and menu layouts, 3 body and 3 footer layouts.
- 8 blog layouts: Present your blog with any of the 8 layouts it provides.
- 50+ shortcode modules: Shortcode modules are integrated with the page builder for ease of use.
Documentation and Support
Their documentation is excellent that covers every aspect of building a website using the Oshine theme. It is well organized and includes useful screenshots and videos, so you can easily skim through the content without hassle.
Just like any other Themeforest theme, Oshine also offers free support only for a period of up to 6 months from the date of purchase. All support queries will be responded in 48 hours. Depending on weekends and public holidays it may stretch up to 72 hours.
Oshine Theme Alternatives
There are plenty of photography WordPress themes for your site. We recently did a round up of these themes: 50 Best Photography Themes for WordPress.
Here are our top 3 recommended alternatives to the Oshine Theme for WordPress
1. SeedProd
SeedProd is the best website theme builder with premade theme kits for WordPress.
With SeedProd, you won’t have to spend time learning how to build a website. Neither will you need to hire a developer to do it for you.
You can quickly import a premade theme kit and customize it using the visual drag and drop builder. Your website will be up in no time and you can focus on your photography.
There are 200+ page templates and 80+ blocks like contact forms, countdown timers, image carousels, animated headlines, background videos, social profiles, and much more.
2. Thrive Themes
Thrive Themes is another great option for photographers looking to build a stunning WordPress site. You’ll get premade themes and a theme builder to customize your design.
You’ll never have to use any coding with this one. There are 100s of theme elements that you can add to your page with the click of a button.
Also, when you sign up for Thrive Suite, you’ll also get access to powerful conversion optimization tools like quizzes, online courses, sign up forms, and more.
Get started with Thrive Themes »
3. Divi
Divi is one of the most powerful and popular WordPress themes in the market. You can create a stunning photography site using this theme along with the visual Divi Builder plugin.
There are several beautiful content elements including gallery, portfolio, slider, etc. in the plugin for building a photography site.
Divi theme comes with hundreds of stunning premade layouts and options to use several layouts from the Divi community. You’ll also find Divi layouts and supported themes on the internet. Additionally, it has tons of header and footer options that allow you to create a unique design for your site.
Read our complete Divi review.
For more options, see our guide: The Best and Most Popular WordPress Themes.
Next, we’ll give you our final verdict on the Oshine theme.
Our Verdict on Using Oshine for Your Site
Oshine is a multipurpose WordPress theme that comes with many useful demos to pick from. The demos include sites for digital agencies, landing pages, restaurant and wedding sites. It is best suited for creating portfolio sites and photography sites.
Oshine is a heavy theme, so you’ll likely need to increase your file upload limit to around 15 MB.
It offers a huge amount of features out of the box and comes with heavy plugins to be installed. An average user might feel overwhelmed with too many layout options in the page editor. But that also means
If you’re looking for a simple WordPress theme, Oshine may not be the right theme.
However, it can be the best choice for an average user who wants to quickly load a site that looks exactly like the demo site.
We hope you like this review. You may also want to see our list of the Best WordPress Plugins for Photographers.
Also, we have an easy tutorial to add an Instagram feed to your website. That way, all your Instagram posts will automatically get posted to your website too. Keeps your content fresh!
We give Oshine 4.8 out of 5 stars. Here is the breakdown of our review scores:
4.5 / 5.0 5.0 / 5.0 5.0 / 5.0 5.0 / 5.0
4.0 / 5.0 5.0 / 5.0
how to add extra fields in portfolio details section ?