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swartlkk -> Image Posting... PLEASE READ! (8/27/2006 9:09:28 PM)
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I had a request for a tutorial on how to post images on the forums. If you have multiple images to post, please do not use the upload photo option as it will lead to increased server load and diskspace.
So to start... I would get yourself a free account over at PhotoBucket.com. There are other free photo hosting services as well, but I have used photobucket for awhile now and haven''t been let down.
Once you get a hosting site, now you''re ready to get your photos on the web. I would suggest that when you upload your photos to your host site, that you create different sections for photos depending on what they are. So for your latest truck meet, you can create a section labelled "Bad Azz Truck Meet" and upload your photos to that section. This will make it much easier to find your pictures later on once you get quite a few of them in there.
Now about the resizing. Really the best application that I have found is the Microsoft Image Resizer Powertoy (from Microsoft Windows XP PowerToy only for Windows XP users). It is so simple and easy to use. I would recommend resizing to around 640x480 before uploading to your online host. You''ll also want to resize the picture before say rotating it because the resizer assumes a width wise photo. So if you resize a height wise photo (taller than it is wide) to 640x480, the resultant photo will be 360x480 because it kept the aspect ratio, but limited the height to 480. So if you wanted a 480x640 picture, you''d either have to do a custom resize or rotate it after you resize.
I also do not recommend posting images above 640x480 (or 480x640) on our forums due to the size limitations of some of our members computer screens and resolutions of said screens.
If you have other operations (crop, rotate, etc), then there are tools like Photoshop that you can use. A good free alternative to Photoshop is Paint .NET. If you have all of the updates from microsoft for Windows XP, you should be all set to install Paint .NET without issue. I find myself using Paint .NET more than my PaintShop Pro program that I paid for!
Ok, so now you have pictures that you are ready to upload to your new online photo host. Login to your account, create the section for your new photos, and select the number of photos to upload (may be limited so you may have to do it a few times). Now browse to each one of the photos you want to upload. After all of the photo locations are entered, click upload and wait. When it completes, you should see the photos.
Now that you have the photos hosted on the web, it''s time to post them!!! At Photobucket, there will be some fields below each photo. One should be ''url''. You will need to copy all of the text in this field and paste it into your posts using an *image* tag. So you''ll end up with something like this:
[image]http://PATH_TO_YOUR_IMAGE[/image]
You''re done!!!
Now the reason why I say to resize the pictures prior to uploading them is #1, it makes them load faster for everyone and #2, every free photo hosting site has a disk space limit and a monthly bandwidth limit, meaning that you can only have so much space for your pictures (size matters - smaller the better) and you can only access your stored images so much in a month (I have never went over my bandwidth allotment yet).
If you would like to give everyone access to the full res photos, then atleast create thumbnails for the casual viewers and link to the full res shots for the interested viewers. So basically, you would have a full res photo on your host site as well as a thumbnail. Most people will only view the thumbnail not using much of your bandwidth, and those interested enough can click on the picture to view the full res image. Once both the thumbnail and the full res image are on your host, you will type the following:
[url=http://PATH_TO_YOUR_IMAGE][image]http://PATH_TO_YOUR_THUMBNAIL[/image][/url]
You can also use *link* in place of *url* for typing out the codes.
Now, for those using Photobucket.com as a photo host, they do the thumbnail thing for you automatically! Just add a ''th_'' to the beginning of the image name and you are set.
Example:
[url=http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a187/swartlkk/1970%20Chevelle%20Resto/Chevelle_7_3_07_01.jpg]
[image]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a187/swartlkk/1970%20Chevelle%20Resto/th_Chevelle_7_3_07_01.jpg[/image]
[/url]
Results in:
[image]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a187/swartlkk/1970%20Chevelle%20Resto/th_Chevelle_7_3_07_01.jpg[/image]
In this example, the full resolution image is titled ''Chevelle_7_3_07_01.jpg'' and the automatic thumbnail would be ''th_Chevelle_7_3_07_01.jpg''.
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