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Uploading and posting images to the forum

Posted: Sun 30 Sep 2012 16:42
by Admin2
Posting Images on the Forum.

It is not possible to post directly onto the forum due to obvious server disc size limitations so they have to be uploaded onto web based image hosting sites like photobucket.com, imageshack.com etc. There are several others, it’s all down to personal choice, but they all owe their existence to advertising, which unfortunately is a necessary evil that you just have to put up with and not be tempted to click on ‘free gifts’ or ‘you are the 999,999th visitor to this site’ etc.
I use Photobucket as I consider it to be fairly user friendly.

Preparation
Before you get into uploading your images onto a host site you need to know which they are and where they are on your computer. I’m not saying that you have to name all of your images but if you do they are easier to find, as you take the images your camera allocates a number to the image anyway so if you don’t wish to name them you still need to know the location / picture number combination when you come to upload them to the host site.

Using an image hosting site
The way they work is that they ‘store’ your images on their servers, they are perfectly private and nobody else can see them unless you click the ‘share’ button.
You need to register on these sites but they don’t ask you for any more sensitive information than you have to supply to forums etc. You then have to setup a username/password which you then use every time you want to use the site; it also means that nobody else can see your images without your login details.

Armed with all the image location info, you now click the ‘choose files’ or ‘upload images’ button, this will open a menu box showing the folders directories on your computer, all you do then is ‘find’ the image that you want to upload and double left click on it or ‘open’ it and it will be automatically uploaded and placed into your hosted ‘album’.

The image can now be inserted into the forum; however, I would suggest that you set a limit to the size of images as large images take a long time to open, they also distort the layout of the forum screen, you have probably seen that already through people putting extremely long links to web sites on posts, it is also not fair on people who do not have broadband and connect via dial up.
Limiting the size to 500 pixels in width and 400 pixels in height seems to be the norm on most forums.

Resizing
To resize your image just click on the word ‘edit’ at the top of the image, that takes you to the edit screen, from there you click on the ‘resize’ button, you then have the opportunity to resize your image by using the ‘sliding buttons’ until you achieve the desired size (suggest you tick the ‘keep proportions’ box) the click on apply and either ‘save a copy’ or ‘replace original’ whichever is your preference.

Putting the image on the forum
This is the easy bit, all you do is locate the code for the destination of the image, in the case of the AD forum it is the bottom one in this box:
IMG Code – Forums & Bulletin Boards. Highlight the ENTIRE code, then simply copy and paste it into the message box, all you will see at this point is the code but if you click the ‘preview’ button the image will appear just as it will after submission.

All of the above instructions are for using Photobucket, wordings and processes will differ with other image hosting sites, but as is usual, find one that you like and the more you use it the easier it will become.