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How to upload and insert photos

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How to upload and insert photos Empty How to upload and insert photos

Post  Admin Sun Sep 11, 2011 9:31 pm

This details how to upload and insert a photograph into a forum post.

As we are a photography club, it is important that we all know how to 'upload' photos to be shown in our posts on the forum.

It can first appear to be quite a complicated procedure, so I will try to simplify it here.

There are two main steps to take...
1) Upload your photo to an online photo server.
2) Get the photo's link address from that server, and paste it into your post on this forum.

I will now try to break down those steps into easy bite-size chunks! Very Happy
You may find it helpful to print this page.


Here goes...

Our forum has a built in photo server, but as it has limited space. I'm therefore going to ask that we all use an external photo server. There are many to choose from, but for the purposes of this tutorial, I recommend we use... ImageShack.

STEP 1
It is therefore necessary for each member to register a new free account with Imageshack, where they will be allocated their own server space for their photos, and can manage (upload/rename/share/delete etc) your uploaded images.

01) Go to http://imageshack.us

02) Click where it says 'Sign Up' at the top right of the page.

03) You will be shown a registration form where you fill in your email address, and choose a username & password.

04) That's it. You now have an active account.



STEP 2
When we want to make a post on the forum, and want to add a photo to that post, we must first...

01) Decide which section we want to start our new post in.

02) Go to http://www.almanzoraphotoclub.com where you will initially see the full list of forum sections.

03) Click on the section title you want to post in.

04) When the forum section is opened, displaying all the previous posts inside, click on the NEW TOPIC button, top left of the post listing and under the section title.

How to upload and insert photos Forum1ft

05) This brings up a 'Post a new topic' text box. You should enter a Topic Title in the narrow text box, then click on the large text box to type in the contents of your post.

06) For the purposes of this tutorial, we will concentrate on the part where we want to add a photo to our new post...



STEP 3
With our New Topic box still open, we now first need to upload our photo to our ImageShack account.

It is easiest to do this using two 'tabs' on your browser (if your browser supports tabs), so we can click between your post on the forum & the ImageShack webpage. If you are using an older browser that doesn't support tabs, then you'll have to visit the Imageshack website first, upload your image, retrieve the image info (as described below), then return to the forum site and paste this info into a new or edited post.

01) Open a new tab on your browser.

02) Select this new tab and type in the http://imageshack.us address.

03) Log in (top right) to your ImageShack account.

04) The 'Media Upload' screen should appear (if not, click Media Upload - upper left).

How to upload and insert photos Is1a

05) We now need to click the 'Browse' button and locate the image on your computer that you want to upload.

06) When you have selected the file and clicked the Open button, the photo file details will appear in the Media Upload page.

07) We now have to decide what we want to do about the image's size...

Ideally we don't want huge images posted on the forum a) because they are too big visually on the screen, and b) their file size can be huge, taking far too long to download to view. It's therefore a good idea to 'downsize' any images to 800 * 600 pixels which is big enough to see detail, but not too big for those on slow internet connections.


We can resize our image 3 ways.

a) Resize before you upload, using Paintshop Pro (or other graphics app). PSP has a Resize tool. Landscape or Portrait, ensure the longest side is 800 pixels and crop to get as close to 800 * 600.

b) Again using PSP, you can use the club Resize & Exif Info script, which automatically resizes, sharpens, adds a border and appends all exposure data specifically for use on the forum...

https://almanzoraphotoclub.forumotion.com/t102-new-photo-re-sizing-info-script

c) ImageShack can automatically resize your image as part of the upload process. A lot easier, but the end resolution may not be as refined or as accurate as using a graphics app. Try different methods to see which you prefer.

08) If you have resized you image prior to uploading, select 'Do Not Resize' from the 'Image Resize' dropdown menu on the ImageShack screen. If you want ImageShack to automatically resize your image, select '800x600 (15-inch monitor)' from the dropdown menu.

09) When we have done all that... click the big blue UPLOAD NOW button!

10) This is where it gets interesting! You will see the progress of your file uploading, and when complete ( it may take a while to upload depending on the file size) you should see Upload Successful!

How to upload and insert photos Is2c

11) On the left hand side of the screen is the really important stuff. Under the heading 'Links to share your image' you will see 6 link adresses to your photo in slightly different formats. The one we want is DIRECT LINK.

12) Left-Click on the code in the box to the right of where it says 'Direct Link' and it should become highlighted blue.

13) While this text is highlighted... Right-Click over it (mouse cursor over it) and select Copy from the menu that appears.

14) That's it! We have now 'captured' the online link address to our photo... all we need to do now is 'embed' that information into our forum post.



STEP 4
If you have been using the two tab method, you simply have to click on the forum tab to bring you back to your New Topic page. If you haven't been using tabs, you will have to reload the forum's webpage, and either start your New Topic (Step 2 above) or 'Edit' an existing post of yours where you want to insert the photo.

01) Above the main text box on the New Topic page you will see a row of icons...

How to upload and insert photos Button1i

02) One of these in the middle that looks like a picture frame is the Image button (if you hover your cursor over it says 'Image')

03) Click this Image button. This brings up an expty text box with a link symbol to the left, and an OK button.

How to upload and insert photos Button2o

04) Place the mouse cursor over the empty text box and Right-Click. Select Paste from the menu that appears.

05) This will enter the link address code that we copied from ImageShack. Click the OK button.

06) You will see the link address for your photo has been entered into the body of your post, surrounded by IMG.../IMG tags.

07) If you now press the Preview button for your post, you should see your uploaded photo in your post's preview... tada! cheers

08) You can enter extra new lines, or cut & paste the code to format your post, and decide where in the post you want your photo to be placed.

09) When you're happy with the Preview of your new post, click SEND, and your post will appear on the forum, complete with embedded photo.



If you are using the two tab method, you can flip back and forward between ImageShack and your forum post... uploading the next image, copying it's code, and pasting it into your post, via the image button, to embed multiple images into a post.

If you can't use tabs... upload the first image, copy it's code, close ImageShack and open the forum to start a new post. Insert image into new post via the image button and send/post. To add further images to post, one by one upload & copy code, go back to forum post & Edit to add (paste) next image's link address.

Please let me know if you follow this method and encounter any difficulties, and I will amend where necessary. As I said at the start, it does look complicated, but after you've done it a few times, it becomes second nature... honest! We need all our members to be adept at uploading images to our forum, so give it a try!

Good luck!

Howard Very Happy
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Posts : 24
Join date : 2011-09-10

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