Putting pictures in posts?

[Fair!]

So how do I put pictures in my posts?

There's 3 or 4 steps to posting pics inside forum threads:

1. Upload your digital pictures to an offsite picture hosting site like smugmug, photobucket, etc. Search google like this. Some are free, others are pay sites (smugmug, which I use) that have higher or even no storage limit. I think I have 10,000 pictures on smugmug, and most were uploaded at full resolution.
2. Next, navigate to the picture you want to post within your photo hosting site and grab the url. Usually its "right-click/properties", then copy that link ("ctrl-c" is your freind).
3. Finally, within the forum, use the image posting tools to post the link. This could be as simple as wrapping the url in "IMG" tags, or for most vbulletin forums like ours, click the helpful image button wizard (yellow box with a mountain/sun) and paste the link within the wizard. If you have IE 6+ you might have a pop-up blocker - it should be pretty obvious how to temporarily disable this when you first try to post an image. Tip: Try to post sizes that are browser/bandwidth friendly, which usually means less than 800x600 resolution. If you just have one stellar picture, then do it 800x600, but please, no larger.
4. Alternatively, you can post several smaller pictures (250x166 or so) or even thumbnail-sized (150x100) pictures that link to larger pictures. This is easier than it sounds... most photo hosting sites show you a gallery of pictures with thumbnails. Cut-paste the urls from those pictures and paste them as the steps above show. Then while still editing, wrap that blob of code with a URL link to the large image (the link wizard in vbulletin looks like a blue globe with a chain link at the bottom). It allows the thread to load quicker for everyone and people can click to open the larger images if they like. Its a bit more work but people will appreciate it if the pictures are good. I usually post 2-6 pictures from an event and give a link to the gallery where they are from for people that want to see more. Smugmug automatically resizes whatever pictures I upload to "Large", "Medium", "Small", "Thumbnail" and "Tiny", and the "Original". The same url is altered with an L, M, S, T, Th, or O to quickly get those sizes.

Hope this was helpful.

[Tommy R]

Re: Putting pictures in posts?

I've got my pictures numbered, but when I upload them to smugmug, it reorganizes them how it sees fit and I lose the chronological order I had them in. Any way to fix this with smugmug? I'd like my pics to show up in the order in which I have them numbered....

Tommy

[Fair!]

Re: Putting pictures in posts?

I've got my pictures numbered, but when I upload them to smugmug, it reorganizes them how it sees fit and I lose the chronological order I had them in. Any way to fix this with smugmug? I'd like my pics to show up in the order in which I have them numbered....

Tommy

In your smugmug gallery... click on the "photo tools" dropdown on the right.... then pick "Arrange Photos".... then on this new screen look at left side menu and Arrange by one of these options: "filenames/date uploaded/datemodified/date taken/....etc." You can also select one or more thumbnails on this screen and move them around with the directional arrows -->

Easy peasie.

If you sort them by name in the folder where they are located locally first, then do the "Drag and drop" uploader, select the batch you want to upload, and then "drag" from the first one in the list they should upload in that order. Grab one at random in your selction and it goofs up the order. Still, its easy to resort later - and fast. I usually arrange by "date taken", oldest first.

[Tommy R]

Re: Putting pictures in posts?

Thanks!