How do I add a photo to a post?

[Anonymous]

Mark,

I have posted thie before. Thought if you haven't seen already seen it, maybe it could be be of help.

I decided to give a try at an explanation of web photo posting for other forum members who are interested in posting and haven’t had any experience with photos on the web. There are many points of view on this and I am trying to present a simple, straight-ahead explanation that is general enough to be understood and specific enough to be helpful.

First, a simple explanation of what happens when a photo is posted to the forum. Contrary to popular belief the photo is never actually stored on the forum. When a person views a photo in an online forum, the photo is sent from another web location (other than the forum) to the viewer’s computer. This means that in order to post photos in a forum they must be stored at another web site first. When pictures are stored at an online site, they are given a specific address. When a person posts the picture on the forum for others to view, he is actually giving the forum an address to the photo. The viewer’s computer uses this address to go out and get the photo.

The process of posting photos can be broken down into several categories:

1. Taking and editing the photo
2. setting up a web site to store photos and uploading them to the site
3. linking to your photos by using the correct codes and language to have your pictures appear in a forum.

1. Taking and editing the photo.

We will presume that you have taken photos of your super cool model railroad with good lighting and clear focus. We need to talk about photo size. Most good, clear digital photos are too big for the web. Generally speaking the larger the size, the better the resolution.

Size is measured in image area: given as a dimension (400x600) and in total file size (256kb). We are interested mostly in total file size. Photos can now be as big as 3 or 4 megs (megabyte) with a garden variety digital camera. We want sizes to stay at around 100-150kb. A megabyte is 1,000 kb. Why so small? Remember with a 56k modem (dial up connection speed) it takes around 10 minutes to download 1 meg. If you post very large pictures (even with DSL) it can take quite a while to download them and it is considered rude in cyberspace to do this.

To make the file size smaller, photos will have to be compressed. Compression removes part of the picture quality to make the file size smaller. Almost all web photos you see are compressed. Your camera came with software to do this on your PC. You can also crop the photos and otherwise improve contrast etc…When you compress a photo, you make a copy of it with less resolution. You then end up with several versions of the same photo: High resolution originals and compressed versions suitable for e-mail and web posting. After you have compressed your photos, we will presume that you have put them in a folder on your computer.

2. Storing Photos Online

Next we need a web site to store your photos. Your web provider may already offer you space as part of your service. Check out the rules carefully, many don’t like remote hosting, which is what we are doing. If you don’t get storage as part of your web provider package, You can pay for web space or you can use one of the photo hosting services that are free on the web. There are many of these free sites they include:
Railimages.com
Photobucket.com


We will presume that you are using a free photo hosting service. Sign up at the site and open an account. Next step is to follow the directions at the site to upload your photos to your space on the site. This is where having the folder with your pictures comes in handy because they are easy to find on your computer using the browse menu provided by the site.

After your photos are up loaded to your storage site each will be given a specific address. They might look something like this: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v377/trainnut1250/roomview2.jpg

You will want to make a list of these addresses by using the cut and paste feature in your browser or by writing them down by hand (terribly old fashioned).

3. Posting to the forum.

Armed with your addresses you might want to post a photo. To do this we need a special code to tell the forum to go get your photo this is usually the [IMG] [IMG] symbols. Always use the tags provided by the forum tool when posting photos. The address of the picture goes between the symbols like this:

original photo web address: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v377/trainnut1250/roomview2.jpg

forum photo address with tags (I altered these tags so you could see them):

[IMG]http://img.photobucket. com/albums/v377/trainnut1250/roomview2.jpg[/IMG

The forum viewer won’t see the tags or the address, the computer will read them and go get the photo. Different forums may have different ways of linking or tagging photos, but the principle is the same.

Note: photo addresses and tags are very sensitive, if there are any errors at all, they won’t work. I recommend learning to use the cut and paste feature for addresses to avoid exasperating errors. Most people who have problems with photos are messing up the addresses.

That’s it!!

[NZRMac]

Sorry to make it sound difficult I borrowed that post from spankybird.

It's really very easy once you have a web site to host your pics
I use. www.railimages.com to

Ken.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by DeSchane

4884bigboy, One would need a URL to have a photo stored there, wouldn't they?

That's true, Don. If I were you I'd get Web Shots. Easy to use and it's free. www.webshots.com

[tstage]

Mark,

It's really not that difficult to do. You can go to a place like Railimages.com and open up a FREE account to upload and post your pictures on. Once you've posted them on their website, all you need to do to include them in your profile or post is to sandwich the URL of your picture location between ["img"] and ["/img"]. (Minus the quotation signs.)

For example:

["img"]http://www.railimages.com/gallery/MarkDeshane/coolpicofloco.html["/img"]

That's it. If your URL is correct, you're picture will pop up on the screeen. Mark, I'll be glad to help you with it, if you'd like. Just drop me an e-mail.

Tom

[Anonymous]

Here's what I did, I went to http://www.railimages.com/gallery/ and clicked on request account, filloed out the e-mail with the info needed. The next day I had my account. Uploaded the photos.

To get on here, type/paste img](in here type or paste your web address for the picture you wi***o display)[/img]

Hope you you can use the info.

Happy MRRing

Luc

[Anonymous]

You can get a free account at Photobucket http://www.photobucket.com/ and upload photos there. They provide the pre-made URLs to post photos in forums like this one, with the tags at both ends. I've been using it and it seems to work great.

Here's a recent shot of my new Bachmann HO Climax:




Bob Boudreau

[Anonymous]

4884bigboy, One would need a URL to have a photo stored there, wouldn't they?

[Anonymous]

Actually, just type ["img"] (without the quotes), the URL of your picture, then ["/img"].

[Anonymous]

Wow, That's way to complicated! Guess I won't be doing that anytime soon!

[Anonymous]

See this thread in the Layouts forum here for detailed instructions: http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=29285

[SpaceMouse]

You need to post the photo to a website then link to the picture there. There are many free services for posting pictures, but I don't use them because I have a commercial site and several hobby sites I can upload to so I'll defer to others for suggestions.

[Anonymous]

What is the easiest way to add a photo to a post on this forum? You could email me direct, if you prefer.

Thanks!