How do I attach a picture to a post on this forum?

Brian,

Simply put, you first have to find a host for your pictures (Photobucket.com or RailImages.com are two examples), upload them to their server, then link to them in the body of your post using the picture's URL.

Here's an example of what it would look like in your Message text box of your post:

[img]Picture's URL["/img"]

(Minus the quotation marks around the 2nd bracketed img.)

The URL can be easily obtained by right clicking on the picture your want to post then left clicking "Copy Image Location".  All that's left to do is to paste the URL in between the bracketed imgs then press the Post button.

That's pretty much it.  Let us know if you have any troubles.

Tom

Tom,

Thanks for the reply.  Does the above actually imbed the image into the reply or just post the link? 

Brian

HO Brian

Thanks for the reply.  Does the above actually imbed the image into the reply or just post the link? 

 It will cause your web browser to display the image along with the rest of your text.

 Stein

  It is not too difficult. I use Photo Bucket, a photo and video hosting site. You can post your own photos and videos.First of all, figure out what albums you want in your account. The amount of photos you upload to the editing service can get quite cumbersome and difficult to locate. Also, if you move a photo to a different album, whatever forum you posted the photo to, the photo will disappear in that forum.

http://s98.photobucket.com

Below is a photo of a screen shot of what I do. You can see at the lower left, IMG code. Click on the code to highlight it and copy it. Paste that code into your message. The photo will be in the message whenever someone looks at the message.

The beauty of this is you can edit (delete and replace the photo) the message in these forums if the photo does not look correct.

I use a Free photo program called Gimp which works quite well. I usually adjust the brightness and contrast in my photos. Some people post pictures that are quite on the dark side.

Rich

 I too use photobucket to post pictures always been a piece of cake, but i noticed the last couple of days that when attempting to post my paste button is now gray'd out....

Anyone come across this problem in the past ?

CB&Q Modeler

 I too use photobucket to post pictures always been a piece of cake, but i noticed the last couple of days that when attempting to post my paste button is now gray'd out....

Anyone come across this problem in the past ?

I always use Ctrl c to copy or Ctrl v to paste. Sometimes use the mouse. Never tried the paste key.

Rich

Well this is whacked, tried your way Rich ,nadda....also now my paste button is no longer grayed out but trying it still no image code....nothin' , wondering if maybe its a problem on photo bucket's end. Guess I'll just wait and see....lol

 I am using Firefox browser. Most of the time I right click with the mouse and select copy or paste. Though I now use a Linux OS, I use to use Firefox with Windows PC and it worked just fine in these forums with the mouse or keyboard. I copy and paste to a Open Office document for spell check. My way.

The only time I use the buttons is for the smiley and that is rare.

My stepson has a laptop with Vista Basic running the Firefox browser just fine. The PC switches to IE when updates are needed. He has had IE and Firefox browsers open at the same time. No big deal.

Rich

This is something I wish MR would change.  Posting images here is more hassle than it's worth a lot of the time, IMO.

Another railroad forum I visit allows uploading of images directly to their servers making posting images so much easier.  They also provide free blog space for members to use for their own personal railroad blog.  Pretty cool if you ask me.  I wonder why MR wouldn't do something similar?

JSperan

ty cool if you ask me.  I wonder why MR wouldn't do something similar?

Yes, the Yahoo groups are like that. I know the cut & paste forum buttons do not work with Firefox except for the smileys.  I do not bother with the other buttons.

I found out when I joined these forums to learn how to adapt and use the key board and mouse for copy and paste, though that is the method I use for everything anyway. Never, ever any issues here when using Firefox with my methods which many PC users use also. It is nothing special and I am not a software type. I just learned those methods some years ago from other PC users.

Rich

JSperan

Another railroad forum I visit allows uploading of images directly to their servers making posting images so much easier.  They also provide free blog space for members to use for their own personal railroad blog.  Pretty cool if you ask me.  I wonder why MR wouldn't do something similar?

Easy: the terabytes all those photos would take (and lots of the original photos are hi-res, upwards of a couple megs).

 Considering there's something like 850,000 posts on the MR servers (and that they don't charge any extra for the forums (not that they're altruistic, I'm sure they charge advertisers based on the hit counts)), that's a lot of horsepower and bandwidth just for the text and links.  To host photos multiply by a factor of maybe 100.  And that doesn't just impact the hard drive space needed for storage -- it would hit the bandwidth and throughput.  

I've just posted a bunch of pictures from photobucket in the "Bridges - show yours" thread  -  photobucket is working fine.

Everyone seems to have their own method of posting from photobucket - here's mine:

Here's what I see when I first go to the page of the sub-album from which I want to take the picture:

I then scroll down to the thumbnail of the photo which I want to post (denoted by the red arrow).  When the cursor is hovered over a photo, note the data which appears beneath the photo:

I then "click" on the thumbnail, and it changes to an enlargement:

Note the box marked "Share this image" in the bottom left-hand corner.  "Click" on the "IMG CODE" line - it will turn blue, as shown, and a momentary message of "COPIED" will appear.

Now return to your composition window here, place the cursor where you want the picture to appear, then, on your control panel click "EDIT", then "PASTE".  A line of data like that below will appear (I've changed the first "[" to "(" so that the data will remain as data when I hit "POST".)

(IMG]http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b399/doctorwayne/some%20water%20scenes/Foe-toesfromfirstcd277.jpg[/IMG]

Without the changed "[", when I hit "POST", the line of data will appear as a picture. 

In summary, 1: find the photo, 2: enlarge it, 3: click on the img code, 4: paste into your post.

Wayne

CB&Q Modeler

 I too use photobucket to post pictures always been a piece of cake, but i noticed the last couple of days that when attempting to post my paste button is now gray'd out....

Anyone come across this problem in the past ?

 Depends on how you do the copy from the photobucket site (and possibly on what web browser you use).

 On the photobucket site, just clicking in the image code box under your picture in listing mode (where you see all the pictures on the same page in your album) used to cause the code to be copied - a small yellow sign saying "copied" used to pop up briefly on photobucket. Once you have something copied, you also could paste it using the paste button in the editor here on the trains.com site.

 But either my browser or the photobucket site (or both) obviously has been updated. Happened quite a while ago. I no longer get "copied" if I just click in the image code box in listing mode on photobucket.

 Two workarounds:

  1) Do as Dr Wayne recommends - fist click on your picture on photobucket, so you see a new web page with just that one picture and the code boxes in the lower left hand corner.

 Just clicking in the img code box on this web page will cause a "copied" message, and you are ready to post the reference on the trains.com website.

 Probably the easiest way for people who get nervous about computerese concepts like "mark text" and "placing text on clipboard".

 2) On photobucket, in listing mode, just use one of the standard ways in your operating system to mark the text inside the fade-in/fade-out image code box under the picture, and then use the standard way in your operating system to place the text on your clipboard.

 Ie, for Microsoft Windows, e.g. click and drag mouse marker over text to mark, right-click plus copy to copy. Or doubleclick text to mark, Ctrl+C to copy. Or click at start of text box to put text marker at start of box, hold down shift key and press the End key to mark text, press Ctrl+C to copy, or whatever combination of mark and copy you feel comfortable with.

  Once you have copied the link, you still can paste it the same way on this (trains.com) website.

 Smile,
 Stein

Philly Bill

JSperan

Another railroad forum I visit allows uploading of images directly to their servers making posting images so much easier.  They also provide free blog space for members to use for their own personal railroad blog.  Pretty cool if you ask me.  I wonder why MR wouldn't do something similar?

Easy: the terabytes all those photos would take (and lots of the original photos are hi-res, upwards of a couple megs).

 Considering there's something like 850,000 posts on the MR servers (and that they don't charge any extra for the forums (not that they're altruistic, I'm sure they charge advertisers based on the hit counts)), that's a lot of horsepower and bandwidth just for the text and links.  To host photos multiply by a factor of maybe 100.  And that doesn't just impact the hard drive space needed for storage -- it would hit the bandwidth and throughput.  

I see.  Well it seems strange that another FREE forum is doing this and the world has not come to an end yet.  Now I'm worried!

JSperan

Philly Bill

JSperan

Another railroad forum I visit allows uploading of images directly to their servers making posting images so much easier.  They also provide free blog space for members to use for their own personal railroad blog.  Pretty cool if you ask me.  I wonder why MR wouldn't do something similar?

Easy: the terabytes all those photos would take (and lots of the original photos are hi-res, upwards of a couple megs).

 Considering there's something like 850,000 posts on the MR servers (and that they don't charge any extra for the forums (not that they're altruistic, I'm sure they charge advertisers based on the hit counts)), that's a lot of horsepower and bandwidth just for the text and links.  To host photos multiply by a factor of maybe 100.  And that doesn't just impact the hard drive space needed for storage -- it would hit the bandwidth and throughput.  

 

I see.  Well it seems strange that another FREE forum is doing this and the world has not come to an end yet.  Now I'm worried!

 Just curious - why do you feel it is bad that some company, which is giving you something for free, isn't offering you even more for free ? 

 Grin,
 Stein

Personally I prefer to have my pictures and video in one location, such a Photobucket, instead of spread helter skelter on various web sites. It really is no harder to link a picture from Photobucket than it is to upload to each web forum. With Photobucket I can upload picture #1 once, copy the link and post that link on several different forums. Photobucket is a free service, this is a free forum, I fail to see the difference. I dislike Yahoo groups because they severely limit the size of the picture.

MHO

Doctorwayne,

Thank you for going to the trouble to post the above tutorial on "how to add pictures".  This reallly helped.  Now I need to start a photobucket account.  Funny thing really, I used to chuckle at my daughter for all the time she sent on her photobucket account.  She is very much into photography.  Now look at me.  I starting the same thing!  :)

Cool pictures BTY,

Thanks again, Brian

I have been using Yahoo Groups for many years. When I started using Photo Bucket, I found I could also post the Photo Bucket links in Yahoo messages and post photos into the Yahoo Photos section. which I agree are limited.  I stopped going to the church of "we have never done it that way before".

There are times I include Photo Bucket links in email messages to others in a couple different email services I use. I am not a software type, I have and are still learning on how to adapt using the 'Net.

You have to be willing to adapt to the situation.

Rich

HO Brian

Doctorwayne,

Thank you for going to the trouble to post the above tutorial on "how to add pictures".  This reallly helped.  Now I need to start a photobucket account.  Funny thing really, I used to chuckle at my daughter for all the time she sent on her photobucket account.  She is very much into photography.  Now look at me.  I starting the same thing!  :)

Cool pictures BTY,

Thanks again, Brian

Always glad to be able to help out, Brian. 

I always thought that my kids wasted a lot of time on the computer, and was planning on getting rid of it when they moved out.  Of course, then I discovered the various train-related sites and was hooked.  They never fail to remind me, though, of how much time I'm "wasting" on the computer.

Wayne

 Hi,

I'm going to try to post my 1st image.

Alright, how come the image isn't clickable, or larger? Please comment.

Edit: OK, so I found out why the original image wasn't very large, and not clickable. When I right clicked on the image in Photobucket, it was the thumbnail photo. If you use the drop down window IMG code from the thumbnail photo, OR the IMG code from the enlarged window, you get the larger clickable photo to show in your post on the Forum. However, I did notice that the img in [ ] brackets was capitalized, and not smaller case, like what was stated earlier in this thread. 

Blaine

Blaine,

Your pic properties show that your image is only 4.5K in size.  Do you know the size of the original that you uploaded onto Photobucket?  Photobucket may be or may have compressed it somehow.

Tom

steinjr

Just curious - why do you feel it is bad that some company, which is giving you something for free, isn't offering you even more for free ? 

 Grin,
 Stein

Well, I never said it was bad...just that another forum I visit makes it more user friendly.

Oh, I should make it clear that the other forum I mention is not really free.  It costs me nothing to use it but advertisers are paying for it's existence, otherwise it would not be there.

Really, I don't think the MR forum exists because MR wants to give anything to anyone for free.  It is in MR's best interest to have an online forum and doing so likely nets subscriptions, book sales, download article sales, and beside that advertisers help support it. Having the "free" forum probably generates more revenue than it consumes.  If MR didn't have a forum who would see their popup soliciting subscriptions?

Actually, the idea that it is "free" is a misappropriation of terms.  Someone is paying for it.  Either advertisers, subscribers, news stand sales...someone, somewhere is paying for the forum.  It's not just coming out of Neil's pocket or anything...

I guess it's bad then for me to desire to see MR improve the forum.  I'll try not to suggest any improvements again.  My bad!

JSperan

I guess it's bad then for me to desire to see MR improve the forum.  I'll try not to suggest any improvements again.  My bad!

JS,

Suggestions and a desire to see things improve are fine.  It's the practicality/expense of the said improvements that's the issue.  Photo uploading sights like Photobucket and RailImages are setup to host and post images.  I'd be very curious to see what their server "room" looks like.  Realistically, Kalmbach may not have the space (nor the extra $$$ to kick around) to do this sort of thing.

Tom

tstage

Realistically, Kalmbach may not have the space (nor the extra $$$ to kick around) to do this sort of thing.

Fair enough Tom.  Thanks for your comments.