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Help with image posting

I was about to make my first posting on OPF after having had a go at the "River and Tree" challenge but after many attempts I cannot work out how to actually post my image in reply.

After much searching, I read I should do this via a "link" but really don't follow how to achieve this. Perhaps a clearly labelled "sticky" post solely on this topic for the uninitiated could be added so more folk like me could participate in the Challenges. I hope I haven't missed this information on the site but have seached pretty well everywhere.

Alan

1. Upload a Web-suitable version of your image to either your own server (if you have one for your Web site for instance).
1a. Or upload it to a gallery service like Flickr.

2. In your post on OPF include the image tag ( ).

Expanded advice on embedding an image into an OPF post

Dierk, I thought I'd just add some specifics from my own learning experience to your concise and clear instructions.

There is an icon on the toolbar of the window for composing a post here at OPF. It' is the fifth icon from the right, in the second toolbar at the top of the composition window--the toolbar that has B (for bold) at the far left..

When clicked on, it brings up a Java Script dialogue window. One can simply copy-and-paste the URL from the website where one's image is hosted--speaking of the commercial sites, that is.

For Flickr, the steps are:

1) Create an account.

2) Click on Upload. Use the Choose function to find the path on your machine to your image, and open it into the Flickr "Choose" field.

3) When the upload is finished, cliick on the thumbnail of your image to bring it into focus.

4) Immediately above the image resulting from that click, click on "All Sizes."

5) Select the size you wish.

4) Below the picture will be a short-string URL (link).

5) Copy this. I like to highlight the URL and use CTRL-c to do the copy.
5a) Don't try to use the page address in the "To" field of the browser--won't work.
5b) But use the URL Flickr provides for embedding (linking) described in step 4 above.

6) At the point in your OPF post where you wish the picture to appear, position your cursor.

7) Click on the third icon from the right in the toolbar above your post.

8) Paste the URL. I use CTRL-v to do this.

9) Press the Preview button. If the steps have been followed correctly, the image will replace the HTML code from your OPF composition window in the Preview window.

10) If the image doesn't appear in the Preview window, back to the drawing board!

Steps above distilled from my own hard-won experience.

NOTE 1: It's a bit easier at Village Photo. The steps to get the URL to use to embed the image in the post are almost self-evident. But Village Photo limits the pixel size of the image you can upload more stringently than Flickr does.

NOTE 2: Pbase won't let you link unless you have a paid account.

Mary

Thank you Dierk and Mary for your concise and detailed replies respectively. As I thought, it seems that a hosted site is necessary beforeI can post any of my images.
It would be really handy though, if it were possible for those of us without this to just reference an image file on my hard disk and include that as part of of a post.

Alan

Theoretically possible already - BUT YOU DON'T WANT THAT - by using the URI of the file on your computer including the IP address [there's a little more necessary but ...].

What you want to have, and I hope OPF will get that over time, is an upload possibility. Unfortunately Javascript alone wouldn' do it, storage space is necessary as is bandwidth and traffic [that is payment for more bits shifted around] => money. One of the reasons the former Rob Galbraith Forum is now a subscriber's board.

PBase provides linking URL

Mary Bull said:

Dierk, I thought I'd just add some specifics from my own learning experience to your concise and clear instructions.

There is an icon on the toolbar of the window for composing a post here at OPF. It' is the fifth icon from the right, in the second toolbar at the top of the composition window--the toolbar that has B (for bold) at the far left..

When clicked on, it brings up a Java Script dialogue window. One can simply copy-and-paste the URL from the website where one's image is hosted--speaking of the commercial sites, that is.

...

NOTE 2: Pbase won't let you link unless you have a paid account.

Mary

Click to expand...

Yes, PBase requires a paid account in order to link to an image. I've been a PBase user since April of 2002. When I started with PBase, not many other photo hosting sites existed yet.

Once you've subscribed, the image edit page shows the direct linking URL. (The URL shown in a broswer's address field when one views an image isn't the same as the linking URL.) One need only copy and paste the URL, just as you describe. Selecting a different image size requires editing the URL to change the default, usually "medium", to something else, e.g., "small" or "large" or "original".

Bob

Best place to upgrade to "paid": PBase, Flickr, or Village Photo?

Bob, thank you so much for posting this additional information.

I've been considering whether to upgrade to a paid account, and trying to decide between Flickr, Village Photo, and PBase. I presently have free accounts at all three.

The majority of the images I've so far uploaded--quite small in number, actually--are at Flickr. That may not be the best reason to upgrade at Flickr rather than at one of the other two, but it does incline me to choose that one for my paid hosting site.

Could you comment on this? Would there be advantages for me at PBase, as compared to Flickr?

Mary

Moved here from the Pentax forum to keep the topic in one place! Asher



Going off topic here slightly (OK, more than slightly), can anyone recommend an inexpensive image hosting site? The one I was using previously has had problems and I have stopped using them. I don't really need my own dedicated site for promoting my images, just some place to put up a small sampling and post example images to link to for forum posts, etc. There are so many sites out there I figured some of the forum members could give me some input so I can get some images back on-line fairly soon.

Kyle

Kyle, Flicker has a free option---small amount to be uploaded I think. I haven't checked that recently, but you might try it as I know you can link to it easily. I still use Pbase as I have for years with good success. I also have a very small gallery on Flicker but haven't uploaded anything to it for a good long while.

I've been following this thread---and a young friend of mine bought a K10 last week so I've forwarded her the lens info.

Diane

Thanks Diane, I'll check them out.

Mary, have you by now upgraded your online account? If not , who's going to answer Mary's question!!

I use a number of accounts. Those that fulfill orders, just for ordinary prints, are free, such as ExposureManager.com. Others like Pictage are higher actors and one pays for the privilege to belong, but they have more packages and services to offer the busy professional. I don't use any service like PBase for galleries myself.

So what do you use and why?

Asher

I've looked at this relatively recently, although not in any really analytical way. What I've done suits me, but others almost certainly have different requirements. Certainly there are things I'd like to be able to do, but can't at present.

I have some hosted online space of "my own" here in Australia. However, that's for a bunch of mostly non-photographic stuff, and is way too expensive to fill up with photos I put online for various reasons.

I looked around for some space where I could store photos "for free" in fairly large quantity (at low resolution, though - mostly 640 pixels as the longest dimension). All this needs to be is a holding space, so I can link to the photos from posts elsewhere. I thought my only requirements were free space in sufficient quantity, and the ability to upload a batch of photos almost as easily as a single photo. While hardly exhaustive, my looking around took me to flickr as being suitable for my purposes. I did not look at, and have no real interest in, the "community" aspects of the site (photo critiques, "friends" etc.) as the general standard of photos uploaded to flickr (my own included) has a pretty poor "keeper" to "snapshot" ratio.

While I'm not really into it, deviantArt seems better for showcasing your best work, seeing others' best work and so on, as its self-consciously an "Art" site (whether you agree in practice, or not). dA doesn't allow you to link to photos stored there, from other sites, so its pretty useless for that. (dA is also about more than just photography, though its my only interest there.)

And that's where I sit - except that I upgraded my flickr account to a paid one. This was simply to be allowed to group my photos into sets (or more than about 3 of 'em), so I could direct people to just one set to see the photos they are/were interested in. This was for a couple of Aussie Rules football matches I shot, where I could upload photos for people in "our" team to look at, and for them to then e-mail me regarding any prints they might want. While there are other ways I could have done this (for free on flickr, or elsewhere) it was easy for me to do it, and not expensive (I recall about US$30 for a paid membership).

Of course what I'd really like for that kind of application is something like Photobox (I think) in the UK where you can put up low-res shots (for people to see) and have people select and buy prints at whatever sizes and prices you set, with Photobox printing from a not-downloadable high-res version, charging their base rates for the printing, shipping etc. and paying the remainder of your price to your account. There's nothing like that here in Oz, or from anyone who will even ship prints here. (Perhaps a business opportunity, someone?)

I've probably gone on too much here, about far too little. But for what its worth, its what I'm doing.

...Mike

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mfunnell
http://mfunnell.deviantart.com/gallery/

Kyle

I got fed up with the 'clunky' free or very low cost services - I found them to be a hassle - just too many limitations as to what you can do or the content you can 'post' (read the fine print in your agreements!). IMO some sites reserve unacceptable editorial/control rights to your images. They can shut you down and and there is nothing you can do about it except start over somewhere else.

At least one site prevents you from having direct contact with a 'customer' interested in your image for purchase or prints. They control/manage the print purchase and delivery - and of course they make money - and you won't know who has a copy of your image.

Also I found these services time consuming to manage. It is too complicated/clumsy to do simple things like loading/rearranging multiple images.

I am not sure what you mean by 'inexpensive', but I have been really pleased with 'bigblackbag.com' http://www.bigblackbag.com/

It is a 'portfolio' website with extensive features, that also allows for a reasonable level of e-Commerce, so you can potentially make some $$ selling images/prints etc.. You get your own domain name and each image has its own page so it can be individually referenced in a posting if you choose.

It has lots of design options and all administrative controls are in your own hands. Very easy to work with = can load and move images between galleries in a few seconds. you can have multiple galleries within portfolios. You can format, show or hide galleries pretty much as you wish. There is even a "password protected" client proofing feature - that I have found very handy.

They have a 7-day free trial -- also lots of client sites you can check-out to see what is possible with their design tools.

not that my site is 'great' but this is what I have done, relatively 'pain-free' -- www.rossstockwellphotography.com

Oh yeah - the cost about $20/per month - less if you sign up for 1 or 2 year term - well worth the cost in time saved and ease of use - IMHO.

good luck

Hi Ross,

Sounds very interesting!

Did you pay for December, LOL!

The link doesn't work,

Asher

Hi Asher

I just checked and 'all is a go' at my end - both links work fine. Give another try - may be an internet gremlin

Of course I recognize you wonderful website!

You've done a great job. Simple but clean efficient interface. I already told you I liked the pictures, especially the boat, or 1/2 a boat!

With what did you desing the site and do you need to use code?

Oh, the music, get a choice of tunes perhaps

Asher

Asher

The boat/half boat thing is a 'war canoe' - the image is from Algonquin Park in Northern Ontario.

The design of the web site is a modification of one of the dozens of template formats bigblackbag offers. No coding is required at all. I pretty much had the website done in couple of evenings [5-6 hours = 3-5 glasses of wine ]. After that it has been just tweaking things over time.

If one is VERY fussy or particular, the design templates may be too limiting - but as I say I only have so much time - I don't want to get bogged down in 'coding'.

As for the music - yes it is one of the music loops offerred with the service. They are all pretty bad IMO. I think I will probably drop it all together -- I can load my own, but it is hard to find something that is royalty free and actually 'fits' with the purpose of the site. If anyone can recommend a good source for these loops, I'd appreciate it.

Bump.

I would seriously like to see a fuller discussion of what the perfect file hosting site would be. I can give y'all a quick overview of many free sites.

In terms of quick linking for websites and this forum, say, go Photobucket (http://photobucket.com/) There is no other. The reason? Free. Bunch of space and no upper limit on number of photographs (unlike flickr which caps you at 200 for free accounts.) Displays many pictures on one page and have one click copying. Easy to do simple edits like rotation and size reduction (of course, it is even more efficient to reduce your image's size using Toyviewer first). The file upload page is on the same front page as many of your most recent images.

In terms of social networking, flickr is of course king. Great interface for comments and interactions with other members. However, unless you pay the number of pictures you can upload is limited at 200.

The best allrounder in terms of a free web album might just be webshots in my view. While a little bit dowdier than flickr, it has all the comment features and tags. You can upload many more photos, including an extra 100 for each month you keep your account for.

I have not used picasa and only tried bubbler in a casual fashion, finding it easy to use but hopelessly flakey.

I think I might just be ready to start shelling out for a paid service. But I'm treading carefully since I have a feeling moving would be a nightmare. I've seen attractive sites based on the smugmug service, pbase services. Anybody have any more info?