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John Dunkle
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Posted: Wed Feb 27th, 2008 02:09 pm |
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As many of you are exploring how to upload images to the forum, I thought I'd create a HOW TO for the new folks. Once you get the hang of it - it's kind'a fun to share some of your pics with the rest of us.
There are two ways to have your pictures show in your posts. One way is to ATTACH them, and the second is to upload them to a hosting website, and then EMBED them.
OK - let's start with the first - ATTACHing a picture.
STEP 1
Select REPLY if you want to post in an existing thread, if you want to start a NEW THREAD, simply select NEW TOPIC. When you do - a screen like this will open:
Notice the area at the bottom of the posting form ATTACHMENT, with a BROWSE button. Click on the BROWSE button.
STEP 2
When you click on the BROWSE button, a window will open showing the contents of your computer. Navigate to the "folder" where you have saved your picture(s) you would like to ATTACH. When you do - you will have a BROWSE screen like this:
STEP 3
Select the picture you would like to ATTACH by "clicking" on it. Notice when you do, the picture name is in FILE NAME box. Next - click the OPEN button, which will insert the picture name into the attachment area. In the example below - I'm ATTACHing the picture "2.jpg"
STEP 4
Finally - select the SEND button, and your picture will be uploaded from your computer into the FORUM, and attached to your post!
COMMON QUESTIONS
I get an error when I upload, or my pictures don't show?
Typically - this is due to the fact that your pictures are too big and they need to be re-sized to be "smaller". "Size" is measured by two aspects - 1) the physical size of the picture (in pixels). Most Digital cameras take pictures that are about 3000 x 2000 pixels - which, when viewed at 100%, is slightly smaller than the size of Montana. And the larger the picture - the bigger the file size! So, we need to "resize" the image - which is pretty easy, too.
HOW TO RESIZE AN IMAGE
The GOAL is to get a copy of your image which is:
1) About 800x600 pixels or less; and
2) Less than 302000 bytes (302 kB) <-and the smaller the size, the faster it will be to load for the Forum users!!
There are two ways to achieve this. I use a handy program (Windows XP & Vista) called VSO Image resizer. It's free and it works! JUST BE CAREFUL that when you resize your image - you want to CREATE COPIES, rather than replace your original picture. You can find it here:
http://www.vso-software.fr/products/image_resizer/
There are also a number of other editing tools you can use, and almost any of them will resize an original picture. Again, the goal is to have the picture you want to attach at 800x600 (or less) and less than 302000 bytes. Some folks believe that a file this small won't show any detail - but, not true! Here is a picture at ~500 pixels wide ~800 pixels high and about 117kb:
If you do NOT want to install your own software, there are also websites dedicated to do it for you! They will resize your picture for you via your browser, and when it's finished - allow you to copy them back to your computer to ATTACH in the Forum. Two excellent examples are:
http://www.shrinkpictures.com/
and
http://www.resize.it/
A little later - I'll post how to include pictures hosted from websites, rather than attaching them…
Hope this helps!
John
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David Purnell
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Posted: Wed Feb 27th, 2008 02:31 pm |
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John, it would also be very helpful if we could add attachments in PM's.
Dave
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John Dunkle
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Posted: Wed Feb 27th, 2008 02:38 pm |
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Hey Dave,
I agree with you, but unfortunately, this Forum software we are using now doesn't allow that feature. I could probably hack it in - but, we (Greg, Jeff & I along with the BOD) are looking at alternative forum architectures, so I'm not sure it would be worth it on an interim basis? Anyway - my thanks for the suggestion - I agree!!!
Best to you!
John
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Buddy Marson
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Posted: Wed Feb 27th, 2008 03:25 pm |
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John, Thanks so much for the info! I'll save it for future reference. It's nice to see an attached photo with the message.
Best regards,
Buddy Marson
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Buddy Marson
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Tom Carter
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Posted: Wed Feb 27th, 2008 04:46 pm |
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| John, Many thanks for posting this information. Is there any way to modify the system so that when we screw up, which I do frequently, the message we have written will not be dumped? It's frustrating to loose everything we have written. Can't the system just tell us the image or what ever we're attaching is just to large or is unacceptable? I tried to attach a word document the other day and I got a message that the "extension" was unacceptable and it dumped the text I had worked on over 20 minutes. I could copy and paste the word document in the body as it was small but I didn't know it would not accept a word document. Thanks again for all you've done to improve the system. Cheers, Tom
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Dean Romig
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Posted: Wed Feb 27th, 2008 06:12 pm |
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Thanks John, that's just what I needed. Now to retry posting  Last edited on Thu Feb 28th, 2008 09:48 am by Dean Romig
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Greg Baehman
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Posted: Wed Feb 27th, 2008 10:55 pm |
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I am running a test pic from the attach instructions John has posted. Ordinarily, I have used a hosting website (http://www.photobucket.com) which automatically resizes the pics for you. In this case, the pic I am posting was 2592 by 1944 and 2105665 bytes, this BBS wouldn't allow such a large pic to post so I logged onto http://www.shrinkpictures.com and downsized it to 760 by 570 and 71925 bytes.
Attached Image (viewed 910 times):
 Last edited on Wed Feb 27th, 2008 10:57 pm by Greg Baehman
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Austin W Hogan
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Posted: Thu Feb 28th, 2008 01:12 am |
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Microsoft Picture Manager is part of Microsoft Office. This is usually on XP pro machines. If you send your picture to desktop, you can call it up with picture manager, go to Picture, and click on compress. Compress the picture and save with an extension; pick the degree of compression to fit the 300000 kb allowed by the forum.
Best, Austin
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Tom Pollock
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Posted: Thu Feb 28th, 2008 01:20 am |
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I find that an easier way to get the correct picture size is to just change the settings on your camera before you even take the picture. No resizing is necessary, because the file size is small to begin with.
What I'd really like to know is why I can only attach one picture to the Forum at a time. The only way I know of to attach more than one picture is to "reply" to my own question for each additional picture. Does anyone know of an easier way to do this? P.S. - I have a dial-up modem!
Tom
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Tom Flanigan
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Posted: Thu Feb 28th, 2008 01:36 am |
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John Dunkle wrote: Hey Dave,
I agree with you, but unfortunately, this Forum software we are using now doesn't allow that feature. I could probably hack it in - but, we (Greg, Jeff & I along with the BOD) are looking at alternative forum architectures, so I'm not sure it would be worth it on an interim basis?
John....hacking it in or trying to somehow get at the source code doesn't seem like a good idea. It will probably ensure that you won't be able to load any new updates of the software and you'll be stuck at the current rev level forever.
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Gary Frink
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Posted: Thu Feb 28th, 2008 11:41 am |
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| Just a test to see if I can do this. Attached Image (viewed 853 times):
![PARKERCHUKARS2 [].JPG](../attachment.php?id=4008)
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Dean Romig
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Posted: Sat Mar 1st, 2008 11:15 am |
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John, thanks for the instructions. I just couldn't put it together and was pretty frustrated. My program doesn't have an "attach" option and I tried and tried to figure it out. Finally the light came on brightly and I clicked "export" and everything was a cinch after that. Now I'm a picture postin' fool but I'll let up on it after the novelty wears off (or I run out of pictures  )Attached Image (viewed 772 times):
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