How to place an image in your messages

[Mike Phillips]

How to place an image in your messages (http://meguiarsonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26526)


First: You need to "Host" your photos somewhere on the Internet
In order to insert an image into your message on this forum or any forum it needs to be "hosted" somewhere on the Internet. Here on the Meguiar's Online Discussion Forum all our member receive space on our server to host their pictures. As a member you get your own "Photo Gallery" in which you can create multiple albums to organize your photos. (There will be a how-to article for how to use this feature also).

You can use other free hosting sites like PhotoBucket, Flickr, etc., but we hope you'll take advantage of your gallery here on this forum because all too often people share photos they've hosed on one of these free sites and then later delete them to make more space on their free account and then the photos they shared on our forum turn into red x's. (ruins a thread).

Second: You need to resize your photos to a viewable size.
This means you need to resize your photo to somewhere between 500 and 800 pixels wide. Height doesn't really matter, as we all vertical scroll as we read a thread. What you don't want to do is make your reader horizontal scroll in order to see the entire picture.

And guess what? your reader has to horizontal scroll, they can never see the entire picture anyways because as they scroll to one side of the screen to see the portion of the too-wide picture that's not visible, the portion of the picture on the opposite side of the screen rolls out of view. Thus they can never see the ENTIRE photo. Kind of defeats the purpose of sharing a photo.

Does that make sense? It's generally accepted as poor netiquette. All to often people post HUGE photos in their excitement to share a picture of their car without thinking this aspect out.

This is 500 pixels wide
http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/500_M07Collection.jpg

This is 600 pixels wide
http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/600_M07Collection.jpg


This is 700 pixels wide
http://www.showcargarage.com/gallery/files/1/700_M07Collection.jpg


This is 800 pixels wide
http://www.showcargarage.com/gallery/files/1/M07Collection.jpg


Here's a thread that addresses this problem with pictures.

Good Photo Netiquette for posting photos on discussion forums (http://meguiarsonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25427)


If you don't know how wide your photos are to start with, this picture will tell you how to find out that information.

If you don't know how to resize your photos without distorting them, then this how-to article will show you how.

How to resize your photos before uploading (http://meguiarsonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=879)



Once you have your photos resized to a forum friendly size, now you're ready to upload them into your Photo Gallery here on Meguiar's Online.

First, make sure you're logged into the Meguiar's Online forum, you can tell if your logged in because if you are, then right below the Meguiar's Online Logo in the upper right hand corner will be a "Welcome Block" that will say,

"Welcome back Mike Phillips" or in your case it will say "Welcome back your forum nickname"


Once you've established you're logged in, then click on the word "Gallery" in the Gold Navigation Bar that's positioned across every forum page.

http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/PhotoGalleryScreenShot003.JPG



Next, make sure the photo gallery recognizes you, see the picture to see how to check your status. It should recognize you if your logged into the forum but this is just to make sure that you won't have any problems when you go to upload a photo. (We have had cases of people that are logged into the forum but not logged into the Photo Gallery, usually it has to do with one of a few things, ZoneAlarm, AOL accounts, Mac Computers or some other kind of Firewall or Browser/Cookie issues. So if you have a problem uploading a photo then first check to see if the Photo Gallery software recognizes you.

http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/PhotoGalleryScreenShot002.JPG



Once you know you're logged in, next click on the Upload Photos text button here,

http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/ClickUpload.jpg



Next, you need to know where your photos are on your computer that you want to upload. This may seem like a no-brainer but sometimes Newbies to computers and digital cameras know their photos are on their computer, but they don't know where.

:scratchhead1 :scratchhead1 :scratchhead1


So make sure you know the location of the folder that hold the photos you want to upload because you're going to need to tell the PhotoPost Gallery where the photos are stored by browsing to them.


http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/Upload01.jpg





http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/Upload02.jpg



http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/Upload03.jpg




http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/Upload04.jpg




http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/Upload05.jpg




http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/Upload06.jpg



When you're happy with everything, then click on the Process button on the bottom of the page and your selection of photos will be uploaded into your PhotoPost Photo Gallery here on MeguiarsOnline.com and you will be returned to your Gallery homepage with a display of your most recently uploaded photos in Thumbnail size.

Next we'll take a look at how to insert your photos into your messages...



:)

[Mike Phillips]

Now that you have some really cool pictures uploaded into your Gallery let's take a look at how to "Insert" them into your messages.

First, locate the thumbnail of the photo you want to share in your message in your Gallery. For example, perhaps you just installed a new wing onto your car for better performance?

http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/NewWing.jpg

Then click on the Thumbnail to bring up the full size image.
http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/Upload07.jpg


If you upload an image larger than 700 pixels wide you will need to click on the image a second time to get to the larger size image. The default for the first image shown is a maximum of 700 pixels wide.

http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/Upload08.jpg


http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/Upload09.jpg

http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/Upload10.jpg


http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/Upload11.jpg


At this point you should have the URL Address waiting in memory for you to paste into a dialog box.


:)

[Mike Phillips]

To add a picture to your message, look for this little button http://meguiarsonline.com/forums/images/editor/insertimage.gif in the Text Formatting Tools just above where you see this text. Click on it.

http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/Upload19.JPG



You'll see this,
http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/Upload13.jpg


Note that a chunk of code is already in this dialog box every time you open it. You need to either delete it or copy and paste over it while it's highlighted.

A common problem people have is they don't remove the code and after they copy and paste the URL Address they end up with two sets of http:// in their line of code and as a result, you see a Red X instead of a pictures.

This is correct

http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/NewWing.jpg

This is incorrect, note the extra http://

http://http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/NewWing.jpg (http://http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/NewWing.jpg)

http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/Upload13a.JPG


http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/Upload17.JPG


http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/Upload14.jpg





If you do everything right, the code should look like this,

http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/Upload15.jpg



http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/Upload18.JPG



And if you did everything right the picture will appear!

http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/forums/photopost/data/881/NewWing.jpg


Next we'll show you a few tips for working with the code to tweak your formatting.


:)

[Mike Phillips]

***Placeholder***


Can someone familiar with uploading and inserting pictures with PhotoPost read through the above and see if I have anything wrong or out of order.

Not this is written for an absolute Newbie that way it will help anyone that ever needs help.


Thanks!



:)

[roushstage2]

Looks good! Interesting way to get the URL...

[RogueGypsy]

It works, long way around the block if your browser and mouse has right 'click' ability (more than one mouse button). But it works, none-the-less.

..

..

[Ryan L.]

If your using Firefox or Chrome, it has a button that says, "Copy Image URL" when you right click. Much faster and saves a ton of time.

Ryan

[Nappers]

Looks great Mike from my point, I used to use the right click, properties way until I found the way I had in my post using the links on the gallery page after clicking that one symbol.....