How to Post Photos on the TDPRI

[TDPRI]

There are two ways to add a photo to your post. But lets cover some basic ground first:

Type of file to upload
First, you must have a photo that is the correct format. A GIF, JPG (JPEG on a MAC) or PNG file is required.

Size of the photo.
Many digital cameras these days will take a photo 4000 pixels wide by 4000 pixels tall. This is a HUGE photo when posted in a website. It's 2 or 3 times the size of your screen. So, insure that your photo is the right size for the page. We prefer 800 wide and any height. But as long as it's reasonable 1000 by 1000 won't be too big a problem. Use a photo editing program to reduce the size if your photo is too big, BEFORE uploading it to your photo host. If your photo is too large or is too many bytes (over 100,000 bytes per photo) you'll get photo errors.

How to add a photo
Then you need to decide if you want to ATTACH the photo to your post or if you want to EMBED a photo hosted elsewhere in your post.

To "Attach" a photo you simply:

Click the "paperclip" Icon in the message box. Here's where to find it:



Don't see the paperclip icon? Then you are in the "Quick Reply" message box. To get out of that and see the full BBcode choices click "Go Advanced" or just use the button instead of the "Quick Reply" option.

A new window will open (don't have popups blocked or it won't work). In that new window you'll have three browse boxes that let you pick a photo file from your computer. After you've located the file click "UPLOAD". It looks like this:



Close that window and you are done. The attached photo will always be at the END of your post. Click "Preview" and you can see it in action.

Photos can only be ATTACHED once on the TDPRI. That's why some like to use a second method of inserting a photo into a post. That second method is detailed below.

To "EMBED" a photo from elsewhere:

To "Embed" a photo from somewhere else your photo will need to be hosted on some other website. This can just be the TDPRI's TelePhoto Gallery, Fickr, Photobucket, or some other OPEN photo host. Yahoo and other photo hosts that require you to log in to see the photos will not work.

Next you need the URL of the PHOTO... not the page it is located on. A photo URL will always contain a file with a .jpg or .gif extension. If it has a .htm or .html extension or even nothing at the end then that's a page not a photo file.

You can get the photo URL many places. A "right click" on a photo on a web page will bring up a menu on PC. Click on the "properties" in that menu and at the bottom you should see a "location" such as this:

http://www.website.com/myphoto.jpg

Once you have a URL simply insert this into your TDPRI post as you are composing it. Put a "return" between your photo and the words you are typing or they'll run together.

After you insert this photo URL in your post, highlight the entire URL with your mouse and click on the IMG button in the BBCODE list above the box where you type your post.

It's a good idea to "Preview" your post before you "Submit" it to see if the photo shows up.

Here is an inserted photo:



And here is the coding that inserted it into this post:

[img]http://www.tdpri.com/gifs/69Tele.jpg[/img]

Give it a try. Right click on the photo, then click on "properties" and see the location. It's the same as the coding that I posted above.

That's all there is too it. Remember if you do everything as I've illustrated your photo will show up. If it doesn't then you are probably using the wrong kind of file, the wrong URL or, most likely, the wrong photo host.

Also, our photo gallery and other photo hosts like Photobucket will often provide you with ready to use URLs with the coding already attached to it and you can simply paste this complete URL into your post. No need to click on the Insert Image icon and using that -- because if you do you'll see extra [img] tags surrounding your photo. That just means you have double the img tags needed.