Posting Photos on the Forum

[DawnCavanaugh]

Hello Everyone!

We have been able to work it out so that we can increase the storage space for member photos to 2 MB (2000kb) for each person.

The key to working with more photos is to reduce their file size appropriately. Most cameras today are set to take hi res photos for greater print quality. However, you can optimize your images for web viewing (without affecting their original resolution), which greatly increases the amount of photos you can post.

Start a folder on your computer where you will store the images you want to add to the Forum and add a copy of the photo to that folder (retain the original in another folder so you don't modify it). Then optimize the photo for web viewing. You can do the optimization in many photo editing programs, including one that ships with most PCs called Microsoft Picture Manager (if you don't see it on your computer, click the Start icon to reveal the search box, and then type in "Microsoft Picture Manager".) There you can open your photo, make basic edits, and then within the edit menu click "compress pictures" and select web view. Save the newly compressed photo to your folder for uploading.

Another free service like http://www.webresizer.com/ can help you optimize the photos for forum viewing and save space.

You can also use a third-party image hosting service like Flickr and share the links on the Forum. This should give you a nearly unlimited quantity of photos to post, since the image isn't actually stored on our site. If you want your photos available for perpetuity, then using a third-party hosting service will ensure that the photo stays active on our Forum. If you must delete photos in your "My Media" folder on the forum to make room for more photos, they will also disappear from the post.

As a VIEWER of a photo, if you happen to like a particular photograph and want to save it for later reference (just in case the original poster must delete it to make room for more photos), try "right-clicking" on the photo itself. You should see a menu that allows you to "Save Picture As". Re-name the photo, select a destination to save it (perhaps you can make another folder on your desktop for inspirational photos) and then you'll always have a reference.

To save room on our servers for all of the photos that quilters want to upload, the system is set to display a thumbnail of a photo you upload at 100 x 100 pixels. When you click on the photo itself, it will open to a larger view. The size of the larger photo will depend on the size at which the original poster uploaded it.

To optimize the photo without getting an error message, resize it to a maximum of 1600 (high) by 1200 (wide). This will display quite a large photo when you click on a thumbnail. The photos I attached for this test post were all "resized" using a standard drop-down selection in my photo software of 1280 x 1024 (in the "custom size" category of my software). This is still smaller than the "maximum" size set for photo uploads.

When you click on the first photo thumbnail, it will open to a large size. If you hover your mouse near the right edge of the photo, you'll see a "next" box appear so that you can move on to the next photo attachment. Hover around the left side and you'll see a "previous" box.

To attach more than one photo at a time to your post, you will want to click on link below the "attachment" icon at the bottom of your topic to use "advanced uploader (requires Flash 9)" mode of attaching photos. With that you can go to the location on your computer where you store photos, and then select more than one using the "control- & mouse click" (PCs) or "command- & mouse click (MACs). The system will upload them when you post your topic.