[R Deckard]

9 Easy Steps to Posting Images (via ImageShack®)
Article By: R Deckard




Introduction:

OK, so you've taken pictures of your lovely new chips and downloaded them to your computer, and now you want to post them on the forum for all to admire. But how? The basic concept seems rather simple: upload your picture to an image-hosting site, and then put the code in your post that will call up the picture. But finding an appropriate site and figuring out their uploading and coding methods can be difficult. Well, I have found that using the hosting site called ImageShack (www.imageshack.us) to be an ideal solution: it's quick, it's easy, and it's free. It's also ChipTalk.net's officially-stated preferred method for posting photos. So let's get started!

1. Know where your images are.

First, have the image file on your computer in some easy to find place, for example: My Documents\My Pictures\newchips.jpg

2. Check you image sizes.

Make sure it is not larger than 1024 KB (ImageShack will not host any larger ones). If it is, you must use some image-editing program to reduce the file size of the image. You can do this by reducing the image's size, resolution, and/or JPEG compression quality so that the file size is reduced to 1024 KB or less. Normally you will want to have your image large enough to show good detail, so I recommend attempting to reduce the image's resolution and/or JPEG compression quality first. This is because most pictures and scans you take will have resolutions greater than 100 dpi (dots per inch)--a good thing for making prints, but a bit of overkill for viewing on a monitor (most monitors can only display between 72-100 dpi). If you already own a good image-editing program (like Adobe Photoshop) you should be able to tinker with each parameter individually to achieve a good result. But probably the simplest way is to start-up Microsoft Paint (found in Windows' "Accessories", or you can "Run: mspaint"), open up your image in it, click "File -> Save As", type in a new filename, and "Save as type: JPEG". This results in a new image with a 96-dpi resolution and about a 77% JPEG quality. In most cases, this can reduce the file size by 50% or more without any real change in how it appears on a monitor. If you still want to reduce the size of the image, click "Image -> Stretch/Skew", type in the new percentages, and resave the image.

3. Get thee to the internet.

Fire up your browser, go to www.imageshack.us and register so that you can keep track of all you images. Once you get your activation email, click the activation link to return to the site. You should now see that the "Register" link has been replaced by a "My Images" link. You can click this in the future to view and manage all of the images you upload to the site. Note that ImageShack "knows" who you are by the cookies it leaves with your browser after you activate--if your cookies get wiped out, you will no longer be able to access your "My Images" page until you re-activate via your old activation email message (which you should save) or by registering again with the same email address.

4. Browse for you image.

Click the "Browse..." button and select your image file. You should see the file path and name appear in the blank space next to the button.

5. Host it!

Click the "host it!" button. It will take some time to upload your image. When it's done, a new page will appear, showing a thumbnail of your image on the right, and several sets of posting and linking codes on the left. Ignore all these for now, and just click "My Images", which will then take you to a thumbnail gallery of your images, including the new one.

6. Find the style to use in your post.

To the right of your image, you will see the codes again. Decide which way you want to display your image. I recommend using the "Thumbnail Code: Forums", which produces a small thumbnail in your message that has a link in it which will display the full-size hosted image when clicked. The "Embeddable Code: Forums" will simply show the full-sized image directly in the body of your message. I don't recommend doing this except for small pictures, since your image will be called every time the thread is viewed, and this may cause your image to run into ImageShack's 100 MB/hour (per image) bandwidth limitation.

7. Copy the code to use in your post.

Click in the box with the code, which will select all of the code text, and do a Ctrl-C (or R-click "Copy"). Go to your forum message, then do a Ctrl-V (or R-click "Paste"), and all that code will appear in your message.

8. Preview your post.

Click the "Preview" button on your message post to see if the link works and that your image or thumbnail shows up. If you used the thumbnail method, you can click it to see if the full-sized image appears.

9. Finished!

Complete your post, click "Submit", and you're done! You are now a forum-picture-posting master.