Posting Pictures.

We like pictures. Pictures are great way to communicate in the forum. They are a huge help with regard to furniture identification and discussing restoration work. There are three ways to post pictures if you are a member.

Option 1 – Post pictures directly in your message. This is the BEST option because the pictures show up with your discussion for instant viewing and reference. To do this you need to have an on-line photo storage account. There are several sites that offer simple registration and free services. Currently, www.photobucket.com seems to be a web favourite and they offer lots of free storage space (100mb, which can equal hundreds of photos), but you can search for others. Register with the site and follow the relatively simple instructions for uploading photos from your home computer to your on-line photo storage album. Open your album to see your photos, pick the one you want to insert and do one of two things. With your photo there might be a line of html code that will have [img] labelled at the start and [/img] labelled at the end of the pictures (this is the url name or internet address of your picture). Copy this whole line and paste it into your message. The ‘tags’ on each end are instructions to insert your picture where you pasted it. The second way to insert a picture is to just copy the url address, without the tags, by clicking on the command box (2nd from the right) above your message that says ‘Display Image’ – this produces a drop down with a blank to put the name in – then click OK, and the tags get added automatically and the picture gets inserted. The further variation on this method is inserting a picture that you find someplace else on the web. Just insert the url address from the picture between the image ‘tags’ and it should work.

Option 2 – Attach a picture to your message. This is a GOOD option if you don’t have or want an on-line photo storage account. This method produces a ‘paper clip’ at the bottom of your message that can be clicked for viewing the picture in another window. Click on the ‘Add Attachment’ command on the bottom left of the message box and ‘Browse’ for the picture you want to attach from your home computer. Click OK and the picture gets attached at the bottom of the message. Note that the picture attachment always appears at the bottom of the message. It can’t be ‘attached’ in the middle of your message. Only one picture can be attached per message box, so if you have a couple to show then post the first message and quickly post a follow-up and attach the next picture, and so on.

Option 3 – Post pictures in an album. This is NOT THE BEST way to post pictures but some people choose to do it. Click on the ‘New’ button on the top left of the forum and pick the ‘Album’ option from the drop down. Follow the relatively simple instructions for creating the album. The problem with albums is that your pictures get somewhat hidden and readers have to click on separate tabs to view the pictures and to then add a response click another tab called ‘Comments’. By doing this, the comments start a thread without the pictures inserted or linked. The casual viewer probably never clicks through to see either your pictures or the comments. Albums are also problematic for moderators because they can’t be fully edited (and in the past would get hit by those web bot spam programs, but this problem may have been solved). Please consider one of the other options instead of the album option.

TIPS:

1) Take your pictures outside in natural light with the sun behind you but stand on an angle to avoid throwing a shadow on the piece - doing this is the single best way to take better pictures

2) Are your pictures too big?? Depending on your camera and the basic resolution or image size it produces, your pictures might be huge on a computer screen. Try this tool from Microsoft to reduce the size: 'Image Resizer'
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
..scroll down the page a bit to find it..

Wow - thanks for the instructions! It worked.