Posting Pictures Painlessly

[Mrs. Smith]

Good evening, Everyone,

In the last 6 years, with the guidance of folks smarter than me, I've learned a bit about how the forum works from a technical perspective, and how to work with it instead of against it.  Probably the biggest challenge in posting is the inclusion of pictures.

Our forum has limited space for hosting pictures in each post.  With modern smart-phone cameras getting fancier and fancier, the pictures are also getting bigger and bigger.  That means more work, a LOT more time, and fewer pictures per post.

Having a series of replies to the same post can be irritating to folks having to sift through the forum.

Having to try to figure out which picture goes with which part of the text? Mind-numbing. 

WHAT IF!! there was a way to post 50 pictures in a post QUICKLY, with a very simple upload process, WITHOUT adding strain to the forum's storage capabilites?

Well, there is!  It's an image-hosting site called Imgur.

I have been using it for a while now and have to come to really like it. It's free to sign up and has a built in editor, which is pretty handy once you get the swing of things. You can get the app on your phone and upload images right from there, and you can set the images to either Public or Private.  As pictures here are often shooting related, I suggest private, otherwise you may have people commenting on them in Imgur.

I have made up a small "How to" for using Imgur, and thought others might like a quick and easy tutorial.


Step 1. Create an imgur.com account on your phone or PC.  It can be used simultaneously on both!

Step 2. Take some pics on your phone and up load thru the app, or add some pics off your PC, just follow the on screen instructions.



Once you have some pics, it should look something like this:



Step 3. Hover on the image and to the right of the image you will see a menu pop up.  Click "Get Share Links"



Step 4.  On the option BBCode (Forums), click Copy Link.



Step 5.  Once you've copied the link, you can either paste it to Notepad (to collect a bunch of links quickly) or directly into your forum post.  The links will come pre-formatted for forum code.




Simple and precise.  Doesn't matter if you're uploading with the app or your computer, it's an easy batch upload.  Then grab the links and paste them into your post, EXACTLY where you want them!

I hope ya'll find this helpful!

In Liberty,
Traci

[Quinncannon]

Thanks for sharing this! I've been using imgur for a while on another site that I'm on a lot, but I haven't found the trick to sharing pics here, this will help me tremendously!

[Mrs. Smith]

Happy to oblige!

I figured I couldn't be the only one doing this...   

[Steck]

THANK YOU !!!      THANK YOU !!!               THANK YOU !!!

[KProctor]

Are we not suppose to talk about the various 1903 pics in the tutorial, because that's the real hero here.

Honestly thank you I've had to limit my photo posts to 15 or less because it just takes to long to upload, upload again, resize, download, post it. Post it again because I messed up, post it again because I messed up again, ask my wife to post them because I can't work the computer.

This should streamline things immensely so

[Black Knight]

Mrs. Smith, you are always the best!!  This will help me tremendously!  Thank you.

[Mrs. Smith]

I can't tell ya'll how tempted I am to go back to all my AARs and systematically re-do them.  I've already done it with the Flag of the Month posts, and still plan to do so with the Women's History Month posts. It's just so much better! Heck, as recently June I was still doing 

Kevin,  I wish I could say I owned that beautiful piece of hardware, but I had some help with the screen shots I DO, however, have a rubber ducky  his name is Edwin.

[kmkahuna]

Have you ever seen this? I added more pictures onto my post for this latest Appleseed and Imgur said it violated their terms.
There was no profanity, no nudity, nothing that could be construed as violating any of their policy in any of the pictures.
See all the pictures here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/XopVvvPfhfRx4Pwx9

Has anyone else had problems violating their policies on Imgur?
Kurt

Good evening, Everyone,

In the last 6 years, with the guidance of folks smarter than me, I've learned a bit about how the forum works from a technical perspective, and how to work with it instead of against it.  Probably the biggest challenge in posting is the inclusion of pictures.

Our forum has limited space for hosting pictures in each post.  With modern smart-phone cameras getting fancier and fancier, the pictures are also getting bigger and bigger.  That means more work, a LOT more time, and fewer pictures per post.

Having a series of replies to the same post can be irritating to folks having to sift through the forum.

Having to try to figure out which picture goes with which part of the text? Mind-numbing. 

WHAT IF!! there was a way to post 50 pictures in a post QUICKLY, with a very simple upload process, WITHOUT adding strain to the forum's storage capabilites?

Well, there is!  It's an image-hosting site called Imgur.

I have been using it for a while now and have to come to really like it. It's free to sign up and has a built in editor, which is pretty handy once you get the swing of things. You can get the app on your phone and upload images right from there, and you can set the images to either Public or Private.  As pictures here are often shooting related, I suggest private, otherwise you may have people commenting on them in Imgur.

I have made up a small "How to" for using Imgur, and thought others might like a quick and easy tutorial.


Step 1. Create an imgur.com account on your phone or PC.  It can be used simultaneously on both!

Step 2. Take some pics on your phone and up load thru the app, or add some pics off your PC, just follow the on screen instructions.



Once you have some pics, it should look something like this:



Step 3. Hover on the image and to the right of the image you will see a menu pop up.  Click "Get Share Links"



Step 4.  On the option BBCode (Forums), click Copy Link.



Step 5.  Once you've copied the link, you can either paste it to Notepad (to collect a bunch of links quickly) or directly into your forum post.  The links will come pre-formatted for forum code.




Simple and precise.  Doesn't matter if you're uploading with the app or your computer, it's an easy batch upload.  Then grab the links and paste them into your post, EXACTLY where you want them!

I hope ya'll find this helpful!

In Liberty,
Traci

[JustKim]

I hate to admit this, but I just recently tried this -- and I have to say it is AMAZING!!!!  It is simple and you are able to put the photos right where you want them.

Thanks Mrs Smith -- wish I would've tried it sooner!!

JustKim

[rambo granny]

I'm in Imgur jail. For whatever reason, it tells me my log in info is denied.

[Mrs. Smith]

I'm in Imgur jail. For whatever reason, it tells me my log in info is denied.

Well dang.  I'm sorry, Janet.  But there are other photo hosting sites. It should work essentially the same way.

[Leadslinger66]

Tried this for the first time. After I stumbled through my setup, it worked well. I do have a couple of questions that I hope someone can answer: 1) is there a process to downsize the pictures so that they don't show up too wide on the forum post? I have to scroll right on my iPad due to their size, and 2) I added captions in Imgur, but they didn't carry over to the forum post. Can that be made to work?

[Mrs. Smith]

Tried this for the first time. After I stumbled through my setup, it worked well. I do have a couple of questions that I hope someone can answer: 1) is there a process to downsize the pictures so that they don't show up too wide on the forum post? I have to scroll right on my iPad due to their size, and 2) I added captions in Imgur, but they didn't carry over to the forum post. Can that be made to work?

Hi John!

There's definitely a process to downsize images.

When you go to your images page on Imgur, look in the top right corner. 

You should be seeing this:


Notice the bar that says "Auto Resize."  You must select the size you want before choosing your album, if you're going to, and before clicking on "Add Images."

When you do, you'll get this dropdown menu:


640x480 should result in a minimum of scrolling left and right on your ipad, and still be big enough to not need eye drops and a magnifying glass.  But play with the sizes to see what works for you best.

As for captions, I'm afraid I can't help you there.  If a reader were to double-click on an image you've posted here, causing it to open on the imgur website, I suspect they'll be visible. However, as far as I can tell, there's no way to get your captions to transfer to your forum post.  You'll have to caption them in your post where applicable.

I hope this was helpful.

In Liberty,
Traci

[upacreek]

I'm late to the party adding pictures (or posting at all), but I was ready to chuck my computer out the window and then blow it up (probably in that order) this morning.  It took me a while to traverse Imgur on my phone and then get images to the computer before.  Now it seems that Imgur is new and improved making embedding things onto this forum impossible.  There is a button to return things to the previous format for those of us that don't do well with tech changes.  It was somewhere near the bottom right of the page.  I tried to get back to it to see exactly before posting, but now it just opens in the previous format.  My computer is saved until the next little change on anything.

Hunt in the bottom right corner if you're getting frustrated too.  Thanks for the how-to posts - they are a necessity for some of us denser ones.

[Trail Life USA - WI]

 

This has been a great help to me Mrs. Smith!  I was able to get pictures added to my post on our event's AAR after two previous fails.  Thank you.

All I have to do now is figure out how to delete the two post that were major fails in terms of adding the photos that I wanted to share.  That little note with a pencil icon is elusive!

Have a great day!

TLUSA-WI Patriot 

[Mrs. Smith]

This has been a great help to me Mrs. Smith!  I was able to get pictures added to my post on our event's AAR after two previous fails.  Thank you.

All I have to do now is figure out how to delete the two post that were major fails in terms of adding the photos that I wanted to share.  That little note with a pencil icon is elusive!

Have a great day!

TLUSA-WI Patriot 

I'm happy to be of help, sir. 

Your two "oops" posts aren't hurting anything, but you can modify them if you like, instead of making a new one with your pictures.