Tutorial: How to post pictures in Forums

While there are many ways to do this, I feel compelled in writing the way I post pictures on forums to help those who have not yet figured out (or told... like me!) It is EASY! Here is what you need:

1. Digital Photos - preferable of your cool models, already in you PC.
   
2. Photo Editor - Picasa is ... details below.
   
3. Web Photo-Storage - I suggest Photobucket... details below.
   
4. Posting on a Forum - how about ours?

Digital Photos
First, take nice pictures of your models. No point on posting photos. Like painting models, it requires to 'know' the trick and the right tools... then you will be running with the pros... and like painting, it will be surprisingly easy! I got me a small & cheap photobooth in Walmart for ~$60... so even my cheapo ($50) 3 megapixel camera takes nice pictures! A year ago a wrote a nice compilation article on how to do that... it is a nice (and long) article. Well worth the read, as it discuss everything from the Do-It-Yourself to the Professional setup studio.

Photo Editor
Unless you have $2,000 to take excellent pictures, your photos could use some minor editing. From cropping & centralizing the photos, to some minor color correction (the hardest thing... but we all need!) Rather than using Photoshop (the BEST software you could use, preferred by professionals worldwide), normal people (like most of us) could use something much more simpler... I use Picasa to edit my pictures. Picasa is FREE and simple to use. I find the CROP and AUTO-CORRECT functions to be Emperor sent... really nice! By nice I mean, the color correction is one button and voilá! Your photo look 1,000% better! If you don't like the change, just UNDO! Much easier than spending hours learning about gamma correction and lighting. This way you can crop unwanted elements and make sure that the picture is as best as it can be.

Web Photo-Storage
Your photos are as good as those in the White Dwarf... and you are itching to share! Great! You need to find a 'place' (a Server) in the web in which you can 'have a copy' (store) of your photos which let people access (host) them for view. This USED to be either an expensive or technical nightmare... but not anymore! You lucky dog... pat yourself on the back. While Picasa has a very nice function to upload pictures to a web album, it is not as friendly as Photobucket when it comes to posting on forums.

Photobucket is FREE (you may have noticed... I like free!) and simple to use. After you make a free account and read how to use the site on the help section (5 minutes) you will be able to store pictures on their Servers. You can post pictures in forums in two ways; one by one, or in 'bulk'. See below. You could upgrade your account for more space, but the free one has 1 GB... plenty of space!

Posting on a Forum
Now you are ready to share! Start (or continue) a thread. When you want to post a picture you will need to know the exact url (web address location) where the image is stored. Go to the forum post and in the upper right portion of the screen click the INSERT IMAGE icon (16th icon from left to right) and enter the direct URL of the picture on the space provided. You will notice that the 'code' will appear in your text... something like:

Code:

[img]http://i80.servimg.com/u/f80/14/10/70/76/forum-11.gif[/img]

If you use Photobucket, you can get this information (including the IMG tags) by putting your cursor over the picture and copy the IMG CODE and paste this on the forum's text. You could even generate code for multiple images with few clicks (VERY USEFUL!)

It is a good idea to always click the "Preview" option to verify that the picture has uploaded correctly. Either way, you have just created the "html" code that gets you to the photo on the internet. Remember that if you move or delete your photo from your hosting space, it will no longer show up in your forum post. If you do so, you have to change all the posts that refer to it... so please leave it on the server for as long as you can. In most cases this can be "forever".

Well hope this helps you share all your digital images with ease! Comments and suggestions, as well as critiques on this tutorial are ecouraged and welcomed!