Photo Hosting on the Web
In order to post your own photo on the web, it has to first be uploaded to a hosting site. Once it is on a hosting site, it will have an address. That address is what you use to post your picture elsewhere on the web, such as a BooMan Tribune diary, or EBay.
There are a myriad of picture hosting sites on the web. Many if not all of them offer a free version of their service; free accounts usually have restrictions on either the size of photos or the amount of photos you can store on the service. If you rarely post pictures, you could probably get by with a free account.
Some of the more popular sites are:
Photo Bucket [editor’s note, by froggybottom] It has been brought to our attention (thank you AndiF) that photobucket is having problems, so choose another hosting service.
Linking to a photo
Once your photo is on a hosting site, all you need to post it is the address, or URL. Hosting sites usually make that readily available to the user with a simple click or two. Then you need to put the URL into a “tag”, or command line.
Here’s the tag for an image: <img src=”your photo url goes here”/>
Using Thumbnails
Photo hosting sites usually generate thumbnails for you to use to link to your original sized photos. Just as with photo URL’s, they are readily available to the user with a few clicks. Once you generate your thumbnail, first get it’s URL.
Here’s the tag for using a thumbnail to link to a larger photo:
<a href=”photo URL”>thumbnail URL</a>
Sizing photos is a whole different animal. It is easy enough to do, but you do need some type of photo editor. Some photo hosting sites allow you to choose the size at which your photo will be displayed. You can also use a photo editor to size a photo suitable to be a thumbnail and then upload it to a hosting site. If your hosting site supplies thumbnails, why bother?
Post any other questions about photos and the fair here. Please recommend this diary so everyone has a chance to see it. Don’t forget, you can always submit your photos as per instructions above and we will gladly process them into a diary for the fair. We know how talented you and are looking forward to a visual extravaganza.
[editor’s note, by froggybottom] Slightly edited for form
The small diary-display size for the images has two purposes:
So we decided to have a single standard (150px wide/ 40kb file-size). But, please notice this: Everyone is encouraged to use display-images as a thumbnail link to a full size image if you feel the small size doesn’t do justice to your photograph.
We know that all the resizing and linking could be difficult for some participants. And that is why the committee has worked out the details of posting images for anyone, everyone who would like us to do it for them. |
If you haven’t signed up for a image host yet, don’t use photobucket as they are currently having problems. Here is their announcement:
Based on my experiments, people in the far western US are able to access and see photobucket images but other people cannot. Clearly, photobucket is working to fix the problem but there’s no guarantee they’ll be back before the fair so I’d recommend using one of the other image hosting providers.
The Fair committee does have an account at another host. So if Photographers want us to post their photos, we are able to do that.
I am out east and I haven’t had any problems with my photobucket account, at least, none that I have noticed?
It’s hard to tell exactly where the problems are but I know it doesn’t work in Indiana, Ohio, Kansas or Texas. I know it does work in California and Oregon and now Connecticut.
Photobucket is not my hosting service, but I can’t even access their homepage. The connection times out every time. I’m in Pennsylvania.
Another idea is to make a blogger blog, you can upload images for free there and it’s super easy, then link them here.
How many “self-published” galleries should we expect?
I’m hoping for dozens!
But, we won’t know until people start asking us to link them together.
When can we create the diaries? Any time now? Will they begin showing up on the “recent diaries” list and interfering with site conversation while we’re in the process of loading them up?
Testing Imageshack thumbnail with code automatically generated to link to bigger photo. (Incidentally, the auto code has “target=blank” in it which this site needs to have erased.)
The big version of the photo was 640 x 550 or so, and saved in Photoshop at a “quality” level of 8 out of 12. Size is a very modest 103 kb.
Hi Gooserock,
I’ve been wondering about a naming standard also.
I’m going to post a Diary Template (for optional use) this evening. The Fair Committee should have something worked out by then.
You can do it anytime, of course but, I think everyone should wait until morning, so we can get the full impact of a Fair-like atmosphere.
Also, everyone who does their own diary should email the Fair account with the link and your username.
I hope we get lots of Diaries!