How to post images in this forum

[Rick]

To post an image in the forum you will first have to place it into some webspace to which you have access. Often webspace is provided by your ISP, but there are "free" image hosting sites you could use, and OAS members may also be able to use the Society's gallery.

Once you have placed the image into your webspace you need to find out what its URL is. With a bit of luck your browser will have an option on a pop-up saying something like "Copy image link" which you can use. Let us suppose the URL for the image itself is:

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http://www.my.web.space.net/images/picture.jpg

In your post you can use the BBCode IMG tag, or click on the button. Put the URL between the opening and closing IMG tags. You should end up with something like this:

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[img]http://www.my.web.space.net/images/picture.jpg[/img]
Your image should then appear in the post.

If the image is wider than the display window then the forum may decide to put it inside a scrollable box so that you don't have to scroll left and right all the time to read the posts. If this happens, then you can always view the image by itself using your browser's "View image" option.

If you want to point people at the huge^*1 original image, then use the BBCode URL tag in your post instead, like this:

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[url=http://www.my.web.space.net/images/picture.jpg]The full-size version[/url]
This will make a link to the image and when folks follow the link they'll usually see the image opened in a new tab or window.

^*1 For the purposes of this forum, "huge" means anything much wider than a thousand pixels or so...

...and if the above is insufficiently clear, please see Mike's "The Complete Idiots Guide to Posting Images on the Forum" post.

[Mike]

Please when posting an image on the forum can you put the full details of the exposures and also the kit used to get it. Sharing such information and learning from it is the main reason to post images on the forum.

[Rick]

Please also, if you're using a site other than the OAS gallery to host your images, make sure you follow the hosting site's terms and conditions regarding links to images stored on their servers.

For example (from Flickr's Community Guidelines):

• Do link back to Flickr when you post your Flickr content elsewhere.
  The Flickr service makes it possible to post content hosted on Flickr to outside web sites. However, pages on other web sites that display content hosted on flickr.com must provide a link from each photo or video back to its page on Flickr.

[Rick]

Some image-hosting sites make it easy to cut-and-paste the code you need to post your images from them into web forums. They'll give you a choice. The one you want for this forum is BBCode.

Others will be less helpful. For example, Flickr just gives you one option in its downloading and posting section, a chunk of HTML looking something like this:

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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/abcdef/9876543210/"
title="Title by abcdef, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/1234/9876543210_f0f0f0f0f0_o.jpg"
width="999" height="666" alt="Title" /></a>

That will not work here. The equivalent BBCode would look like this:

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[URL=http://www.flickr.com/photos/abcdef/9876543210/]
[img]http://farm9.static.flickr.com/1234/9876543210_f0f0f0f0f0_o.jpg[/img]
[/url]

Note that all the quotes, the title, width, height and alt text have been removed. Also, the only bit Flickr always seems to keep constant between the different sized versions is the 10-digit number (9876543210 in the example above). All the rest is subject to Flickr's whims. The hex-coded number (f0f0f0f0f0 in the example above) usually remains the same for the reduced-size versions of the image, but the original, especially if it is larger than 1024 in any dimension, often has a different one.

[Mike]

Guys, i've said it before, I have a ridiculous amount of webspace on my server. If you want your own part of it to store images or create your own website I will happily set you up a sub-domain of www.amateur-astronomy.org

[Mike]

Please please pleeeeeeaaaaaase when posting your images to the forum include the date you took the image.      Thanks.

Also, please do not delete images just because you don't like them or edit them. Please leave them where they are and post up the newer image ALSO. That way we can compare and see your processing techniques.

[Mike]

AAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!! PUT THE DATES ON YOUR IMAGES!!!!!!!!   

[Mike]

PLLLLEEEAASSSEEE!!!!

[Mike]

I give up. 

[Rick]

Please, if you link images from another site, first check:

• that folks who're not logged in to the other site can still see the images concerned.
• that the other site you're linking them from is happy for you to link to them from here.

I think it's reasonable to assume that if the site only lets logged-in users see the images then it's a site that is not happy for you to link to images hosted there from here.

[Carole]

OK, I think this is me linking from UKAI.  Only did it because I don't have access to my images at home (as I'm not there).

Didn't realise it would be a problem.

Other images will have to wait then until I get time to do this from home.

Carole

[Rick]

See also Mike's The Complete Idiots Guide to Posting Images on the Forum