Posting of Pictures, Attachments \ Uploading Avatar

[Caretaker]

Current attachments settings:
File types: .jpg .jpeg .png .txt .xls .doc .pdf
Max size: 4 MB

The current attach ment info is always showing in the post screen (see picture at end of this post).

Uploading pictures & documents from your pc:
Near the bottom of the posting screen (see picture at end of this post) you will see Attach at the right and the "Browse" button. Click "Browse", and navigate on your pc to where you have saved the file, select it.

Recommended image pixel size from 1000 x * to 2500 x *.

(Regarding external picture hosting and links, see http://www.a7a10.net/forum/index.php?topic=2545.0)

Do not post any geotagged pictures (phone's gps data embedded in image file > exif). Phone cameras (and some 'normal' cams) can add an exact GPS location in the exif (info file embedded in the image file) when location tag is set in camera settings (sometimes default-on if location is active on the phone). Thus anyone reading the exif data will know exactly where picture is taken (= where bike is, where one lives etc). Needless to say this may be of interest to a certain kind of people.

Basically, disable geo-tagging in photo settings, or disable location\gps before taking photos. For already 'tagged' picture files, image editing programs can be set to disable the exif, open the file, resave it without exif. General exif info > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exif.

Check the filesize before posting ! Do not try anything above the size limit, an attempt to post a too large attachment may (will) result in loss of whole post (all written text) and one has to start from scratch. A 'not very userfriendly' feature of the forum software, but that's the way it is.

That's it really, it will get uploaded to the forum server, and appear in your post under the text. For more pictures in the same post, click on "more attachments". See recommendations below.

Why the size limit?
1: For images seen on pc, this can give a full screen photo with very good quality, no need to post a 6 x 4 Meters large 10MB picture. If you really need to make some very large photo available, use a photo-hosting service\cloud service and simply post a link to where you host it.

2: Not everyone has a fast internet connection, some are still on dial-up and pictures would take quite some time to download, or one is using a slower (or expensive, metered) mobile connection. Why force anyone to dowload 15Mb, when 1 or 2 MB would look fine on any phone, pc or tablet.


Avatar:
Go to: Profile > Forum Profile Information > I will upload my own picture
Use a .jpg, best is to prepare the avatar yourself  (size, color, sharpen), although the forum program will resize to max pixel size 160x 160. Filesize over 2 MB will fail, like with attachments. I recommend the filesize to be under 75-100 kb before trying to upload an avatar. No animations, please!


Picture database:
If you use a picture database on the internet, see this post: External image hosting: not allowed, not welcome ! .

And let's keep the forum relaxing to the eyes and mind, no animated avatars or other animated stuff please (apart from a few of the forum smileys, please don't overuse!) Thanks.

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Uploading pictures to the forum is (more than strongly) recommended, this creates a clickable thumbnail, and pictures do not disappear from the topic if you make changes at your photohosting, resulting in some posts becoming totally useless.

If one has to make available pictures or other files larger than the max size, use your picture hosting site or cloud account, and link to the file from inside the post. No IMG tags or other autoloading feature, only plain link allowed.

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Here is a free and good program for resizing and much more: http://photofiltre.free.fr/

When posting, I usually save any picture(s) ready to be posted on the pc desktop, easy to navigate there and select it.

I sometimes take the liberty to modify external picture links into forum clickable thumbnails, thus saving the pic to the forum server. Example of post with disappearing external pictures, looses it's meaning if the pictures are not longer there, in this one I managed to save some of the missing pictures (I saved the original pictures): http://www.a7a10.net/forum/index.php?topic=127.msg447

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Welcome to post here for assistance with pictures & avatars.

[a10 gf]

Using windows, a quick way to get pictures ready for posting (for those who may have problems using resize tools in other programs).

Find your pictures, use some program to display it on your screen, use the w7\8\10 Snipping Tool  to capture the part you want, save it as .jpg to the desktop, upload it as attachment.

To find the snip tool, just write snip in the Start menu search field (also found in Programs > Accessories)

[Brian]

I found the easiest way to resize a picture was to use the windows "Paint" program.

Just right click on a photo and choose open with paint. Go to the top of the screen where is says "image", click on that and then resize and you can reduce the size of the picture to whatever you want.

[Caretaker]

use the "Paint" program

Thanks for posting the tip, it's indeed a very easy way to resize.

For those who want to do (or learn) basic photo editing\fix (crop, resize, color, contrast, sharpness etc), am highly recommending http://photofiltre.free.fr/utils/pf-setup-en-653.exe , a small, fast and reliable program.

[Caretaker]

I 1st prepare any pictures on my pc, save them to desktop, then upload with a few clicks.

New and better picture management after the move to the new webhost, now zero problems with space and management. Have upped the max attach. size to 1,5 MB, could have gone higher, but this is IMO a fine max size regarding quality vs current 'expected normal' download speed\isp bandwidth > not everyone has superfast internet, and should not be forced to download any extremely large file just to view a picture (which gets scaled down again) on their screen. Those who want (or need) to see some 7x5 Meters 25MB picture, contact the poster and ask for the original to be sent by email.

About embedding pictures from picture hosting services instead of uploading to the forum, it's about topics getting 5 Meters deep, with lots of loading time\bandwiidth, + the very common occurence of pictures disappearing when the poster does changes to his photohosting account (happens often, and sadly the whole meaning and quality of posts gets lost).

Thanks

[a10 gf]

Ref. Brian's good info in post above, here's a demo for Windows Paint resizing (comes with w7\8\10, very easy to use). Right click on your picture file to get going.

Set the horizontal pixel size to anything from 800 to 2000, will result in a quite small file size combined with a large enough picture for good pc screen viewing. Should result in zero fail :O) See attachments.

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To do more 'things' with photos (in addition to size: sharpness, color, contrast, retouching etc), Photofiltre is good, see links in posts above.

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Simplest of all is still the Windows 'Snipping Tool', just open your picture on the pc screen, 'snip' the parts you want, and save it (will always make a small file size).

[bsa-bill]

Yes that's what I use ( well paint.net ). it handily tells you the file size as it resizes

[a10 gf]

Yes that's what I use ( well paint.net ). it handily tells you the file size as it resizes

Must be this one, should be in the recommended dept. here, > http://www.getpaint.net/

[a10 gf]

For photo editing on my Android (Samsung) phone, have just started using Snapseed (made by Google), very good (and fast) editing and fixing options. Edit: available for iphone as well.

And got this useful resize function. Simply set the wanted size in settings, 'export as' in a folder of your choice (original is retained). Easily gets those gigantic 5000x3000 (sometimes more) phone photos downsized for practical internet\email\forum use.

[RichardL]

Snapseed worked great.

[Zander]

Downloaded Snapseed on iPad but don't get the resize option.

Richard L: It's in settings, not in the editing options.
a10gf: Tested Snapseed on an iphone, got all the functions and worked great.

[Caretaker]

As the general internet speed evolves (as does server space & speed), attachments max size upped to 2 MB (2048 kB).

For any very large file that may need to be uploaded (pdf etc), contact admin.

And no, we definitely do not need 10 MB, 10 x 6 meter big pictures to view on a 15" PC display  ...not to mention on a phone or tablet :O) Even a 50" tv won't make any practical use of enormous files. Same goes for email attachments.

IMO the only reallife use for using max photosizes is when cropping then saving part of some image as new image, and for printing with best results. For these cases, the bigger files = the better results.

[Caretaker]

Resizing pictures for forum upload, newer Samsung phones.

The editor in the gallery now has a very good (& quite hidden) resize function, click the '3 dots' dropdown meny.
40 or 60 % are very useful. Use 'save copy' from the same meny to avoid overwriting the original pic.

Example, got the 8.5 MB landscape pic down to 0.65 MB, no practical quality loss for full screen view.

[jhg1958]

I must admit I struggle a bit with an iPhone.  A quick if crude way to reduce the file size is to email the photo to yourself. There is an option, on my phone anyway, to reduce the size.   Just save the posted picture and use it on the forum.

John

[Greybeard]

I found the app, Lit Photo for my Android tablet. On my desktop I use Photoshop.