Photography forum instructions

[UWN admin]

Images may be posted to the forum in either of two ways:

1. You may upload .jpg or .jpeg files directly to our server. While posting your message, look for the "Upload attachment" tab beneath the text message area. Click on that tab and click the "Browse" button to locate the photo on your computer. After locating the photo, click the "Add the file" button. After writing and submitting your message, the photo will appear as part of the post.

2. You may link to images on other Web servers. For example, PhotoBucket.com and Flickr.com are free services that will let you upload photos to their servers. Linking to these photos will require adding code (similar to the following) in your posts: [img]http://whatever.com/whatever.jpg[/img]. Most photo uploading sites will supply this code for each photo.

Miscellaneous

Photos must be in .jpg or .jpeg format.

The maximum width of photos is 618 pixels. Photos larger than this will be cut off at 618 pixels. Photos uploaded directly to our server (instead of linked to from another site) will be automatically resized to fit. The reason for the size restrictions is because about one third of those accessing these forums either have a slower dial-up connection or a lower-resolution monitor. Anyway, keeping the size small speeds things up for everyone.

Keep the byte size of the photos small with a generous amount of JPEG compression. Large photo files take a long time to download for people on a slower modem connection. If you post a photo that weighs in at 2 megabytes, it will take a person on a modem about five minutes to see your post. Photos taken directly from digital cameras are almost always too large to post without some editing. Use a photo editing tool (like Photoshop or the software that came with your camera) to reduce the size of the files to under 700 pixels wide and 100 kilobytes if at all possible. Don't be afraid to squeeze the photos down using lots of JPEG compression to do this.

Unfortunately, it is not practical to provide a tutorial here on editing photos. This all depends on the editing software you have available, so you're on your own.

For security reasons, the current phpBB 3.x software behind these forums does not accept HTML tags written into the posts. Instead, you must use the BBCode tags (for example, [IMG] instead of <IMG>.

[James]

The maximum width of photos is 700 pixels. Photos larger than this will be cut off at 700 pixels. If possible, try to keep your photos to about 560 pixels wide or less. The reason for this is because many people do not have monitors capable of displaying wide photos, and it keeps the download times shorter for everyone.

I tried uploading a photo at 700 pixels. It wouldn't go. I got an error message saying that 560 was the maximum size. I have put all of my photos on my server at 640 or 700 pixels for use on many BBs. This is really a very popular size for such use.

I think that these days most everyone is using a desktop of 1024 x 768 or larger. Photos at 640 or 700 display very well on a desktop of that size. I also think it would be appropriate if 700 pixels was the max size instead of 560. Will you consider this change?

James

[UWN admin]

Originally Posted by James

I think that these days most everyone is using a desktop of 1024 x 768 or larger. Photos at 640 or 700 display very well on a desktop of that size. I also think it would be appropriate if 700 pixels was the max size instead of 560. Will you consider this change?

Our server stats indicate that about eleven percent of those visiting the forums are using monitors with resolutions set below 800 pixels, and 20-some percent of our users are coming in via dial-up connections where large photos take forever to download.

I've upped the maximum size from 560 to 618 pixels, but without recoding the forum templates, 618 pixels wide is the maximum the board can allow — the pages just won't stretch out any further than that. And if I do recode the forum templates to stretch beyond where they do now, it will be stretching them beyond the ability of those coming in with lower than an 800 pixel-wide monitor resolution to display without horizontal scrolling.

[wyogoob]

Hint:

Keep pics less than 603 pixels wide to avoid horizontal scrolling.

[Huge29]

I guess we need to update this based on the new software