How to Embed or Resize Images/Photos in Your SGF Posts

[Wiz Feinberg]

This question is asked here quite often, so I am making the answer a Sticky message.

You must have your photo files hosted online, either by a photo hosting business, or web-space provided to you by your ISP, or commercial web-space used to host websites.

http://photobucket.com provides free video and photo sharing. Easily host and link your images and videos to social networks, auction sites, blogs, and message boards.

Once you have procured hosting for your images you will be able to obtain link URLs to them. A URL to such a file might resemble something like this example:
http://www.your-photo-host.com/~your_ac ... mage24.jpg

You would then go to the forum page with your ad, where you want the photo to be included, and simply place an IMG tag set around that URL. An IMG tab looks like this: [IMG]URL-to-image[/IMG]

A URL to a web-hosted file may not contain any spaces. It may contain any combination of letters, numbers, underscores, or hyphens. The file extension for most online photos is .jpg. You should reduce the size of the photo before uploading it, so that it does not cause horizontal scrollbars on the browser. 600 pixels may be too wide, depending on the screen size used by the people viewing your ad. I have seen reports that our new forum will create horizontal scrollbars with images over 450 pixels wide, so scale them down to avoid forcing a scrollbar on your viewers' browsers.

I hope this helps. You can read about the use of our BBCodes here: http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/faq.php?mode=bbcode

[Al Marcus]

Wiz-Thanks for the help on this. I just might try it..al.

[David Wright]

wiz... how do you change the size of the pic,,, like the ol fourm did

[b0b]

You can't. Not yet, anyway. Best to resize your pic to reasonable proportions before you upload it to your server.

[Wiz Feinberg]

The reason you can't resize embedded images on the new forum is because we are having problems using any attributes in HTML tags. The only way to resize an embedded image is by using the HTML <IMG tag, with src, width and height attributes. When we get this working we will let you know. The same problem applies to HTML link tags. They do not work at this time.

[Wiz Feinberg]

I have posted a tutorial on resizing photos using the most basic Windows photo editors, in the Feedback section, here.

This is not advanced information for people who already know about using image tools. It is for members who don't know or have advanced photo editing tools, and must use the ones built into Windows.

If anybody here knows about the built-in photo editors for Mac OS, please add that information to the original topic.

[b0b]

The reason you can't resize embedded images on the new forum is because we are having problems using any attributes in HTML tags. The only way to resize an embedded image is by using the HTML <IMG tag, with src, width and height attributes. When we get this working we will let you know. The same problem applies to HTML link tags. They do not work at this time.

This is not a temporary situation. The software is designed to prohibit abuse by "creative" HTML programmers. That's why HTML attributes are not allowed.

The best way to resize pictures is to use the "Upload Picture" button when posting a message. It will automatically resize the picture to the optimum width.

[Cal Sharp]

I'll be glad to resize a pic for any Forum members gratis. Just email it to me.
Here www.nashvillephotofix.com/ or at my SGF email addy.

[Stan Paxton]

b0b, I think I can resize the pix OK in Paint, but am not able to "upload picture" ...after using the Browser and find the photo, hit Send, and message comes back "error, debug mode". ...what am I doing wrong, leaving out, or need else to do?

[Wiz Feinberg]

b0b, I think I can resize the pix OK in Paint, but am not able to "upload picture" ...after using the Browser and find the photo, hit Send, and message comes back "error, debug mode". ...what am I doing wrong, leaving out, or need else to do?

The forum software choked. There isn't anything you can do but try again, later on. Just make sure the file size does not exceed 32 kb.

[Stan Paxton]

Hey Wiz, thanks a bunch, I'll just try again another time.

[b0b]

b0b, I think I can resize the pix OK in Paint, but am not able to "upload picture" ...after using the Browser and find the photo, hit Send, and message comes back "error, debug mode". ...what am I doing wrong, leaving out, or need else to do?

We've been having problems lately with the image hard disk. It seems to want to slip into "read-only" mode when nobody's looking. I don't know what's causing it. The only other write activity is the nightly backup, so I've moved that to a different drive to see if it helps the situation.

[Bill Ford]

Try this...Bill


http://www.shrinkpictures.com/

[Wiz Feinberg]

Try this...Bill


http://www.shrinkpictures.com/

Bill's suggestion is a good one, but, only for straight down-sizing. You cannot crop, enhance or enlarge images, nor save animated gifs. Those normal operations require a standard onboard photo editor.

However, if you have a photo that is already well cropped and has decent midrange, contrast and sharpness, a straight resize with that service would be fine for an avatar.

Our forum can do straight downsizing as well, for avatar use.

[Kerry Johnson]

Using Mac OS X Tiger / Safari, I found that this was necessary.

Top left menu bar, to the right of the Apple, click on Safari and ...
uncheck "Block Pop-Up Windows"

Then the upload happened.

What is the maximum pixel amount a single picture can be?
( it was not stated on the upload picture pop-up window)

[Wiz Feinberg]

What is the maximum pixel amount a single picture can be?
( it was not stated on the upload pop-up window)

Anything over 450 pixels may cause a horizontal scrollbar to appear, depending on the member's screen size. Older members tend to use 800x600 pixels screen size.

[Kerry Johnson]

I guess what I meant was when accessing Apple's iPhoto " photo info " screen,
the pixel amount is displayed as:

Width: 2,549 pixels
Height: 1,259 pixels
Size: 1.2 MB

When the Forum pop-up window "upload picture" appears,
there is not an option to enter the above amounts,
just a single custom figure "box" only.

What is the maximum amount that box will accept?

[b0b]

640. Anything larger will be scaled down.

Also, images larger than 1600x1200 might fail without explanation.

[George Brown]

I am trying to download a new avatar photo from "my pictures". It is currently 480 x 360. I cant seem to get it down to the 100x100 size needed. Any Ideas.
It is a bitmap image, if that makes any difference.
Thanks.
George...

[Wiz Feinberg]

I am trying to download a new avatar photo from "my pictures". It is currently 480 x 360. I cant seem to get it down to the 100x100 size needed. Any Ideas.
It is a bitmap image, if that makes any difference.
Thanks.
George...

You cannot upload a bitmap (.bmp) format to our forum. You will need to open that file in an image editor, crop and resize it to 100x100 maximum, then save it as a .gif or .jpg file type.

What photo editing software is installed on your PC?

[George Brown]

Got it Wiz. Thanks much for the help.
George...

[Tony Glassman]

Wiz is right. I've been using photobucket for several years. I've never had any problems either uploading images to photobucket or downloading to SGF.