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Posting images in the forums

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 11:19 pm
by Bruce N H
Hey all,

A few notes on posting images in the forums, since we've had a number of new members recently.

Please don't post images over 400 pixels wide or high in the forums. It messes up the forum formatting and slows things down for people without high-speed connections. If you do post over-large images, an admin or mod will generally remove them from your post.

If you want to edit your images (and you should), you can certainly use any software that came with your camera, something like Photoshop, or the free program Gimp. Kevin wrote a great article about how to download and use Gimp.

To post an image in the forums, it has to be already hosted somewhere on-line. Two common free services are Brickshelf and Flickr. Some details about each of these services is found below.

The proper syntax for posting an image is as follows (remove the asterixes):
[*img]http://www.imageaddress.jpg[*/img]
If you wish the make the image a clickable link, the syntax is as follows (again, remove the asterixes):
[*url=http://www.websiteaddress.com][*img]http://www.imageaddress.jpg[*/img][*/url]

If you include an image in your sig line, it should be 100 pixels high by 400 pixels wide, or less.

Image resizing applications
Thanks to Muskey15 and Morgan19 in this thread, here are some on-line applications to help resize images if you don't want do use a more advanced program such as Photoshop or Gimp:
Create Avatar
Online image resizer (Easy version)
Online image resizer (Advanced version)

Brickshelf
You can sign up for a free Brickshelf account here. When you first post something to Brickshelf, it is not immediately visible to the public until Kevin (owner and moderator of Brickshelf) okays it. This is to prevent someone from posting inappropriate content. Usually it will become public within a few hours. In the meantime you could wait to post the link in our forums, or you could post a deeplink. To find the deeplink address, keep clicking on the image on Brickshelf until you see only the image, with no border of Brickshelf banner. The address should end in ".jpg" or ".gif" rather than "cgi=?i########". For comparison, this is a deeplink:
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/brick ... et6085.jpg
This is not:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=3210579
You might also want to post thumbnails in your post. Brickshelf automatically creates thumbnails when you upload images. When you are looking at the page of thumbnails (e.g. this), right-click (or control-click for you Mac users) on an image to get the address of the thumbnail. It should end in "_thumb.jpg", like this:
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/brick ... _thumb.jpg

Flickr
You can sign up for a free Flickr account here. You can also pay to get enhanced features on your account. Unlike Brickshelf, Flickr is not exclusively LEGO, but it does have a lot of additional features like the ability to comment on photos or create user groups. I'll leave any further comment on the relative merits of these two sites to others. One nice aspect of Flickr is that it automatically creates several different image sizes for you. When you upload an image to Flickr, such as this, you'll notice a little icon above the photo saying "all sizes". This takes you to a page that offers you different choices. This makes it easy to choose an image that is smaller than the 400 pixel limit for the forums. To get the address of the image, right click (or control-click) the picture and copy the image address. It should look something like this:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/231/4530 ... 2aee_m.jpg
When posting images to Flickr, it is helpful if you added a "LEGO" tag, as this will help other LEGO fans to find your images among the other Flickr content.


Other image hosting sites
In addition to these two sites, there are a number of other image hosting sites you can use. I won't go into any additional detail on these.
Exclusively LEGO sites: MOCpages, YouBrick, MOCshow, Brickery, BrickImage, MyImages (1000Steine members)
General image hosting: Maj, PhotoBucket, ImageShack

Bruce

Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 1:33 pm
by DNL
I use 'The Gimp' and I recommand it to everyone. It's free and you can do many things with it, like scaling pictures and give them a transparant background.

Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 1:23 pm
by Bruce N H
Oh, a couple of additional notes on the moderation of photos by Brickshelf.

If you add new images to an already existing Brickshelf gallery, it will go back into un-moderated mode until Kevin okays it.

Also, if someone has a link to a Brickshelf gallery and you get to a white screen saying "This folder is not yet public." it simply means that it is awaiting moderation. Check back in a couple of hours.

Bruce

Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 11:39 pm
by Voran_the_Scholar
Yes, Gimp is a wonderful program. Especially once you learn to do stuff! Two thumbs up.

Picnik

Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 6:52 pm
by kk634
Also, Picnik is free and non-download-able and allows you to edit pictures from Flickr. I use it, and it's great!

Re: Posting images in the forums

Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 8:22 pm
by RichardAM
Bruce N H wrote: Please don't post images over 400 pixels wide or high in the forums. It messes up the forum formatting and slows things down for people without high-speed connections. If you do post over-large images, an admin or mod will generally remove them from your post.
Since kk bumped, I may as well ask- will this be something that will be getting reconsidered as a result of the forum upgrade?

Re: Posting images in the forums

Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2009 4:28 am
by architect
RichardAM wrote:Since kk bumped, I may as well ask- will this be something that will be getting reconsidered as a result of the forum upgrade?
Most likely it will not be reconsidered. The image link is your friend ;) Classic-Castle probably will not turn into other fan sites which use forum posts as their own personal moc pages or brickshelf page.

Ben