Picture posting guidelines...

[imperialism2024]

Seeing the recent number of members posting photos for the first time (which is a good thing), I think it would be appropriate to make a sticky regarding guidelines for posting photos in this forum, unwritten rules that tend to make things flow easily. The few I'd start with are:

1) Pictures should be no more than 750 pixels either horizontally or vertically and no more than about 100KB each (Due to limitations of screen sizes and the PH squishing code, as well as 56k friendliness)
2) Any photos that might be construed as not suitable for work should be linked to with a "NSFW" warning, rather than embedded.
3) Make sure you can host images off the site you use for hosting. Many sites do not allow direct linking, and after all of your hard work to embed images, we will just see error messages. Also make sure that your photos stay hosted, and do not disappear after a certain period of time. A final note on this is to make sure that PHers can view your photos that you post without requiring a special account, such as Facebook.

Edited to add: Feel free to post more guidelines; I'll add them to this list.
Edited again to add 3rd item on list.
Edited one more time to add to #3

Edited by imperialism2024 on Monday 25th June 00:38

[Mrs Fish]

Agreed

[graham@reading]

Any particular reason why 750 and not 800? The latter seems far more common elsewhere as a "sort of standard" - possibly because of it being an old screen resolution

edit - actually, the PH squish does probably come into play at 800 with the width of the user details on the left etc.

Edited by graham@reading on Monday 31st July 14:02

[imperialism2024]

graham@reading said:

Any particular reason why 750 and not 800? The latter seems far more common elsewhere as a "sort of standard" - possibly because of it being an old screen resolution

edit - actually, the PH squish does probably come into play at 800 with the width of the user details on the left etc.

Edited by graham@reading on Monday 31st July 14:02

Yup, The PH Squish (TPS) starts at 750 pixels wide. As for 750 pixels high, it's more of an aesthetic (spelled that correctly on the first try) suggestion than anything else, as it allows people running 1024x768 to see the bulk of the picture without having to scroll through it, and makes it more convenient for people with higher resolutions who don't use full-screen browsing to view the photos without scrolling. And it's just easier to remember to never size larger than 750 pixels in either direction...

[Gemm]

I normally upload my images to my online galleries at 800px then link them from there, and resizing the images to 750px specifically for this site would be a job that I could do without (then I would have to upload them again somewhere else). Isn't there any way it could be changed to 800px, although I do understand the issue posted above?

[imperialism2024]

Gemm said:

I normally upload my images to my online galleries at 800px then link them from there, and resizing the images to 750px specifically for this site would be a job that I could do without (then I would have to upload them again somewhere else). Isn't there any way it could be changed to 800px, although I do understand the issue posted above?

Hmm I guess that would have to go to a mod... And I'm always in favor of larger pictures. It's just that pictures look so horrible after TPS and it's inconvenient for everyone to have to click each picture to view it unmolested in a separate window.

[dinkel]

My pics are 900px wide . . . Posting one or two of 'em won't harm, but a whole bunch could upset 56k'ers. Normally it says so in the title BTW.

Who's using 56k anyway? I thought I was kind of the last one to change to something faster: speed matters you know. 3000/512 at the mo.

IMO 900px is a decent size to see some detail.

[UKBob]

dinkel said:

My pics are 900px wide

These are just guidelines. You dont have to follow them, the idea is that hopefully most of us do, or will.

[V6GTO]

dinkel said:

Who's using 56k anyway?

Get Carter for one. Even in August 2006 there are still vast tracts of the country where you can't get broadband.

Martin.

[imperialism2024]

The 56k friendliness isn't so much the issue as that photos look horrible due to TPS. If this were another forum, it wouldn't make much of a difference if pictuers ended up a little distorted... but since this forum focuses on photography (mainly), it's important to maintain image integrity when the photos are embedded. Also, like I've mentioned before, there's the issue of screen size: while TPS accounts for this quite a bit, there's something to be said against people posting pictures more than 750 pixels high.

If you're really caught up with maintaining higher image quality, then instead of embedding the photos, just link to your gallery page where your pictures aren't horribly compressed, and let people view each photo in a list format, if that's what you see fit, as they can then view every image in full width, rather than having to click on every single image to see it uncompressed, and then click again to close the new window...

Basically, posting photos at anything wider or higher than 750 pixels is like driving in sunny conditions down a 2-lane road in an extended no-passing zone with a 45MPH limit but doing 25MPH and constantly hitting the brakes because you're trying to find a turn that you're unfamiliar with. Sure, you're not technically doing anything wrong, and it makes it easier for you and more likely faster (than missing it and having to double back), but you inconvenience everyone else around you (or rather behind you).

Getting away from my awful analogies: In addition to just being more considerate, IMHO, properly sizing photos for this forum will get the greatest number of viewers and more positive feedback. Face it: people won't be inconvenienced to view your photos. My limit is about 3 photos I have to click on in order to view uncompressed before I give up and leave the thread. And about 5 mouse wheel clicks before I stop looking at an excessively tall photo.

IMHO, once again, the bottom line is that for the 30 seconds it take to start a thread, and 10 seconds to copy the URL for each photo and put in the proper formatting codes, you may as well spend the extra 30 seconds to resize in PS and 15 seconds to upload to ImageShack.

[gf350]

Gemm said:

I normally upload my images to my online galleries at 800px then link them from there, and resizing the images to 750px specifically for this site would be a job that I could do without (then I would have to upload them again somewhere else). Isn't there any way it could be changed to 800px, although I do understand the issue posted above?

Same here mine are 800x533 normally and are linked from my website.
I'll put them in at 750x??? from now on if they're going to look better.
Cheers,
GF.

Edited by gf350 on Thursday 26th April 07:16

[V6GTO]

750X500

Martin.

[Mr Noble]

For many websites and especially this one its best to use.

750 px wide for landscape shots and

600 px wide for portrait shots.


Mainlt as those sizes will fit onto all screens.


Especially in portrait shots, anything wider than 600px won't fit on a screen (especially widescreens that modern laptops use) you'll have to scrool up and down to view a shot and thats not good for impact in an image!

G

[LotusJas]

It would be useful to have some instructions on how to post pics, and a few hosting sites to use pls.

[gf350]

I have a website with coppermine and link straight to that.
An easier way is to use something like
http://photobucket.com/
You just set up a free account upload your images (its a good idea to resize them first or it can take a while) then it will give you the url to paste into your post under the picture in your public gallery.
Its a doddle.
Here's one I did earlier, do an edit on this post and you will see the url photobucket gives you.




I know this is more than 750 x 500 so sorry, its an old one and its not far off
Cheers,
Gareth.

Edited by gf350 on Friday 27th April 20:13

[Ireland]

I've been using www.tinypic.com for my pictures for ages now.

There's no need to set up and account and it's a doddle to use.

It currently gives you four different link options, so make sure to use the correct one (presently the second from the top but it does change from time to time when they improve the site).

[CommanderJameson]

A vote for Flickr here. Clean interface, nifty uploader and very easy to organise your stuff.

[dinkel]

Photobucket here.

[crmcatee]

Just use the webspace that most of us have been provided by your ISP and very few people use.

It's got some distinct advantages - including reporting which enables you to see where your images are being leeched from - if they're on a public site, you've got no idea where those files are being linked to / from.

As far as FTP - Doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand FTP transfers and once it's set up it's quick and easy.

[LordGrover]

I'd suggest that the thumb utility could be more widely used - it saves on bandwidth and you only ever have to view the full size image if you choose to.

E.g.

[thumb]http://www.imagesite.com/folder/image.jpg[/thumb]

Edited to 'strike through' as I was talking rubbish - see next post.

Edited by LordGrover on Tuesday 2nd October 08:03