The Royal Marines Band Service On-line Community

Co-admin · Site Admin Joined: 05 Nov 2005 Posts: 1811

Posting photos or scanned images is fairly straightforward as long as you follow a set workflow.

Before doing anything artistic you need to create what may be called a 'Home' for your photos. Most people save their images on their hard drive using Windows 'My Pictures' or some similar programme. In order for these images to be shown on the web they have to be 'Hosted' on the internet by either your own website, or a specialised photographic hosting site. There are plenty of sites to choose from, they usually offer free use of their facilities either as a trial or as a limited Mb allowance. It only costs a few bucks to join properly and allows many more images to be held in cyber space; so search around, have a look at what is offered and make your choice. Examples below.

http://photobucket.com/
http://www.smugmug.com/
http://www.pbase.com/

Create an account with Photobucket. As usual set up your password etc and write it down! Before leaving the setup page make a decision about your 'preferences'. Do you want the world and its boyfriend looking at your images? If not ensure you have deselected the public viewing spot. (Otherwise idle browsers can see and utilise your images) There is an easy to follow tutorial teaching you how to upload photos. If you pay for an account they provide a desktop icon which is an automatic uploader, Coooool!

So, you have created your account. You now have photographs of Bandies in various states of inebriation hanging out of scantily clad Kyties and Females if they are lucky. Using whatever photographic package you have on your computer resize the image you want to place on the web to either of the following sizes, (purely as a guide).
Tick the box in the image sizing that says 'Constrain Proportions' if using pixels make the width 650 pixels; the height will automatically be adjusted.
Or set the width at 6cm and the height will be adjusted. Resolution should be 72 dpi for an average digital camera or scanner, or 300 dpi for an SLR digital.
The reason for this becomes evident when you attempt to upload the photo if it is still in it's original size, Photobucket will upload only 1Mb, which is stacks, it retains the size but reduces the quality, however when you place the photo on a board for our delictation it covers the whole screen and uses up oodles of Bandwidth. So be sensible and resize your photos before uploading.

We now have images saved on our computer and on our web account with Photobucket.

With your new photobucket account go to any photo you have uploaded.
Below each one are two lines of script. One is the URL, or location in cyberwotsit. The other is the same, but has the letters

Route 2
If you use the second line of type use the same procedure but there is no need to dither about with the grey box, as the img code already exists. The picture appears when you click submit or preview.

When placing a picture in Photobucket for use on the forums it helps if you use a picture size of approx 650 x 650 pixels, which will give you a good size for the forum, and is easier to upload as P/bucket have a IMb limit on size.

Go ahead and do it, after a few attempts you wonder why you were worried, but always preview before posting, saves any huge photos appearing and helps you check that those photos of your Mrs aren't going on the web!!!!!

Now that you are a whizz kid at placing photos on the site try this. Open two separate pages; File/New Window. Right click on the menu bar at the bottom of the screen, select 'cascade windows'. The two pages will be superimposed on each other. Resize them by grabbing the bottom right hand corner and adjusting the size so that there is room for each either side by side or one above the other. (Remember you can click in the top menu bar and drag and drop the boxes where you want them.)

Now with your boxes one above the other for example try the following Page A is Photobucket, open at your photos. Page B is this forum open at your current discussion with a reply box open all blank and gleaming awaiting your input.

Go to Page A. Place your cursor over the line of type below a photo with [img] at each end. Left click on the type and hold the mouse button down. Now drag the code across to the blank box on Page B. As you do so a small grey image will appear at the end of the cursor, it's the information being carted across. On reaching the blank box release the mouse button. The code will appear, you have 'dragged and dropped' from one file to another. PREVIEW!

Print this and follow the instructions step by step. It saves having two or three pages live on the screen.

As with anything it takes practice. Don't be put off by glitzy websites offering everything you don't understand. Have a go, and if you have any difficulties PM me. It's really rewarding, especially if you know you have a photo of a time and place which somebody is wittering about; producing a photo of that place and time, and the response from the other contributors makes it well worth the effort.
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The Royal Marines Band Service on line

Co-admin · Site Admin Joined: 05 Nov 2005 Posts: 1811

We have just implemented the new Image hosting on the main template following testing of the system today.
To add an image or file to your post you simply click the 'Attach file' link at the bottom of the posting window

Click to see full size image

and a pop up box will appear like this

click the browse button and find the file you would like to put on the forum (Jpg, Gif, Txt, Doc, Wav, MP3, PDF etc) but ensure you have permission from the owner of the file to do so and do not breach copyright.
You can then resize the image to a suitable size (the default setting is best for the forum) and rotate it if you wish to. These files are checked by us AND our host for breach of copyright.
If it is a large image, you then have the option to place a thumbnail of the image for people to click (as I have done with the first image in this post) or you can put the full image into the post. Please remember that some users are still on dial up! The maximum file size is 512Kb so please don't post huge files. If it is a long word document, you can cut it into 2 documents or if it is an image you will have to reduce the file size.
All you then need do is click 'Upload file' and it will be sent to the server where it will be hosted.
As a bonus, anyone looking for images will be able to click on the Gallery link at the bottom part of the forum and see all images/files in one easy place.

Any problems please let us know
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The Royal Marines Band Service on line

bootybandy · Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 4:04 pm Post subject:

Your system is much easier Deli. Well done that man....BZ
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Wine is meant to be drunk............I am drunk.............Therefore am I wine??