How to post images on Art Forum

gggraph · Last edited by gggraph on Wed Mar 18, 2009 3:06 pm; edited 4 times in total

Many members have asked how to post images on Art Forum, or where the 'Upload Images' button is...

Art Forum does not host images, so there is no 'Upload' button as such.

To place an image into a post, you need to insert a URL (web address) for your image into your post.
Bear in mind that images need to be less than 520px (pixels) wide.

If you have your own website, you can host the images yourself. If you don't have your own website, you can use one of the free image hosting services such as:

http://photobucket.com
http://imageshack.us
http://www.imagehosting.com
http://www.freeimagehosting.net

or Google 'Image Hosting" and choose from the results. Art Forum has no connection with any hosting service, and most seem to work well with the forum. Some social network sites, such as MySpace and FaceBook do seem to create issues, simply because in some cases the viewer has to be registered with them to see the images.

Step by Step.

In this case, I'm going to use Photobucket.com for no reason other than it's the first one I thought of...

(1) Create an account with the Image Hosting service (in this case, http://photobucket.com)
Once you have created a free account, you can then click the upload button.

(2) Upload your images.
Assuming the images are stored on your computer, click the Choose Files button to begin. It will then ask you to find where the pictures are located.

If your images are larger than 520px, there is an option to re-size them to something smaller. Photobucket doesn't have a 520px option, so the most suitable setting would be 320 x 240.

So far as I can tell, if your image is already 520px or less, selecting a larger size (eg 1024 x 768) leaves it unchanged.

(3) Copy the location.
Once Photobucket has finished uploading the image (and prompting you for title & description), it will appear in your album. Underneath it will appear a variety of information, including a Direct Link address.

Copy this. On my computer, clicking on this box automatically copies it - this may be different on other computers & browsers. This is the URL of your image. (a Uniform Resource Locator is an address the web uses to find things.)

(4) Post your image on the forum.
When you reach the point in your message where you want to see your image, click on the IMG button.

This tells the Art Forum website that you want to show a picture.
Then paste the URL you copied from Photobucket.
The click the IMG button again. This tells the Art Forum website that that's the end of the picture.
You will wind up with some strange code in your message, that will look something like this:

That code is an instruction to the website that you want to display an image, and where to find it. To see how your posting will actually appear, click the PREVIEW button (always a good thing...)
(Note: it is possible to copy the IMG code from Photobucket and save a couple of steps, but I'm not aware if this is available on other sites, so I've done it the long way... As Amanda points out, some sites may copy the link complete with IMG tags making it unnecessary to click the IMG button first)

(5) Admire your work.
If all goes well, your artwork should now appear in the message, something like this:

If it doesn't, go to your Profile (should be at the very top of the page, between [Log out] and [Messages])
Scroll down to the Preferences, change Always allow BBcode to 'Yes'.

(6) Keep posting.
Art is, strangely enough, a visual medium. We all love to see what everybody's up to and Forum members are extremely supporting and positive. Once you get the hang of it, you'll find it very easy to keep us up to date on where your creativity is taking you.

Cheers

Grant

AvG · Joined: 17 Sep 2005 Posts: 1912

Hi Grant,
Good stuff. One thing though...with both imageshack and servimg the URL link comes complete with the [img] and [/img] codes so there is no need to click on the img button, just copy the entire code and paste it into your post.

gggraph

Ta, Avengelis - I've added that in. I use my own servers, so I don't have any experience with hosting services.

If anybody has any comments about which are easier to use, or more reliable, feel free to chime in.

Grant

AvG · Joined: 17 Sep 2005 Posts: 1912

gggraph

tappis · Joined: 19 Apr 2008 Posts: 148

That's great help !

AvG · Joined: 17 Sep 2005 Posts: 1912

jnny · Joined: 22 Sep 2008 Posts: 1

lickr is almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world. Show off your favorite photos and videos to the world.roblem with uploading images in forum Security & Performance. . I have a problem uploading images to my site from the forum.
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jnny

buzzmarketing

darian zam · Joined: 14 Feb 2008 Posts: 333 Location: other

I find Photobucket is the easiest for me to use. Thanks for making it so clear though, it can be very confusing and frustrating for those who are not as experienced on computers and web.

dollynn.d · Joined: 10 Nov 2008 Posts: 23 Location: China

Thanks so much Grant for your guidance.
but it still seems a little troublesome, why not just post the image in one step?
maybe i'm too lazy. heyhey

gggraph

patsy · Joined: 29 Nov 2008 Posts: 300 Location: Perth

Well been back to Photo Bucket and updated all my stuff and I've done something but I dont know what..have to get some help I think

Stefan Maguran

Does anyone know a way to post images from one's own website?
Specifically, if I want to show pictures from www.maguran.com?
Thank you.

gggraph

Hi Stefan - it's fairly similar (all my images are hosted on my own sites).

You need the full URL of the image, then enclose it with IMG tags
For example [img]http://www.maguran.com/album/Australiana/slides/Z_IMG_23843.jpg[/img]

Note: I've disabled BBCode on this post so you can see the code, NOT the image.

Cheers

Grant

Stefan Maguran

Thanks, Grant. I believe this would be a very valuable information for a lot of members here.