# Posting photos on the forum.



## Airframes (Sep 29, 2012)

A number of members, for whatever reason, use image-hosting sites, such as 'Flickr' or 'Photobucket', to post images within threads on the forum.
As some here have noticed, this can often result at times in slow loading of the image(s), which is not only irritating, especially when _very_ slow, but slows down the forum and uses space. 
Also, there are frequent occasions when the image can not be seen by viewers, and worse, the image can be _withdrawn_, by the image-hosting site, after a period of time.
This can cause problems, especially when judging the Group Builds - if the pictures of your pride and joy can not be seen, then the judges can not assess the model(s) and therefore can't score it in the GB !!
Could I therefore respectfully request that those of you who still use such image-hosting sites, up-load the pictures direct to the forum, from your computer files, using systems such as 'Irfanview'.
This is available as a *FREE* download, and is quick and easy to use, as well as offering a photo-editing facility, where re-sizing, colour balance, contrast, sharpness, etc can be altered and controlled as required, quickly and easily. It really does make the use of image-hosting sites pointless!
With this type of 'system', it is much more convenient for viewers, the forum, and users, and provides instant loading, instead of having to wait for an image to scroll down, and prevents the loss of an image after a period of time.
Thank you.


----------



## Wurger (Sep 29, 2012)

I agree with Terry. What is more , each using of an URL address needs to open a new net data stream what might result in a possibility of getting of malware , etc....


----------



## Njaco (Sep 29, 2012)

A few weeks ago I created a thread that goes step by step on how to upload a pic.

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/signature-general-pics-upload/new-how-upload-pic-33874.html


----------



## GrauGeist (Sep 29, 2012)

A bonus to uploading your images to this forum, is that those images will always be here!


----------



## Wayne Little (Sep 30, 2012)

Good post Terry!


----------



## Crimea_River (Sep 30, 2012)

Hear hear.


----------



## Aaron Brooks Wolters (Sep 30, 2012)

GrauGeist said:


> A bonus to uploading your images to this forum, is that those images will always be here!



Unless you decide to delete it yourself, then it'll be gone. Oh, and don't post anything X-rated. The Mods will delete that and repremand you.


----------



## meatloaf109 (Sep 30, 2012)

Are you refering to my "legs in the air russian" shots? 'Cause they are still up!


----------



## Aaron Brooks Wolters (Sep 30, 2012)

Paul.....I said X rated not tastless.


----------



## GrauGeist (Oct 1, 2012)

Aaron Brooks Wolters said:


> Paul.....I said X rated not tastless.


Dunno, Aaron...

Thor posted that "Moose Knuckle" pic in the _Breaking News_ thread (Lord how I miss that thread) and I thought Matt was going to ban him for the next two lifetimes for that stunt...


----------



## Njaco (Oct 1, 2012)

That was nasty. I had to rub my eyeballs on tree-bark just to get that image out of my head!


----------



## Lucky13 (Oct 1, 2012)

Just start another then!  Maybe something less distracting this time, maybe something in style with my avatar? 

Irfanview, do that when I get my computer sorted, later on....


----------



## Njaco (Oct 1, 2012)

GIMP!!


----------



## A4K (Oct 2, 2012)

Good thread Terry, agree completely.

Jan, didn't know you were into 9 foot tall blue chicks..???!


----------



## Rogi (Oct 9, 2012)

Wow that was easy


----------



## Vic Balshaw (Oct 9, 2012)

Thanks for that Terry, whole heartedly agree.


----------



## Wurger (Oct 10, 2012)

Also please remember about resizing your pictures to the 800 pixels in their width. Large shots might cause a problem with a screen scrolling and their uploading is time consuming rather.


----------



## Airframes (Oct 10, 2012)

And _that_ is really irritating! 
If I open a post where the pictures are taking ages to scroll down and open, I don't look at the pics. This is because it can take quite some time, and also messes up the page control, to the point where it's often not possible to go to the end of the thread, until the pics have all loaded.
So, if someone can't be bothered to re-size pics, wanting the forum to do it for them, then I can't be bothered waiting to look at them !
And I still can't see the point of using an image hosting site. Why let another party control your pictures - especially if you have to pay for it?!!
Also, if pics disappear because an image hosting site has withdrawn them, and they happen to be pics for judging in a GB, then that's bad luck for the entrant. If I can't see them, I can't judge them !


----------



## Gnomey (Oct 10, 2012)

Yep, resizing is key, although the forum does not resize everything to 800px so will resize any linked pics but won't make them smaller so they will still load slowly.

The full guidelines are here: Announcements - Announcements

Njaco's, image upload guide is also very useful if you don't know what you are doing.


----------



## Airframes (Oct 10, 2012)

Is it worth moving this thread to a more prominent location?
I've noticed this irritating problem, across the whole forum, more frequently lately. OK, if a new member posts pics this way, there's an excuse, until he/she is informed otherwise. But there are 'regular' members who still seem to persist in posting this way, and I can not for the life of me understand why!


----------



## Njaco (Oct 10, 2012)

old habits die hard......


----------



## Lucky13 (Oct 13, 2012)

Can't teach old dogs new tricks!


----------



## Wurger (Oct 13, 2012)

It's not true....


----------



## Lucky13 (Mar 3, 2015)

Will download this Irfanview tomorrow, see how it works....


----------



## Lucky13 (Mar 4, 2015)

Which site is best to download Irfanview from?


----------



## Airframes (Mar 4, 2015)

I think I got a link from Wojtek when I got it, but it was so long ago I don't remember. Check out the various sites, and find the one with the creator's name. It's a great system, and you'll like it.


----------



## Njaco (Mar 4, 2015)

IrfanView - Official Homepage - one of the most popular viewers worldwide

But if you are handy with Photoshop or Corel I would suggest this FREE program.....

GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program


----------



## Wurger (Mar 4, 2015)




----------



## Marcel (Mar 4, 2015)

Njaco said:


> IrfanView - Official Homepage - one of the most popular viewers worldwide
> 
> But if you are handy with Photoshop or Corel I would suggest this FREE program.....
> 
> GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program



The advantage of Irfanview is that it comes with a batch option, so you can resize a whole lot of images at once. In Gimp that's pretty tedious.

Having said so, why does the forum server not have imagemagick installed? You could set it that the file will always be resized to the proper maximum size and will safe a lot of storage space as well.


----------



## Wurger (Mar 4, 2015)

Marcel,

I'm not sure if the forum soft can work with the ImageMagick one together. Also I I'm not sure if the mentioned program can resize files down while being a part of a forum soft. A size of a saved image file depends on its type, DPI, number of colours etc... If you save a large picture and get a file of 5-7MB and then upload it here, the file size will be still the same. The displaying procedure can adjust dimensions of the picture to the forum site ( seems to be resized down ) but it is still the large file that takes of the 5-7MB being saved on the server HDD. If you don't believe me please click with the RMB any of large pictures posted in the forum and choose the Show Info about the Picture option from the pop-up menu.


----------



## Marcel (Mar 4, 2015)

I know how the forum works, resizing is only done on the fly. 

The software I mention, imagemagick is widely used in web scripts to resize pictures the way irfanview does on the server. So in fact storage size will be cut down significantly. I know that both Joomla and Drupal can use it with the help of a plugin. Pwigo, a well known photo album script uses it as a standard. And I suspect the forum software uses it to pipe it to Apache in order to resize on the fly. But as vBulletin is not opensource, I can only speculate. There might be a plugin for this. 

Resizing this way has the disadvantage of loosing information when storing. Thus is not ideal. But on the other hand it has to resize only once, so it'll save cpu and memory resources in the log run. And will speed up the site significantly.


----------



## GrauGeist (Mar 4, 2015)

The most classic example of server compression, would be facebook.

I already resize images to their default album size of 720 wide: 720x477 (or 720x479 - depending on the camera that took the original photo) and while FB's server doesn't resize them further (except for thumbnails or shadowbox display), it knocks about 60% of the files size in MB down, leaving terrible "bleeding" or pixellation (especially with reds or blues).


----------



## Lucky13 (Mar 4, 2015)

Didn't the forum automatically resize pics, not that long ago
There's a few options on the Irfanview, is the Download.com, the one to go for, or?


----------



## Wurger (Mar 4, 2015)

Marcel said:


> I know how the forum works, resizing is only done on the fly.
> 
> The software I mention, imagemagick is widely used in web scripts to resize pictures the way irfanview does on the server. So in fact storage size will be cut down significantly. I know that both Joomla and Drupal can use it with the help of a plugin. Pwigo, a well known photo album script uses it as a standard. And I suspect the forum software uses it to pipe it to Apache in order to resize on the fly. But as vBulletin is not opensource, I can only speculate. There might be a plugin for this.
> 
> Resizing this way has the disadvantage of loosing information when storing. Thus is not ideal. But on the other hand it has to resize only once, so it'll save cpu and memory resources in the log run. And will speed up the site significantly.



OK. I'll dropped a line to Horse suggesting looking for a such plugin.


----------



## Crimea_River (Mar 4, 2015)

The forum's been working great for the last few months. DON'T F!CK WITH IT!


----------



## GrauGeist (Mar 4, 2015)




----------



## Wurger (Mar 5, 2015)




----------



## Lucky13 (Mar 5, 2015)

Well then.....


----------



## Lucky13 (Mar 8, 2015)

Well then...
How does the IrfanView work, how do you change the size of the pics, got one that I need to change for the forum, which is 1882 x 1411!


----------



## Wurger (Mar 8, 2015)

Click the pic with the LMB twice or if you have the Irfanview started go to the File option and choose the Open one from the menu. When the picture is loaded hit the CTRL+R keys. The new requester will be opened where you have the ready for use pic sizes on the right or Set New size line on the left where you can input the new width or hight manually. A little bit down you have a small square fixed for the Preserve aspect ratio option. If it is enabled the dimensions of loaded pic will change proportionally. It means if you change the width, the hight is adjusted automtically and vice-versa. . If the option is disabled you can change either the width or the hight of the pic separately. The effect can be interestion though. Please chack that if you want. When the width is changed you have to click the OK button and the changing is applied. But in order to keep the introduced changings you have to re-save the pic again. The *Save* or *Save as* options are accessed in the File menu. But remember if you use the Save option the existed pic ( file ) will be replaced without any warning. So if you want to leave the source pic as it was please use the Save as option because you are asked about the destination folder and file name that you can set as you want.


----------



## Lucky13 (Mar 8, 2015)

Much obliged my friend....let's see in the '13' thread if it worked!


----------



## Wurger (Mar 8, 2015)

OK. Feel free to ask if you need.


----------



## Lucky13 (Mar 8, 2015)

Thanks buddy! The pic is up now... 8)


----------



## Wurger (Mar 8, 2015)

Seen that there. Are you going to use the Irfanview as your pic browser?


----------



## Lucky13 (Mar 8, 2015)

Use it whenever necessary...


----------



## fubar57 (Mar 8, 2015)

Though I have Irfanview, I only use it to sort through my photos to decide which ones to delete. I like the speed it has going from photo to photo.

Geo


----------



## Wurger (Mar 8, 2015)

There is one more useful option. If you have a picture open with the Irfanview hit the F7 key. In the opened requester you will find ten lines where you can pre-set ten destination folders for moving images. Each time you hit the F7 key you may decide where your shot can be moved by clicking on one of the small square buttons at the bottom of the requester. It is really very useful option.


----------



## Njaco (Mar 8, 2015)

GIMP


----------



## Lucky13 (Mar 9, 2015)

Njaco said:


> GIMP



I think you mean _Pimp..._

....and thanks Wojtek!


----------



## Wurger (Mar 9, 2015)

Also I would suggest checking on the Image menu at the top bar and especially its sub-menu Effects.


----------

