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Photo Posting and Optimizing Tutorial; <<OBSOLETE>>

Started by Jeff, February 08, 2007, 02:14:17 PM

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Jeff

These Instructions are now Obsolete. Please refer to the newest sticky topic in the behind the forum board.

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/board,16.0.html

Note 1: If you ask for help, you will get it and cheerfully so. However, If all you want to do is complain about the posting process or the required photo criteria, then we'd rather you just don't worry about sharing any of your photos with us on this site. There are over 100,000 photos on the site. That means, that uploading and sharing photos has been done successfully here over 100,000 times. So that also means, the problem can be found by looking in your mirror, not in how we have chosen to do things. This note was written because I have become weary of criticism from those that only think of themselves.  Now, for everyone else, please continue on.  :)


Note : To post photo you need to have a recent version of Java on your computer.

Video Tutorial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yclpxy7gorI

Here is a test page from java.com that will let you know if you actually have java working on your computer. It also has some links to the steps to figure out why it is not working if that is the case.

http://www.java.com/en/download/help/testvm.xml

Most all computers have java installed You can download or upgrade java here:

http://java.com/en/




UPLOADING

1: Open post box, under post box you will see this text and a link:

Upload or insert Photo?
Click on Java Uploader (re-sizes for you)

2. Click on Java Uploader (re-sizes for you) to open a new window.

Wait until the page completely loads. If you have any trouble with the page completely loading, you need to update java.

3. Choose an album or create and choose an album at this time.

4 . Browse to your photo on your computer and select it.  If you photo needs to be rotated, you can do it at this point. Repeat if you have more then one photo.

5.Select upload. A re sized photo will be uploaded to your selected album.

6. At this point you can re title and describe and add key words to help search for your photo later on if you would like. if you change the title, click on the"apply modifications" button to set the changes.

ADDING PHOTO TO POST

7. Click on the thumbnail image to go to the full size image. Underneath the photo in the file information box, click on the link that says
"Click here to copy this photo code directly to your Forestry Forum post window"
This will add the code to your post box.  You can now go ahead and make your post.

Alternate method of adding new photos or previously uploaded photos to post if number 7 fails to add the code.

8: If the code does not appear in, just below the link that says Click here to copy this photo code directly to your Forestry Forum post window, you will see a text box with the actual code you need. Select, copy and paste that code in your postbox.

NEVER Delete a photo from your gallery once it has been used in a post. This will also delete the photo from the post and this sort of thing will be severely frowned upon! If you plan on deleting photos in the future, DO NOT bother posting them now.


PHOTOS WILL NOW UPLOAD AND RESIZE AUTOMATICALLY SEE ABOVE


Obligatory admin mish-mash carried over from the original tutorial. ;D

Note from Forestry Forum Administration

The Forestry Forum no longer allows linking to photos on other web sites. 

Photos used on the Forestry Forum must reside on the Forestry Forum Servers.
Photos used on this Forum may only be used with permission of the photo's owner,
unless it already resides in the Forestry Forum Gallery.

The Forestry Forum Gallery is not to be uses as a personal storage area for your photos. Please do not use it to house photos other then those used within posts on the Forestry Forum. The only purpose for your Gallery is so the Forestry Forum can maintain the integrity of photos that appear in posts.


REPEAT!! Photos uploaded to the Forestry Forum that are used within a post must not
ever be deleted!


Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

Jeff

You must first create one album so you have a place for your photos to go. You only need to do this once. You can create more albums if you wish to help organize your photos, but additional albums are not nessesary.

Step one:
Locate the image archive button on any forestry forum page near the upper right. Click on this button to enter the Forestry Forum Gallery program.



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Step two:
Locate the button and click on it.

If you do not see the button, look to the left and see if your menu says usermode or admin mode. It should say usermode. If it says admin mode, click it to enter usermode and then you will see the button.



*********************************************************


Step 3

Click the new button, replace the lower text that says "New album" with your text. In the case of our friend Imasap, we will call our new album "Imasaps Photos".  Click the button that says apply modifications.



*****************************************************

Step 4

You will then see this screen:


Click the continune button and you are done!  You have set up your new album and its ready for photos!  You can repeat the process if you would like additional albums to sort photos into if you like to be organized. :)
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

Jeff

Please review the steps before you begin.

Step one:
Click on the link below to go to the XAT image optimizer download page.
http://www.xat.com/internet_technology/download.html


Step two:
Click on a button to the right of the product you want to download. In this case choose the image optimizer and select the http button.

You should see a prompt similar to the one below, select "save"



Step three: Put the file you are downloading on your desktop. It should be called xatio.exe, but that could change depending on XAT.



Step four: Once the file has downloaded, go to your desktop and look for the file icon and double click on it to start the install.


Depending on your systems you will get a series of prompts. Click the yeses I agrees and the Continues until the install is completed. :)

You should find a shortcut on your desktop to open your newly installed program that looks a little like this one:


Thats it! Your done. You now have a program that will resize your image, then comprss your file size preparing it for the Forestry Forum!  Congratulations! :)




Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

Jeff

This is an easy one.

Step one.
Go to your desktop.

Step two.
Right click in an empty spot.

Step three.
Select new, then folder.  After creating the folder, rename it "Forum Photos" (without the quotes. ;)  Of course your view will be different them mine.




Thats it, your done! You now have a place to put your optimized photos for the forestry forum!

Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

Jeff

These instructions are only for the XAT image optimizer. If you are using something different, many of the steps apply. Remember these three things. 

Dimension of your photo: 500 pixles or less in its greatest dimension.
File size of your photo: 44k or less. The smaller the better! But you want to keep them clear as possible!
File must be, or must be saved as a .jpg file
*********************************
Step one
Open your image optimizer program. Go to your desktop and find the short cut, double click it to open the program.


*********************************

Step two
You will see this prompt (this may change for future releases of the software) Simply click the OK button to enter the program.


********************************
Step three: opening a file
Now that your program is open, go to file, then open. Navigate to where your phtos are located on your computer. In Imasap's case, they are on his L drive, which is the removable disc for his camera.


*******************************************
Step 4: cropping photo

The first step you will be given is to crop. You may crop your photo or choose to leave it the way it is. To crop, simply draw a square with your pointer to include the area you would like to keep. Then click the crop button. In Imasaps photo, we will choose "crop"


********************************************
Step 4: Resizing and rotating

Next we will resize the photo to get it to within the dimension limits for the forestry forum. That means 450 pixles or less in the photos greatest dimension. Its easy! Just change the amount in the box!


*********************************************
Step 4: Compressing (optimizing) the file
Next we will compress the photo to get it to within the file size limits for the forestry forum. This is 35 k maximum, and as small as you can go without losing detail.

Its easy! Simply hit the compress button. You will get two views of your photo. the original, and the one you are  compressing. To compress, simply slide the JPEG quality button until you get your desired compression. you can adjust it up or down with the slider while looking at your photo. Get it less then 35k and keep going until it starts to lose quality. adjust it up or down until you are happy. Just a slide back and forth!  EASY!



**********************************************

Step 5: Last step! Saving photo

GO to file, then save optimized as. You then will browse to your your desk top, find your Forum photos folder and open it. You will save your new file in that folder. You now need to rename your file. Make sure you dont use capitals or spaces! if you want to divide words, do this: imasaps_deer_photo.jpg Easy eh? One other thing you should never use special charactors in a file name like !?":;#$%&* or anything like that. only use a hyphen_ or what I call an underscore_ to divide words.  Thats it! your done! your photo is saved and ready to upload to the forestry forum!







Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

chet

I'm gonna have da wax lady try it.   ;)  If yer tutorial can git her threw it, yer in business.   ;D
I am a true TREE HUGGER, if I didnt I would fall out!  chet the RETIRED arborist

Jeff

Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

chet

I am a true TREE HUGGER, if I didnt I would fall out!  chet the RETIRED arborist

Jeff

Step one:

We have to go to the gallery!  Look for this button near the top right of any forum page:

***************************************
Step two:

Click the upload file button



Browse to your photo location, select a photo,then select open. You should now see the photo address in the browse window. Now select continue.


You should now see this screen, click continue...

************************************************

Step three:

You should now see this screen. You can fill in the blanks to give more information for your photo, or choose to continue without adding more information. If you created more then one album, this is where you can choose which album your photo goes into. In ourcase we have one album, "Imasaps Photos"  so we will continue.


You should now see the screen below, click continue



Yea! smiley_hellow_im_here Our photo is in the gallery! Its ready to use in any post any time on the Forestry Forum!

Remember, once you use a photo in a post, you can never delete it!!
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

Jeff

UPDATED TO EASY!

OK, we have our photo in our gallery and we want to put in in a post now.

Another note; Did you know you can use any photo in any gallery in a post? You can! If you find a photo in the Forestry Forum galleries, you can use the following instructions to add it to a post as well!

Step one:

To go to your gallery specifically is easiest by clicking on your profile button

Then looking in your profile for the link that says  "Visit My Photo Gallery" click on that link
******************************************
Step 3:

Click on the link that says:
"Click here to copy photo code to your post window"
You will get an alert that asks if you are sure you want to add this photo to your post. You click OK and thats it! The code that creats the picture will be in your post box.  :)

WalahH!  It worked! That was easy! I can put a photo in a post!


Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

GW

Does anyone know of an image optimizer other than xat? My xat trial just ran out and it costs $50 to buy the software.

If there isn't an alternative I'll dig up the $, but maybe someone knows of a free one...

Furby

Don't buy it unless you want to. :)
It will still do what you need with out buying it, even though it ran out. ;)

GW

Mine isn't letting me Furby. Maybe more recent downloads actually expire. I can optimize images still, but every time I try to save one it spits me into a window to purchase.

Furby

Delete it from your puter and do another download.
See if it does it again.

Jeff

Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

Ianab

If you want a good full feature photo program you can try this.

http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/

Gimp is short for Gnu Image Manipulation Program. It was originally written for Unix/Linux, but has been ported to Windows and Mac. It has many of the features of the commercial Photo programs, but it's Freeware.

A bit more of a learning curve than the simple optimisers, but it will let you do HEAPS more with your pictures.

Cheers

Ian
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

GW

Ian, I downloaded GIMP a while back but the learning curve has me bent over the wrong way.   :-[

I tried webresizer and it's very easy to work with. I think I'll use it for now.

Thanks.

ely

ok gentlemen, this simple minded individual needs some extra curricular assistance >:(
i have 3 new photos uploaded to my galery (properly sized and compressed)thank you very much. 
but i can not for the life of me get them to a post. i have printed out the directions above and my screen does not look the same.
i do not at any time see  a link that says "click here to copy photo code to your post window"

i know i have a block of wood with sawdust in it on my shoulders so if anyone can re explain my perdicament, greatly appreciated.

i was trying to put the old saw photos in the mono saw thread.

Jeff

If you have it in the gallery you have the hard part done. 

when you are posting look for the link that says:
"Upload or insert Photo?"  directly under your text box.  Use that link to go to the gallery. It will open in a new tab or window. Navigate to the photo you want to use. You have to click on your photo and go to it, the thumbnail view will not work.

Under your photo you will see something like this below.



There are two options for adding your photo. For most people simply clicking on the link that says "Click here to copy this photo code directly to your Forestry Forum post window"  will put the code right in your post you are working on. You will get an alert that asks if you want to actually copy the photo code to your post.

If that doesnt work for you, you can copy the code that is provided below that where it says:
"For non-compliant browsers, copy and paste the code below into your post window where you want your image to appear:"

Copy that and paste that in your post.  Thats all thee is to it and you will get:





Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

ely


LogDawg

Hi Jeff,

  When I reduce my photos to the correct loadable size they lose most of their quality. I see your photos look great. Is it because my photos are to large to begin with? I am starting out with 1120x 840 sized photos at 426kb. Thanks.

                                                                                  Kevin
Wood Mizer LT40HD
Kubota L4200
John Deer 40
D2 Cat
Home built John Doe tractor
Jonsered, Husky, Stihl

Furby

How are you reducing them?
If using xat, it works MUCH better to change the size of the pic to under 450 pixels on the longest side and THEN compress the file size.
That way you are messing with the info in the pic less.


LogDawg

Thanks Furby,

  Yes I am using xat and reducing to 450. I just realized in the last few minutes that I was reading the scale wrong on the jpeg compression mode so that helped a little but I still see some really sharp photos on the site and can't get mine to look that good. I wasn't sure if changing the settings on my camera would help or not.  I'll keep reading and experimenting. Thanks again.
Wood Mizer LT40HD
Kubota L4200
John Deer 40
D2 Cat
Home built John Doe tractor
Jonsered, Husky, Stihl

Furby

On the compression scale you can go up to 45,000.

Jeff

I actually start with photos that are in excess of 2.5 megabytes from an 8 megapixel camera. You shouldn't need to change your camera settings.  :)
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30