How to add a picture to your British Badge forum post
   
There are two ways to add pictures to your post or thread:

1) You already have the picture on some web space somewhere and you link to it.
or....
2) You only have the picture on your computer and you want to upload it to the forum.
   

Before we look at each of these we must mention something about preparation of the image for uploading.
 


Image Size
The viewable image size produced by modern cameras can be excessive on some settings for use on the internet. Your image handling software should be used to reduce the size to something that is suitable for modern computer monitors.  This can be done by "resizing", "cropping", or a combination of both.

our image here has had some black border cropped off and resized to a width of about 440 pixels. File size is about 74 kb.

 

The forum maximum for jpg attachments is 650 x 650 pixels.

   
   
File size
Again modern digital cameras and scanners can produce images of a very large file size - the size in bytes that is, the basic measure of computer data, not the physical viewable size of the image. Therefore to improve transmission speeds across the internet (download times) most images will need their file size reduced, ideally to point just before degradation of the viewable image occurs. Most image handling software that comes with scanners and cameras will have the ability to "compress" an image to a file size suitable for the internet.

Our image above has now been compressed using Paint Shop pro 7, down to about 21 kb.

 

The forum maximum for jpg attachments is 97 kb.

   

Adding your picture
   
1) You already have the picture on some web space somewhere and you want to link to it.
a.)   adding the image so it is visible in the post,   AKA "hotlinking"  
   

Fairy straight forward; Open up your image on the web and copy the URL.
In the reply to thread message box (or post new thread message box)
click on the insert image icon, arrowed here.

 

 

This will open a prompt to paste the URL into.
(you can of course type it in, but copy and paste guarantees
it will work.)
make sure the "http://" has not been duplicated...
click OK and that's it.

   

....and the result is an image that visitors & registered users, whether
 logged in or not can see....

the advantage of this method is that the image does not take up any
of the forum server space.

disadvantage is that if the site hosting the image is down the picture disappears off the forum as well, or if you chose to delete the picture from your image host its gone permanently from the forum.

   
   
b. adding the image so it is only viewable by clicking a hyperlink.  
   

Similar to the above except the picture is not displayed
 in the post but is viewed by clicking a link.


Click on the internet/globe & paperclip button

   

paste the image URL into the hyperlink prompt popup.

   
   

click OK and that's it.
In the finished post the text clickable hyperlink will open a new
 window containing the picture.

 

http://www.britishbadgeforum.com/images2/17th_lancers_badge5.jpg
 

   
   
2) You have the picture on your computer and you want to upload it to the forum. AKA "adding an attachment"
 
   
 
   

First check the picture is suitable: 400 pixels wide or less is good (max is 650 x 650 pixels)
and a maximum 97k file size is essential as that's the set limit.

and you will need to know where the image is on your computer so you can browse to it when prompted.

e.g.

C:\Documents and Settings\daveybadger\mydocuments\images\mybadge5.jpg
 

 

  

when you are ready to attach your image:
In the reply to thread message box (or post new thread message box if you are starting a new one)
click on the attachment icon, (paperclip on the top row of buttons) arrowed here

   

this will open the "manage attachments" window;
click on the browse button which will in turn open the choose file window on your PC. (not shown here)
 
browse to the picture file on your computer and select it.
its location on your computer will appear in appropriate
 place on the manage attachments window.

click the top "Upload" button
   
 

 
   

In a few seconds the details of the image should appear in the manage attachments window if the upload was successful as "Current Attachments" (arrowed in the picture)

unless you want to add another image (just repeat the same steps), that's it.

Close the manage attachments window and carry on writing your message - or submit the message if you were finished anyway.

(note: you wont see any reference to the image in the actual message field until you submit it)

   
   

A submitted message with an attachment appears differently to registered, logged in members and those logged out, or visitors.

logged in users see this: -
a clickable thumbnail mini of your image which opens the full size
 image in a new window when clicked.

   

visitors and logged-out members see the
thumbnail collapsed like this:-

clicking on it opens the log in prompt.

   
 
 

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