Post by Phil on Nov 2, 2006 12:41:42 GMT
The following FAQ has been produced to help members attach pictures to their posts. Members frequently run into problems when trying to do this but, hopefully, this FAQ will take away some of the mystery.
The instructions here try and cover every step. Many will not need to see this in such detail but for others it may be useful.
The FAQ will deal with the two areas which seem to cause most problems.
1. How to ensure that your picture is ready for posting. This primarily involves the physical size of the picture both in terms of dimensions and file size.
2. How to actually post the picture once it is ready.
The presumption is that you will have some form of photo editing software eg. Photoshop, Paintshop Pro etc.
However, this may not be the case and, in order to build a tutorial based on something that everybody will have or can acquire for free, the picture sizing part of this FAQ is based upon a piece of software called Irfanview. The general principles of the picture sizing FAQ are applicable to any of the photo editing software products but the actual menus and screenshots will, of course, be different.
So, if you are all sitting comfortably, the we’ll begin.
To get a free down load of Irfanview go to www.irfanview.com
Before you start it may be worth creating a 'Pictures for posting' folder as a place to save the images to after re-sizing.
The reason that resizing is often necessary is that digital images produced by modern, high spec digital cameras, or photos scanned in via a scanner are often of a very large file size. This means that were they to be diplayed on this forum in their raw state, they would not only take up a massive amount of storage, but they would also be of such a size that you would have to scroll across the page in order to view them and would take ages to display.
So, how to resize?
Firstly, open the picture file you want to edit in Irfanview.
To do this, click on the "File Open" icon (see below).
To resize the photo, click on the "Image" drop down menu.
You will get the following window.
Click on Resize/Resample
You can then set the physical dimensions of the picture.
You can either use one of the presets…. 640 x 480 is probably the most appropriate
Or you can set the width of your choice. In order to prevent the need for scrolling across the page you should keep the width to no more than around 700 pixels wide.
Make sure that the “Preserve Aspect Ratio” box is ticked. That way you will keep your pictures in proportion of height to width. Also keep the DPI setting to 72.
Many images that have been produced by scanning in a photo may have a DPI of around 300. This is way too large for for displaying on the web, so if you need to, change this setting to 72.
Click OK when you are happy.
Now click on "File" and you will get the drop down menu below.
Click “Save As”. This will keep your original photo unaffected by these edits and preserve your ability to make high quality prints.
Now there are two things to do before you finally “Save”.
1. Make sure you “Save” as a JPEG
2. Click on the “Options” box.
You will then see the menu box below with a slider which will allow you to control the “Save”quality of the picture. This is an area you should experiment with. It is a trade off between the file size and picture quality. There is a site limit of 125kb for these files but you should try and stay in the 50 to 70 kb area.
You can then go click “OK” and go back to the “save As” menu and finally “Save” after you have selected the directory you want to save it in. This may be the "Pictures for posting" directory it was suggested you set up before starting.
There is one further thing you may want to consider before actually posting, and that is to obscure any registration plates that may be visible in the photo.
Now the photo is ready for posting, you can now go to the second part of this FAQ which deals with how to actually post it.
The instructions here try and cover every step. Many will not need to see this in such detail but for others it may be useful.
The FAQ will deal with the two areas which seem to cause most problems.
1. How to ensure that your picture is ready for posting. This primarily involves the physical size of the picture both in terms of dimensions and file size.
2. How to actually post the picture once it is ready.
The presumption is that you will have some form of photo editing software eg. Photoshop, Paintshop Pro etc.
However, this may not be the case and, in order to build a tutorial based on something that everybody will have or can acquire for free, the picture sizing part of this FAQ is based upon a piece of software called Irfanview. The general principles of the picture sizing FAQ are applicable to any of the photo editing software products but the actual menus and screenshots will, of course, be different.
So, if you are all sitting comfortably, the we’ll begin.
To get a free down load of Irfanview go to www.irfanview.com
Before you start it may be worth creating a 'Pictures for posting' folder as a place to save the images to after re-sizing.
The reason that resizing is often necessary is that digital images produced by modern, high spec digital cameras, or photos scanned in via a scanner are often of a very large file size. This means that were they to be diplayed on this forum in their raw state, they would not only take up a massive amount of storage, but they would also be of such a size that you would have to scroll across the page in order to view them and would take ages to display.
So, how to resize?
Firstly, open the picture file you want to edit in Irfanview.
To do this, click on the "File Open" icon (see below).
To resize the photo, click on the "Image" drop down menu.
You will get the following window.
Click on Resize/Resample
You can then set the physical dimensions of the picture.
You can either use one of the presets…. 640 x 480 is probably the most appropriate
Or you can set the width of your choice. In order to prevent the need for scrolling across the page you should keep the width to no more than around 700 pixels wide.
Make sure that the “Preserve Aspect Ratio” box is ticked. That way you will keep your pictures in proportion of height to width. Also keep the DPI setting to 72.
Many images that have been produced by scanning in a photo may have a DPI of around 300. This is way too large for for displaying on the web, so if you need to, change this setting to 72.
Click OK when you are happy.
Now click on "File" and you will get the drop down menu below.
Click “Save As”. This will keep your original photo unaffected by these edits and preserve your ability to make high quality prints.
Now there are two things to do before you finally “Save”.
1. Make sure you “Save” as a JPEG
2. Click on the “Options” box.
You will then see the menu box below with a slider which will allow you to control the “Save”quality of the picture. This is an area you should experiment with. It is a trade off between the file size and picture quality. There is a site limit of 125kb for these files but you should try and stay in the 50 to 70 kb area.
You can then go click “OK” and go back to the “save As” menu and finally “Save” after you have selected the directory you want to save it in. This may be the "Pictures for posting" directory it was suggested you set up before starting.
There is one further thing you may want to consider before actually posting, and that is to obscure any registration plates that may be visible in the photo.
Now the photo is ready for posting, you can now go to the second part of this FAQ which deals with how to actually post it.
