TDI Forum Picture FAQ
How to post a picture in your Forum message:
1. Obtain photo editing software. LView Pro is a popular program that's widely available on the internet at various shareware sites. Newer versions are quite complex, plus the installation is just a "trial" and you'll need to pay after a certain amount of time. Look for an OLD version of LView. It's much easier to use for our particular purpose than the more complex "professional" versions. Many other photo editing options are out there, and many are available for free download such as PaintShop Pro. The software should be capable of editing photos in the JPEG format and capable of translating other formats into JPEGs. JPEG picture files (with the .jpg extension) are slower to load on your screen, but they are nice for use on the internet because the files are much more compressed and therefore use less storage space and bandwidth. Downloads will be much quicker, and that's what takes most of the time anyway. The software should also be capable of re-sizing photos while maintaining the "aspect ratio": The ratio of width to length. (You can manually calculate the ratio, too, but it's easier to let the computer handle it.)
2. Open your picture using your editing software. Change the wide to 600 columns while maintaining the same ratio of length to width. This way when your picture comes up on the forum it won't annoy people by slopping over the edges of their browser window. 640x480 is close, but will still slop over a little bit. Once you get the size correct adjust the "gamma" (brightness) and the contrast until the picture looks good on your screen. Then save the picture to your hard drive. Remember to save it as a JPEG file!
3. Go to http://pics.tdiclub.com and open an account. This is web space/bandwidth that has been generously donated by TDI Believer for use by TDI Club members for the purpose of posting pictures. Bear in mind that this generously donated space is to be used ONLY for Forum purposes! Don't use it to auction your guitar amplifier on e-bay like a certain moderator did who shall remain nameless.
4. Once you have been granted access to the picture storage site enter your account to view all the files and folders in your account. You can save all your files in your "root" directory, or you can create sub-folders. When you're in the directory where you want to store your picture select the "upload file" option, then "browse". Click to the location on your hard drive where you've saved your picture. Double-click the file, then select "upload." The picture will be loaded from your hard drive to the online image server. (The original file will remain on your hard drive.)
5. Now you need to post the pic in a Forum message. The simplest way to do this is to open a second browser and get into your picture server account. In your original server get into the Forum and hit "reply" in whatever thread you want your picture to appear. Then go to the other browser and RIGHT CLICK on the picture file you want to post. Choose "Copy shortcut." Then go back to your new Forum message and right click again, and choose "paste." The URL for your picture file will appear. (You can also type it in manually, but the "copy-paste" method prevents typoes and screwed-up links.)
6. If for some reason you don't want the picture to automatically appear in your message you're done. The URL will appear as a hot link. People can simply click on it to look at the pic. But if you want the picture to automatically appear in your message you need to add a couple of bits to the URL so that the Forum software recognizes that it represents a photo file that you want it appear in the message. To do this, you add "[img]" at the beginning of the link and "[/img]" at the end of the link. There should be no spaces between the "img" tags and the link. BUT DON'T USE QUOTATION MARKS LIKE I JUST DID! I used them so you can see what I'm talking about. Otherwise THIS message wouldn't work properly! It should look something like this:
"[img] http://pics.tdiclub.com/mickey/stupidpic.jpg [/img]" only without the quotation marks or the spaces. There should be no spaces between the brackets and the URL.
Everything should work now. Common mistakes include throwing in "www" in your link to your photo. There is no "www" in the pic server address. Simple typos cause a lot of problems...that's why you should use your mouse to copy the URL from your pic server account and paste it directly into your Forum message. No chance of error that way.
If all else fails you can always click "edit" on anyone's message that contains a picture and see exactly how they did it. And if THAT fails, you can e-mail our volunteer Picture Guru (Sprockets) for help. Click here to email him.
Hint: Hit {ENTER} a couple of times both BEFORE and AFTER your photo link. That'll keep your text and your photo nicely separated in your message and will prevent everything from slopping over the edges of people's browser windows. The browser will treat your photo as part of one great big long line of text if you don't put a couple of spaces in there.
One last thing: The available web space isn't infinite. Once your pictures have run their course, especially "fun" pictures you've posted to the General Discussion for fourm members section, please delete them from the Forum's picture server. To do this you simply access your account and click the "X" next to the file you want to delete. If you have specific TDI-related pictures that will always be of general interest you should leave them there, though. Remember that all threads in the General Discussion section will be deleted a few weeks after the last reply. No need to keep photos on the server that are linked to deleted threads!
Thank you, and happy posting!