- Take the photo
- Get the photo on your computer
- Get the photo then on to a web "hosting" site
- Direct the hosting site to add the photo here
Yep, I know....should be an easier way, right??? Someday, maybe...but for now, we have to take the "scenic route"! So with all the above in mind, we will go through each step.
From here we will assume you are wanting to add a photo of a teddy bear your working on. First, you have to have a photo of that teddy bear on your computer. To do that you will need either a scanner, digital camera, or photo capturer of some type (like a Snappy, etc.). If all you have is old Instamatic..sorry..it ain't gonna happen! If you have a regular developed photo from that old Instamatic AND a scanner, you can scan the photo onto your computer, that would work! If you have either a scanner, digital camera or video capture, then you already know how to use those and its software (and if you don't...find someone to help you or the next steps are useless...LOL).
Anyway, get photo taken, on your computer, and give it a name with a .jpg ending (for example: teddybear.jpg) and your ready for the second step. That .jpg (pronounced J-Peg) ending tells all the software, hosting site, and posting site that it is looking for a photo of some time.
Second step: Getting the photo from YOUR computer to the "hosting" site. A hosting site is where the picture lives on the internet. You don't want everyone going to your computer to look at the photo. Lots of bad things can happen! So, you will be "uploading" (putting it on the internet) to be "downloaded" (taking from the internet) to this site to view. It is kind of like an internet photo album...kinda..sort of. There are lots of free hosting sites out there. Yahoo/GeoCities has a great one for free that is very easy to use. There are others so use what you like best. Don't worry when you get there and it talks about creating your web page. You will actually be creating a web page, but all you will have on your webpage are photos. Your webpage won't be for access -- just used to store and let the forum see your photo. So don't adding text, etc. -- don't do anything other than establish your page and add the photos. Again, if you need help, let me know.
Ok, by now you are reading and saying, "she has got to be kidding! This is WAY too much trouble!!" As they say in politics..."Trust ME"!!...LOL. It is not a hard as it sounds. If it were that bad no one would ever have photos online. You can do it! Once you get this far the rest is a cakewalk! You will also always have your hosting site available for lots of things once you get this far. You can use it if you sell on auctions like Ebay, email photos to family and friends, etc. Not to worry -- you'll get it!
Alright...have teddybear.jpg uploaded on your hosting site??? We are ready for the LAST step (woohoo!!) -- telling your post to add a photo and -- where to put it...(hey, shame on you! I heard that!!...(but I can relate!)..LOL): Here is where you are going to add another one of those HTML codes you are all getting so good at. Lets assume your photo lives at Geocites. Geocites will show you an address that your photos live at. Lets assume they live at www.geocities.com/susan/ and you have your photo listed as teddybear.jpg. The code you will be using is....(drum roll please......):
You have to be sure and use the tag
What you are doing is saying.."here is my project of the teddy bear I am making and I want a photo of it to be right here". Put the code where you want that teddy bear photo to be.
A word of caution here....watch what size you load your photos. It is easiest when you put them on your computer to size them to the correct size. Otherwise you will either end up with a full page photo or too tiny to see. Test it out first!
To give you an idea of size. Here is a photo of a super easy unisex sweater that I am working on for my daughter (but in a deep purple -- like you care, huh??..LOL). This photo size is 200 x 361.
Another word of caution....remember that it takes a long time for photos to download. You don't want folks having to wait forever to see you photos. Just use care and size them just enough to see what you are trying to present.
Another tip: you can copy a photo already on a site like I did above by right clicking on the photo and going to "properties", then copy and paste that address to the img src tag.
Since this post took up so much room, I would ask that you not practice in this particular thread. I will put up a "photo testing" thread so you can practice there. That way our good readers who don't care about this stuff can just skip onto the next thread of interest. Good luck! You can do it! I will be adding other helps -- Next ones will be adding bold, italics, etc. to your posts.....stay tuned for more exciting adventures in HTML!!!
P.S. Also among the coming attrations are: differant color fonts, paragraph numbering, indenting, and many more! Keep your notebooks handy!
-- Karen (mountains_mama2@hotmail.com), February 02, 2002