Forum photos

[juliporiginals]

There has been slightly less entries for the competitions that are being held on the forum recently, if anyone would like to enter and are struggling to add their photos to the various threads, especially for the 'Model of the Month' competitions, please let me know and I can attach them for you.

There is a tutorial of how to add photos to the forum on the FAQ's but I am more than happy to help anyone that needs a hand

[george]

It's become a lot more difficult hosting our photos in a postable way since Photobucket stopped it's free accounts working properly, especially now most people automatically put their modelly stuff on Facebook or social media, and don't have it uploaded to a photo hosting site like we all used to to years ago.

For a while I was using and recommending Postimg for hosting and posting forum photos, but that seemed to suddenly stop working at all (I spent weeks trying to get pics uploaded, and they'd just never load all the way, freezing at about 80-90%), so I had to give up on it.

Some people swear by Flickr but I've never got on with it, my laptop struggles with navigating the complicated web design - possibly it's lovely on phones or tablets! - plus I hate all the untidy linking stuff it puts under pictures on forums, and it's free accounts are now pretty limited so unless you can afford and are willing to pay for a subscription, you can't keep more than 200 pictures in your stream, the older ones just vanish, which is bad if like me you own rather more than 200 model horses!

Lately I've been using imgbb, which is free, seems to work reliably without downtime or upload issues, my pictures so far have all stayed working, and it does allow normal forum posting of images without turning them into tiny thumbnails or plastering watermarks all over them. Even with the free account, you can make albums to sort your pictures, and make them private so no-one can browse your stuff. The one down side is that it's SO hard getting the actual direct URL for each picture, you have to ignore all the supplied links supposed to work for posting in all the different ways and places - I tried them, they don't! - and do it in a roundabout way by opening each uploaded photo from your album into a new tab, and then opening the image from that page into it's own second new tab, and copy-pasting THAT direct URL instead. So it's a bit of a faff, but it seems to be the only free hosting I can find which is genuinely free, reliable, and doesn't have such a complicated web design that my laptop can't handle it.

So as Laura said, she's perfectly willing to help you out for the competitons, but if you do want to set up your own hosting account and share more photos of your Julips here, I'd recommend imgbb at the moment (though it's possible that will also stop working or want to start charging, eventually, there's no telling these days!)

[helen1983]

Thanks George! I really struggle with Flickr on phone and laptop, it is so unpredictable and hard to get the URL to post properly! I’ve decided to come off Facebook (possibly permanently, but without deleting my account) so I think most of my stuff will start to be posted on here and should be easier with your recommendation

[stacey]

Happy to help anyone having issues with Flickr Out of curiosity, which browser do you all use? I’ve never had a problem with Flickr on Google Chrome with a laptop, I find it a bit trickier on the iPad but still possible  

[ridinghorses]

Thanks Georgie i have given up trying to put pictures on here. It's just too involved. And I will never forget all the time I spent on photobucket only to have them all dissappear.

[helen1983]

Feb 15, 2021 15:08:44 GMT stacey said:

Happy to help anyone having issues with Flickr Out of curiosity, which browser do you all use? I’ve never had a problem with Flickr on Google Chrome with a laptop, I find it a bit trickier on the iPad but still possible  

Thanks Stacey it used to be really easy but now when I try doing it on here, the URL just posts and doesn’t embed the actual picture! It used to but I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I’m using Safari on my iPhone but I think Google chrome on my surface tablet? 

[maisiemou]

I use Flickr and Chrome and pleased to say it posts okay for me so maybe it is the browser. I just click on the Flickr photo, click share photo which is an arrow on the bottom right side, then click share 1 photo to: BBCode, click the URL to highlight it then right click copy, then paste on the reply which has BBCode at the bottom. When I look at preview it's there. Hope this helps someone, it sounds very long winded typing it out but it'snot when you do it

[juliporiginals]

I am the least technical person ever and I use Flickr and Chrome, I used to use Photobucket which I found quite difficult compared to Flickr, you just have to remember to go to BBCode to copy and paste the photo and the BBCode again when you attach it to the thread on your post, having said that I can only do it on a laptop and not a phone or tablet (those are beyond me!)

[eldabee]

Yay I've finally managed to upload one on my own!!!  

[Jan]

After Photobucket wasn't an option, I used to just add photos as attachments. It was really easy and no problem for motm when you only post one photo but the forum won't let me do that anymore.

[george]

Yes, the forum attachments thing got full, there's a certain storage limit and I think the only way to raise it is to pay a monthly subscription for more space. We could delete all the old attachments to free up the space again, but I know a lot of people use forum posts to refer back to, and it doesn't seem fair to just decide 'right, we're getting rid of your pictures to make room for new ones', when the forum posts might be people's only record of when they got a horse, something they've made, or a handy place to retrieve a photo from if they've lost their own copy.

My problems with Flickr were never about making sure I picked up BB code, it's more navigating the site in the first place - the design had too much going on like frames which scroll inside other ones, pop-up black panels which take up the whole screen, drag-and-drop which didn't, hidden menus, clicking making things overlap other things meaning you ended up having to just press escape to get away from what you couldn't work. I always assume when a site works like that, it's designed for touch-screen, whether that's phones or tablets or those laptops where the top half IS a tablet, and me trying to navigate it just sets off all the functionality I can't handle! But as I said, other people swear by it and find it easy.
Perhaps it's just a matter of finding the site which seems simplest to you, and suits the way you're used to handling your devices. I've never used a smartphone, ipad, or touchscreen anything, so actions and layouts which seem intuitive and easy to somebody thoroughly used to handling those, are really random and illogical to me (I still have my laptop set to look and work like Windows 7, because Windows 8 and 10 with all their strange swipe actions and windowless 'apps' are a foreign language to me, heh)