Adding photos

[Ian Carter 2Participant @iancarter2]

Hi, I have started to create an album, ready for inclusion to a new build thread that I want to add. Have a problem, once selected in browser, click on upload……eventually I get a message, unable to reach that page, please try later. What am I doing wrong?

[Ian Carter 2Participant @iancarter2]

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Hi Ian,

Are you trying to upload the very large image file that comes out of the camera? If so then you can get timeout problems caused by uploading large datafiles. It is best to reduce the photos to around Desktop resolution (around 450kb, down from 3mb or more) before uploading. It won't have any detrimental effect on the displayed quality.

If you are still having problems then let us know.

Colin

Edited By Colin Bishop on 06/04/2018 12:39:12

[Ian Carter 2Participant @iancarter2]

Hi Colin,

Forgive me as I haven't a clue how to reduce the resolution. I run on Windows 10.

Ian

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Hi Ian,

Nothing to be forgiven for, this is a rather old software platform and can get indigestion when dealing with large files.

There are various ways to compress your images. I use a program called Light Image Resizer

**LINK**

which I find quite easy to use and it gives various standard downsizing options as well as allowing you to create your own.

Colin

[Ian Carter 2Participant @iancarter2]

Colin,

Worked a treat, now have the start of an album but yet another question, derrrrr. How do you transfer the pics into a new thread. I've clicked onto the icon which brought me up my album but there was no images for me to select and insert.

This could turn into an idiots guide all on it's own, let alone once I start the thread and come up with more questions

Ian

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Ian,

Yes, your album is there OK.

The way to insert images from your album into posts is enter the text you want. do a line feed or two (press Enter)

and then click on the camera icon at the top of the posting box. This will list your albums from which you can select the images yoy want. Click on these and they will appear in the posting box. It is best to leave a line between images. You soon get used to it!

I'm afraid the reason for this rather fiddly prodceture is that the original platform wasn't designed to host a conventional forum and it was tacked on as a bespoke addition.

Colin

[Byron Rees…(Ron)Participant @byronrees-ron]

Hi Colin.

I've never, ever managed to copy a photo to this forum, so reading the above, I've downloaded Light Image Resizer which seemed to work OK, clicked, as per their instructions on a couple of images in my 'Pictures File', and all I've got is what you see above…..What is a URL anyway?

Ron.

[Dave MilbournParticipant @davemilbourn48782]

Ron
You should make sure that the file you are selecting is of JPG format; is of less than about 600kb, and actually contains a photo when you double-click on its name to open it. I have an old copy of Photoshop 7.0 which I use to resize images and I've never failed to post one – goes to show it can't be complicated.
URL is Uniform Resource Locator and is a combination of the address and the method (protocol) of locating a file on a network.
Good luck!

Dave M

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Ron,

What Light Image Resizer will have done is to have made a copy of your ASRL40 image and put the 'copy' suffix on the filename. If you click on that you should see a copy of the original but it will be a different file size depending on which option you selected in LIR. If you hover your mouse over the two files in turn you will see the actual file sizes.

By default a copy is created rather than alter the original image file which you may well want to keep at its original high resolution.

Modern cameras with umpteen million megapixels are total overkill for 95% of the population and produce huge image size files which take up a lot of space on your home PC, and clog up the internet when transmitted to inboxes which can also get overloaded. Some software does perform file reduction before uploading but I don't think ours does which is why uploads of several large files at a time frequently fail.

Colin

Edited By Colin Bishop on 07/04/2018 10:10:39

[Byron Rees…(Ron)Participant @byronrees-ron]

Hi Colin and Dave,

Obviously taking photos which often go in Model Boats, they are High Res. I use a Nikon Digital SLR which produces all images in the 4 to 6 Mb range and I don't send them out on-line exactly because of what you said Colin. They will not only stop my computer in its tracks, but the recipients as well.

The program Win Zip which I used to use, is not, apparently supported by Windows 10, which I am using and I have downloaded several Image management programs over the years to no avail. You can buy a version of Win Zip, which I have tried but it is not the same or as easy to use as it used to be.

Microsoft seem to have a habit of discontinuing really handy programs as they progress (Well, they call it that!) and the various blogs are full of complaints from users about this. Take Windows Photo Wizard for instance, a great and very useful add on that I used to do all my submissions to Paul F. with ease, alas…no-more.

As you say a default copy is in my picture file for one of my latest build articles, several in fact. But they are not an 'album' which seems to be what LIR is waiting for, but I can't get it to do that.

I will continue to play with it, at the risk of deleting some of my pics by mistake!!! I know I'm probably going senile in my old age but it really can't be that difficult…..Maybe it's just me!! but I'm hardly a technophobe.

Be back soon……………Ron.

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Ron,

I don't think you have quite grasped how LIR works, in its simplest form. It should be very straightforward.

If you installed it under the default setup it will have included the option to 'Add Light Image Resize5 to Explorer Context Menu'.

This being the case, all you need to do is to select one or more of your photos by highlighting them in the usual way and then right click on your mouse.

This will bring up the context menu window and you will see Light Image Resizer as one of the options, Click on this and LIS will load, usually with Desktop Resolution as a default resize option. Click on which size option you want and all the photos you selected will be copied and resized with their existing name plus a 'copy' suffix. These are the image files that you then use to compile your album on the Model Boats website. You can load up to 5 files at a time but be sure, once they have loaded, to scroll down to the bottom of th page and click on the 'save' option. Everything else is pretty self explanatory I think.

Colin

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Colin,

Not that it matters much, but I think that the forum platform actually does automatic size reduction of too large photos, at least within some limits.

My photos are mainly taken with a Leica D-LUX 4, and come out of the camera as JPGs roughly 3750×2500 pixels in size and weighing in at around 3 to 4 MB each.

Those images that I select for use on this forum (and on another, Swedish one, where I also participate), I always edit in Photoshop, both to give them more meaningful file names, and to re-size them. After this process, each photo is 1500×1001 pixels in size and, at 180 dpi, weighs around 1 MB, which is pretty much the optimum size for use on that other forum.

This is thus the size of the files that I upload to this forum, too; however, during the upload they are automagically saved to the MB forum servers at 1024×683 pixels and 96 dpi and weighs in the low hundreds of kilobytes.

I have never tried to upload any full size photos to the forum, so don't know if there are any upper levels above which the system would refuse the files rather than re-size them, but at least from 1500×1001 to 1024×683, it does happen!

Mattias

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Mattias,

Yes, there is a degree of resizing in the My Time Media software but In the past i have ound that the bottleneck has been the upload process. It copes fine with smaller files but when trying to upload batches of 5 files over 1mb or so it often times out.

It has a lot of other little quirks too which I won't bother you with!

Colin

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