-={ Pimlico's Image Hosting Guide for Imgur - MUST READ for RWI Pictures }=-

[pimlico]

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? ? ?_? ?? Pimlico's Image Hosting Guide for Imgur ? ? ?_? ??
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Do you hate using TinyPic? Does it slow down your computer? That's because it's full of spyware, ads, and other nonsense. This is true for the majority of free imaging websites. Another popular one is ImageShack and Photobucket; I personally feel this is probably the most offense one, however it's the most popular. ImageShack and Photobucket makes it very difficult to link directly to the picture itself. They always wrap their website and "value-add" to it, such as being able to order prints, display ads, and other tracking technology.

One of the better image hosting companies is a little known site called Imgur. For those of you who use reddit.com, you know a few years ago the website had the same problem. Which image hosting provider should everyone use? Same problems, etc, etc. One of the reddit.com users decided to build his own free image hosting website, and he called it imgur.com. From that day forward reddit.com used the new imgur.com website to host all pictures on reddit.com.

For those of you who have no idea what reddit it, it's a news aggregation site that gets about 20,000,000 per month and 240,000,000 visits per year. It's insane.

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\_??????? Get started with imgur.com \_???????
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I would like to recommend that RWI start using imgur.com. Here are the immediate benefits:

1. It's free
2. Very easy to use
3. No terrible ads
4. No "value-add" services such as printing
5. You can EASILY link DIRECTLY to your images
6. The amount of storage is pretty much unlimited
7. The image hosting is very very fast and cached around the world

OK, so how do you use Imgur? Let me show you.

First make an account. Goto http://www.imgur.com/

Just fill in the blanks. No annoying confirmations either. Instantly start using it.

Confirm the CAPTCHA

Now you should be logged in and see your dashboard.

To start uploading images, just click on "upload images" up top. You have LOTS of images. You can just copy and paste an image into it, select from files on your computer, drag images from your computer into the dialog box, or even link to images from other sites to upload.

As I made this tutorial, I had a bunch of screenshots on my Desktop. I clicked the upload button and just highlighted about 20+ pictures and dragged them into the upload box on Imgur.

Once you select all of the files you want to upload, you can create an album at the same time. You can see that I called my album "imgur tutorial" Keep the default settings to blog (it shows the images from top to bottom when browsing an album).

Now just click "Start Upload"

Now you should see all of your uploaded images on your dashboard!

That's pretty much it. Very, very simple.

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\_??????? Using imgur.com pictures in RWI posts \_???????
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The next step is how do you use your new Imgur pictures in a RWI post?

VERY EASY!!!

Click on a image. You should see an image dialog box like this.

Look at all of those beautiful shortcuts! The most important thing to look at is the bottom-right side of the dialog box.

Do you see all of the Sizes? Imgur is nice enough to automatically create 6 copies of your original image in different sizes for you.

My favorite is the "huge thumbnail" It has a very good size that fits the width of most forums very well, but still has great detail.

Just click "Huge Thumbnail"

Do you see what happened? All of the shortcuts changed! For those of you who are detail-oriented or techies, you might have noticed that all imgur.com did was append a single "h" to the end of the random image filename! And yes, the "h" stands for "huge!"

Copy and paste the "Direct Link" and use this in your new RWI post!

When you start making a post, click the "Insert Image" button on the top of the RWI editor. You'll see a dialog box. Paste this Imgur Direct Link into here. Also uncheck the "retrieve remote file and reference locally" - imgur.com is cached around the world, so no need to cache it on RWI. Now just click OK.

Now you're done!

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???????? Pimlico's Personal Recommendation Summary ????????
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Please use imgur.com for all of your forum pictures!

1. It's free
2. Very easy to use
3. No terrible ads
4. No "value-add" services such as printing
5. You can EASILY link DIRECTLY to your images
6. The amount of storage is pretty much unlimited
7. The image hosting is very very fast and cached around the world

Thank you!!

 

[Steelfish]

Or else you could completely bypass the fiddly "Insert Image" process by simply copying/pasting the BBCode link directly into your post.....

 

[pimlico]

You are correct! That's why I love imgur - so many different ways to do the same thing. If you're new to computers, they make it as simple as possible. However if you're a techie, there are so many cool shortcuts like appending letters do the image name, or just using the BBCode and pasting it directly into the forum!

 

[Jooc10]

Thanks for creating this!

 

[wolfwood]

Didn't know about the BBCode. Being using the Direct Link method. Learn something new. Thanks much.

 

[trailboss99]

Or else you could completely bypass the fiddly "Insert Image" process by simply copying/pasting the BBCode link directly into your post.....

Yeah, the same way you can with Photobucket.
Look I have no issue with Imgur, it's a fine host but to say that PB et al make it hard to link directly to an image is either ignorance or a deliberate misinformation. You have exactly the same options on PB for linkage as Imgur.

 

[Phil G]

Yeah, the same way you can with Photobucket.
Look I have no issue with Imgur, it's a fine host but to say that PB et al make it hard to link directly to an image is either ignorance or a deliberate misinformation. You have exactly the same options on PB for linkage as Imgur.

I agree with you, it can be slow at times, but it works. The idea of migrating 100's of photos to another site is daunting.

On the up side, everytime I open PB in a new tab another tab opens with AliExpress, so I get to have a quick look around Ali. :thumbup:

 

[pimlico]

Yeah, the same way you can with Photobucket.
Look I have no issue with Imgur, it's a fine host but to say that PB et al make it hard to link directly to an image is either ignorance or a deliberate misinformation. You have exactly the same options on PB for linkage as Imgur.

TB,

PhotoBucket allows you to et BBCode, no problem, but you still can't link directly to images.

Take this beautiful Panerai box for example:

http://s1319.photobucket.com/user/SertiSub/media/IMG_3808_zpsjoukyygf.jpg.html

That URL ends in .html and is slow. It's also littered with ads and "value-add" services such as printing.

What happens if we remove the .html and only want the .jpg (the actual image itself)?

Let's try:

http://s1319.photobucket.com/user/SertiSub/media/IMG_3808_zpsjoukyygf.jpg

Photobucket gives you an error; the file doesn't exist. It's a terrible website that forces you to go through their ads, slow service, and be exposed to all of the money making schemes they're in.

The only choice you have is to use JavaScript and download the file to your computer.

The other option is a "Direct Link" from PhotoBucket, but this is a JOKE. Here is the "Direct Link" for that same beautiful Panerai box:

http://i1319.photobucket.com/albums/t673/SertiSub/IMG_3808_zpsjoukyygf.jpg

Guess what? That isn't a direct link at all, it's just a fake .JPG extension that displays their slow dashboard, ads, and value-added services.

That's my entire point of the Imgur tutorial. You don't have any of these issues at all.

Here is the Direct Link from Imgur for comparison:

http://i.imgur.com/fkhl5va.jpg

It goes straight to the picture and nothing else. It doesn't try to detect how the image is being used and render it differently.

 

[Phil G]

Sorry if I'm missing something here pimlico, on PB I go to the album, click on IMG and it ghosts copy, then I come on here and right click paste. What am I missing?

 

[pimlico]

Here's what I see when I open your image in a new tab:

PB changes it from a real .JPG to their captive portal depending if they detect it's a real user/browser or coming from a forum trying to render a picture.

So in Phil G's comment, he uses the "insert picture" button, gives the URL http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g144/PhilGz/Signs Ha Ha/untitledbmp15.jpg and an ostrich is rendered.

When you physically click the same link http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g144/PhilGz/Signs Ha Ha/untitledbmp15.jpg PB actually renders their dashboard, ads, and other things.

PB makes no sense at all. They do everything to maximize their own profit and minimize user experience.

Here is the same picture hosted from Imgur - you can click on it and it takes you directly to the picture.

http://i.imgur.com/AvTrc40.jpg

No dashboard or ads.

 

[Phil G]

I see what you're saying, but I don't open image in new tab. Usually the image in here is good enough for me to see the detail. As I said before the effort of migrating all my photos is too much effort, however, thanks for the info.

 

[Steelfish]

You're a true bloke for what you do for these kids Phil.....utmost kudos to you my friend.

 

[txrob779]

A true bloke (new one). I have read Top Bloke,,,,,either way you ROCK Phil

 

[shinynewbling25]

Thanks for posting this!!! Joined Imgur today. I HATE photobucket and imageshack or all those other sites. The images are small when I go to the page, I can't save the images (who doesn't like to save cool watch pics to their computers?) and a million popups spring up and my pc hates those and it crashes firefox a lot. I did get a lot of failed uploads somehow but then got one to accept and just rolled with it until they all accepted. Done deal.

 

[trailboss99]

Moving this to FAQ and pining it.


If you open a PB image and right click "open image in new tab" you get the raw image BTW.

 

[pimlico]

Moving this to FAQ and pining it.


If you open a PB image and right click "open image in new tab" you get the raw image BTW.

Thanks for the pin and move into FAQ, TB.

However, I demonstrated that when you open image in new tab, PB automatically detects it isn't rendering an image on behalf of a website, and instead injects its own website around the image.

Here is my demonstration of this evil (imho) behavior:

http://forum.replica-watch.info/vb/...WI-Pictures?p=2306334&viewfull=1#post-2306334

 

[trailboss99]

Sigh . . .
Once an image is open in PB, right click again, select "open image in new tab" and you will get the raw image.

 

[pimlico]

Sigh . . .
Once an image is open in PB, right click again, select "open image in new tab" and you will get the raw image.

Hi TB,

PB uses JavaScript to disable right-clicks once you bring that image up in a new tab. However this can vary depending on the "privacy" settings users place on their album.

For example that image from Phil G allows me to open the image up in a new tab, but PB has a captive portal and renders its web site around it. If I try to right-click on the image again, it doesn't allow me to because JavaScript blocks it.

This is my point, PB is really evil in this regard and there are better alternatives for new users such as imgur.com.