opinion on app to have folks use for images in frm

I'm about to turn on the ability of folks to upload images directly to the forum. Many many members wish to post photos of their cars, their engines, their races, etc. and currently we have them host their photos on photobucket, or similar. Those work great as they allow resizing, etc. on the fly.
If we allow folks to upload and post images directly, the issue of image size will come up - it already does to an extent.
We'll limit image file size of course! I like Bruce, but would rather not pay him $10,000 a month in bandwidth and storage fees.
I'd like to suggest to folks a FREEWARE image editing application and simple instructions to edit image size, etc. and then how to post said images to the forum.
What do you suggest? Are there good SIMPLE TO USE freeware apps?
They must be simple as although our folks can make an AMX do a quarter mile in 10 seconds or hit 150 mph with ease, they are not so good at image editing, etc.!
Thanks.

There are 2 ways they could do this, simply

Well 3 if you count Microsoft Paint as a viable alternative
1. They could upload their images to Photobucket (which is FREE and they can use Photobuckets own editing system

or
2. Free Paint dot net has a reasonably good software program (similar to Photoshop) and they could edit their own images on their computer

Also I would suggest perhaps a topic on your forum assisting them through the process, similar to ones I did on our forums

You could always code a small modification into the upload process to resize images so they would be under a certain size (using ASPJpeg or something similar). The bandwidth of uploading would still be used, but once resized you wouldn't  have to worry about enforcing image sizes.

I would assume (and its only a quickie thought) that you could edit the language file so the text displays something like:
"The image size is too large. Please make it smaller and try again" instead of the error message that currently pops up

A good instructional topic though - it takes a bit of time granted - would help, and perhaps a message to all members on your forum

Something similar is:
On this forum, users can post images. There are two ways you can do this

If you have your own webspace, you can "hot-link" directly to the image from your own webspace by referencing where the image is on your server. For example, if I wanted to place an image below that was being hosted on my server, I would do the following:



Which would then produce the image as shown below in this example:



In this case the image ABOVE has been "hot-linked" directly from my own server space

The second, and most common way for users who do not have their own webspace though, would be to FIRSTLY sign up for a FREE Photobucket Account. Once signed up, you can then UPLOAD your chosen images to your Photobucket account, and then reference the image you want to display within a post like so:



And then you should see the image you want but ONLY after you have posted your reply as shown below:



Ideally, it is best to post images that are not TOO big in size
Generally speaking I aim to go for say for example 500 pixels WIDE. If you are using programs to change image proprtions then its fairly easy to do that. If not, Photobucket allow you to manipulate the image size once you have uploaded the original

Images that grossly EXCEED this general size will -
A) Take up too much forum page space
B) Take too long to download into the page
C) Will be removed or edited

Re-sizing an image posted in Photobucket is done as follows -

Here is how to re-size images uploaded to Photobucket

1. Select the image you want to re-size as shown below, and click Edit



2. It will open a new window showing your Original image. You can now click Re-size



Or you can select one of the preset options



When re-sizing an image always make sure there is a tick in maintain proprtions



Finally save the image as "a copy" of you do not wish to overwrite or replace the original image



Hey presto! Re-sized image as below:


Now at 320x240 pixels

It's fairly easy to get the hang of it, but if you have any questions please let us know
MrTWS

Admin

But please DO NOT hotlink directly - its just a advisory