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« December 2005 Archive
Thursday, December 15, 2005
4:14:00 PM EST
Hearing Fountains of Wayne, Utopia Parkway

How To: Add Photos (Step-by-Step)

Hi folks...we're getting more snow right now -- it should only be a dusting, though it will probably turn to ice and make driving tricky later on.

I thought I would take this opportunity to tell you again how I put photos in my blog.

More AOL Snow

Now, first off, there's nothing wrong with just clicking the big blue button that says "Add Pictures" when you're creating or editing an entry. This lets you upload pictures to a new AOL Pictures album (which you can also add captions to), and is quick and easy. Plus, it's great if you want to get that slideshow effect. (I used it myself just last week.) That's not what I did above, though.

Sometimes, especially for single pictures, you don't want the extra border, and you want to show the photos full-size. Here's what I do for that:
  1. First, of course, you have to take the picture and download it to your computer (if you're using a photo you already have on your computer, you can probably skip ahead a few steps.)

  2. Then, you'll want to edit your photo. I've been playing around with the free Paint.NET application for Windows, which is very slick and fast for your basic image manipulations: cropping and resizing, adjusting color, contrast, brightness, etc. (I mentioned Paint.NET and some other tools and tips in my earlier entry on digital photos.)

    Size-wise, for your typical three-column Journal (which is a left sidebar, a center column, and a right sidebar), a good photo width is about 450 pixels wide. Also, don't forget to try to keep the file size down -- ideally, you want to save it at the lowest JPEG image quality that still preserves the look of the photo (that is, it doesn't introduce the weird jaggies called Compression artifacts).

    Oh, and one more thing -- photos are typically better saved as JPEG files; drawings usually do better as GIF files.

  3. Then, you'll want to upload the photo to your FTP/Hometown space, using the Web-based File Manager -- I did a full tutorial on using File Manager here.

  4. After you've uploaded the photo, it should show up in your File Manager list:

    File Manager list

  5. Okay, now that you've uploaded the photo, you can work on your blog entry. When you're ready to include the photo, there are a couple of different ways to do it. I will outline the easy way, and the slightly harder way (that gives you more control):
    Easy Way: In the entry creation window, click the blue hyperlink that says: "Add Pictures From Hometown":

    Click the link, then choose the photo you want. If you use folders or subfolders to organize your pictures, you will have to dig down to the right subfolder until you find the photo you want (it will show you a preview of each photo):

    Select a Photo

    Once you have it, click the "Add Picture" button.

    This will stick the photo at the top of your entry, and depending on the size, will wrap the surrounding text around it. 
    Slightly Harder Way (that gives you more control): Refer back to Step 4 above: After you upload the photo to File Manager, right-click the file name and copy the photo's address (depending on your browser, it will be either "Copy Shortcut" or "Copy Link Location"):

    Copy Photo Address

    (Or, if you prefer, you can simply click the file name to view the picture; you can then copy the URL from the address bar.)

    Then, when you're creating your entry, click the little camera button that's in the formatting toolbar:

    Camera Icon

    This will pop up a box where you can put the address of the photo you want to use. You then paste the image URL you copied from File Manager into this box (to paste, either right-click the mouse and select "Paste", or using the keyboard shortcut of  Control-V):

    This will insert the photo, and it will show up in the editing window. (This method also works for images that are hosted elsewhere, like if you're using third-party image hosting. Be careful, though, if you're hotlinking to someone else's photo -- you might want to save it to your own space first.) 

    You can then continue editing the post, adding text above or below the photo:

     
That's it. If you know some basic HTML, you can also control the layout a little better and do other neat things like:

* Make images clickable links

* Specify the alignment of the photo -- left, right or center, using the following HTML:
 <p align="center">Stuff you want to center</p>

* Add alt text, which is text that describes the photo and shows up before the image loads -- this is important to visually-impaired visitors who use screen readers.

I will dive deeper into some of these things in a future entry.

FYI, one thing I find that makes blogging easier is the use of tabbed browsing (which is a lot like Tabbed IMs in the AOL software, only with browser windows). It makes it a lot easier to switch between different windows. Firefox and AOL Explorer both support tabbed browsing -- it makes things a lot faster for me.

In fact, I have a special group in my Firefox bookmarks composed of AOL Mail, Magic Smoke, my Test Journal, and my blogimages subfolder in File Manager -- with one click, I can have them open in 4 tabs, and then flip between them using the Control-Tab keys, which is very useful:

Tabbed Browsing View


Hope this helps. Thanks -- Joe


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This entry has 18 comments: (Add your own)
  • #18 Comment from rjsisti 
    2/21/08 2:07 PM Permalink
    I have never had problems uploading photos or animations into my Journals but today every time I tried I got an error message saying "uploading aborted".  ???????I'm confused

    Roses are Read
  • #17 Comment from ab45yui 
    11/24/07 9:11 AM Permalink
    I know this may be a lot to ask, but since the journals have changed -- could you do an update of what you posted??  Ok, I'll go away, LOL.  I just need help uploading an album from photobucket and am not having very much success.  Sigh!
  • #16 Comment from hugsdoodlewacky 
    2/16/07 4:25 PM Permalink
    ((((((((((((((((((((((HUGSTOYOU)))))))))))))))))))Thanks so much for the info,I am going to look into it.Right now Mom wants to see some recpies from Taste of America.Thank you so much for this.I added it to my faves.have a nice weekend.
  • #15 Comment from mhn146 
    8/9/06 5:46 PM Permalink
    I know it is August 2006 and the Snow has turned to rain and we
    are having a heatwave in Kansas City, Mo., a high of 101 today!
    I sort have been away but it good to be back on line and capable
    of responding to your AOL Journals: Magic Smoke - Aol Explorer,
    I am running a copy of this article and Thank again.
  • #14 Comment from babeboyz19 
    8/1/06 5:35 AM Permalink
    it cool man
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