Sending Photos to the Forum

There was recently a question posted asking how to prepare a digital photo for the forum. We are happy to advise about this. Everyone enjoys looking at the hibiscus related photos of others and we encourage you to post your photos here as well.

Here is a step by step guide for how to post photos on this forum.

1. Only members can post messages and photos. Anyone can read messages and look at the photos, but if you want to share a photo please sign up as a forum member.

2. Decide where to post the photo. If it is of one variety, you can post it in the topic for that variety in the "Hibiscus Cultivar Discussions" - example: post of photo of Valentine's Day in the Valentine's Day topic. Find it by using the Search window at the top of each page, or scroll through the Cultivar section. Alternatively, you can post it in the "Hibiscus Flower Photos of the Day" section. Find the current month in that section and post the photo there.

3. Prepare the photo on your computer. The forum will only allow photos that have a file size of 400 kbs or smaller to be posted. If your photo is larger than that you need to reduce the file size. Detailed directions to do this appear below these instructions. (Look below #8). Most software allow you to view details about the photo by highlighting the photo name and selecting "Info" that will tell you the file size. Often the file size is shown in the directory where the photo name is found.

4. Once the photo is how you like it, and under 400 kbs, take note of the pathway to it on your computer. For instance, it will probably be on your C Drive, and perhaps in a folder named "Photos". You could also have another folder named "Hibiscus" that is inside the "Photos" folder. These are just examples, but you need to know where on your computer the photo is before you can post it to the forum.

5. Click on the section and topic of the forum where you want to post the photo. Once you see the topic and all the other messages posted on the topic, click the button that says "Reply". This will cause a blank screen to appear where you can type your message. Type something about the photo - such as where it was taken, and anything else you want to add so that we can appreciate the photo more fully.

6. Next, click on "Additional Options" found just below the box where you typed the message. That will open up the options and you will see the word "Attach". Next to that is a button that says "Choose File". By clicking that button you open up a screen with a view of your own computer. Navigate to the folder where the photo you want to post is located. Highlight the name of the photo. Once you have done that, the word "Choose" will light up in the lower right hand corner of the screen. Click on the "Choose" button and the photo will automatically be attached to the message that you are sending to the forum. Notice that the name of your photo will appear next to the "Choose File" button on the screen where you are writing the post. If you want to post more than 1 photo, and 6 are allowed for every message, just click the "(more attachments)" link that follows the "Attach" line and repeat the above.

7. The final step, the one that will actually post the message you typed along with the photo you selected, is to click on the button that says "Post" at the bottom of the screen.

8. You can check your post in the forum where you will see both the message and the photo. If you need to change it for some reason, you can always use the "Modify" button that allows the writer of a post to change their own messages.

Instructions for resizing a digital photo. Long but easy to do once you have tried it!

Virtually all computers come with some sort of photo editing software and almost all digital cameras include one as well. The latter need to be installed by running the cd/dvd included with the camera and following the directions for installation - usually a simple, 1-2 step process nowadays.

The 3 Techniques That Do The Job

Once you find and start (run) the photo editor program on your computer, there are 3 ways to change the photo file size to get it under the 400 kb limit that the forum requires. That limit is there to allow the downloading of photos in a reasonable time by people all over the world, many of whom do not have super fast internet connections. It also reduces the bandwidth used by the forum which could get to be a problem for us eventually.

You should learn how to do all 3 techniques, since they are all very useful when dealing with digital images. They are also very simple, once you see how it is done. Seems like rocket science at first, but after you have done it once or twice you will see that it is a simple process.

Technique 1: crop your photo. This means cutting off any or all of the 4 sides of the photo so that only the part of the image that is important remains. Often there is a lot of foliage or other content that you don't really care if anyone sees around the top, bottom, or sides of the photo. By "cropping" that out you reduce the file size and make a better photo. All photo editors have a "crop" tool and the ones I have seen are very easy to use. Using your mouse, you drag the sides of a box that appears on screen so that everything in the box is what you want, and everything that is outside the box is what you are about to crop out of the photo. Most of them work by first dragging the sides of the box to where you want them, and then by double clicking inside the box to perform the actual crop, leaving only the desired part of the photo showing after the crop.

Technique 2: Resizing the dimensions of the photo. All photo editors allow you to open a photo file, and then change the size of the height and width of the photo. You can work with pixels or a unit of measurement such as inches. A good size for the forum is 600 x 600 pixels which is about 8 inches x 8 inches. Sometimes you want to show the photo larger, sometimes smaller, but anything from 400 to 800 pixels on a side is good for the forum. By reducing the size of the photo you will also reduce the file size closer to the 400 kb maximum per photos.

Technique 3: Compressing the file - this is the most powerful technique for reducing file size. You will not see any changes like you do with the first 2 techniques unless you overdo it, but you can change the file size to almost anything you like by using it. Most likely the camera is saving the photo in jpg or jpeg format, which is what you want. If not, then change the extension after the period in the photo file name to jpg. Different photo editors let you do this in different ways, so just check that it has this extension or change to this extension and then proceed to compress the photo.

Many editors do this step when you save the cropped, resized image. The amount of compression is shown as low, medium, or high or by a percentage between 0 and 100 percent. A decent photo editor should show you the file size that will result from the percentage compression you are selecting. Just select more compression until the file size is down to somewhere between 100 kb and 400 kb. Tip: for technical reasons the file size shown in the photo editor may not be what the forum sees so give some room by saving the photo as a 300 kb or less photo.

In theory the amount of compression affects the quality of the photo. However, normal monitors are not capable of using the higher qualities anyway, and you are unlikely to see much if any difference between a slightly compressed and a medium or 50 percent compressed photo on your screen. Crank in enough compression to reduce the file size to 200 kb or so and you will still have an excellent quality photo. In the old days of the internet we rarely posted photos any larger than 50 kb in size, and they weren't bad. Most photos on the HVH web site are around 100 kb and they are pretty good most people would agree. The bigger the file size, the longer it takes the photos to download so it is not helpful to post photos larger than is needed for good viewing.

This covers the basics. There are many details and many differences due to different software but once you figure out how to do these 3 things using the software you have you will be able to post well cropped photos that show as the size you want and compressed enough to download quickly (and meet the requirements of the forum).

Please keep the questions coming about this, as needed.

Charlie