July flowers of the day.

[motherof4]

I love your blue ballerina....your plants look nice and full....are they older???Where is it you live?....LYNETTE

[LGrove]

Thank You!

I live in Moreno Valley, CA. I have plants of all ages. The Blue Ballerina is about 3 years old. The Space Oddity is in the ground and it's probably 5 years old. The Space Oddity was one of the few survivors of the bad freeze we had here in So Cal a few years ago. Prior to the freeze I had my plants in the ground, now they are all in pots so they can come in when the weather is bad. It's quite a job to bring them all in, but it's worth it to have them safe. The ones I have in the ground are getting pretty big and they bloom like crazy!

I do fertilize regularly and fuss over the plants a bunch, but it pays off in the blooms!
Lisa

[motherof4]

i LIVE IN RIALTO....i HAVE BEEN COLLECTING FOR ABOUT A YEAR.....AND i ALSO FUSS OVER THEM....THANKS LYNETTE

[Cindy]

Hi guys,

I added more space for pics, so you should be able to post them now. I did cut down the allowed size a bit though to 300kb (400x400px) per photo, and 5 photos per posting. This allotment is bigger than what I use on our website, so hopefully it will work for you. If anyone has trouble with it, just email me, and I'll help you. On our website I try to keep all graphics under 200kb, so it's best to do that in the forum too if you can.

Holler if you need help! 
Cindy

[Charlie]

Thanks for fixing it, Cindy. I just tried posting a new seedling photo and it came through with no problem!
xoxoxoxoxo

Charlie

[Cindy]

Good! I'm glad it worked. :-)
xxx
Cindy

[motherof4]

I have my camera on the lowest setting and still they are still over 300 kbs...I do not know how to resize.....?? Lynette

[Doll]

I upload my pics to tinypic and resize them.
Voodoo Queen

[Cindy]

Hi Lynette,

Try this to reduce the number of KB:
  - Open the photo in whatever program your computer uses to open pics.
  - Pull down the File menu to Save As
  - Choose .jpg or jpeg as the form to save it in
  - Choose a lower "size" or "quality" setting. Most programs allow you to see the size in KB as you change this setting. You don't need the lowest settings - usually the middle range is fine.

Let me know if it works!
Cindy

[motherof4]

pina colada.....just seeing if it posts

[Darkhorse]

I'm glad we can post pix again because I've had two good bloom days in a row.  These are yesterdays photos:

Sunkissed Blonde - 2nd time it's bloomed for me and the first time this year.  I can't wait until the bush is more mature, as I really like the look of this flower.

Stormy Rainbow

Creole Lady twins again 

[Darkhorse]

Today's blooms...


Voodoo Magic opened the most perfect bloom today with great color.  I had to help it open all the way, I would imagine because of thrip stress.

Confection Perfection surprised me this morning when it had opened.  Didn't think it would open until tomorrow but here it is! 

Stormy Rainbow bloomed today with a little better color than yesterday...

[Darkhorse]

Finally, another Creole Lady bloom today. 

[Charlie]

Very nice, Jordan. So are your flowers opening in the sun or do you have them in the house? Big difference in the Creole Lady blooms yesterday and today - looks like cloudy day and then sunny day blooms. Feels like summer is finally coming to coastal southern CA although you probably have had sun for awhile now.

Charlie

[Charlie]

For Lynette and anyone else who is thinking how best to resize photos. I wrote in detail about this in the Forum Guideline section under a topic named "Sending Photos to the Forum". I will copy and paste the second part of that below since it describes 3 ways to resize photos. It is really quite easy to do, once you have done it one time. Don't be afraid to try because it truly is simple once you get the hang of it.

Form "Forum Guidelines":

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