forum photo thoughts

[Ken S]

I have a problem making photos for online forums. I often forget to change the settings on my camera. I like simple cameras. My favorite film cameras were the Nikon F, Leica M3, and 4x5 Zone VI (the older rebranded Wista DXII). None of these cameras had built in light meters or auto anything. For me, that simplified things.

My digital camera, a Nikon D610, is amazing. I appreciate the new realms of versatility the camera's electronic brain adds. My problem is that my original equipment organic brain does not keep up. The overwhelming majority of my photographs center around my grandchildren's school programs. Setting my 24-85mm lens to auto focus, anti vibration and the camera to Aperture auto mode, large JPEG (24 mp), fine(minimal compression), single point auto focus, and a starting ISO of 800 works very well. It lets me set and forget most things, freeing my mind to tweak what needs attention, like composition.

These settings do not work well for Tormek type forum photos. Auto focus gets buggy with closeups. Setting the lens for manual focus helps. Using the single point focusing square, I can hit the +button on the back of the camera. The much enlarged focusing target makes precise focusing a snap.Anti vibration does not play well with tripods.

I prefer manual exposure mode. Using the camera's built in histogram feature simplifies this.

I like the image quality of fine (minimal compression) and ISO 200. I use a substantial tripod.

The use of the small image size settings makes resizing to 250kB much easier (I should say makes it possible.)

Here is my low tech solution for my forgetfulness:  I made up two notes on 3x5 index cards. One card is for starting. It includes the small setting,ISO200, anti vib off, f11, manual focus and Manual exposure mode.

The second card is ending, returning to typical. Large size, auto focus, anti vib on, and Aperture auto exposure mode.

I suspect the physical act of creating these reminder cards, complemented with having them in my line of sight, will be as beneficial as actually reading them.

Ken 

ps I deleted the four photos previously attached with this post. They were not forum related.

[SharpenADullWitt]

Until I loaned it out I obtained a older, digital camera, that I would leave setup for web posting sized pictures.  Sometimes they can be found at garage sales or thrift stores, and that would be another option.

Otherwise, some of the software that I have dealt with (certainly not all), allows a simple resizing, by right clicking on the picture.

[Kavik]

I agree that software is an easier way to go, if you have something good.
I happen to use photoshop (which i know is overkill for most), but it allows you to create "actions", which are basically like recorded macros. I've never tried this, but i bet an action could be created that would give you one click access to resizing and switching to a web standard color palette.
I never bothered because I always used to just upload everything to photobucket and link to it, rather than attaching images to posts....I always found that to be much better for posts, to be able to put your pictures in line with your text, rather than explaining everything then waiting to see the pics at the bottom. Plus it allows non-members to view them as well, when your post comes up in a Google result or something, which can encourage more people to join IMO, if they can see a site has truly useful content

But now that photobucket is trying to charge people for that function, I guess I need to be rethinking that 

[grepper]

I used and recommend Photobucket to members of this forum, but no more.   Now forum posts that I had Photobucket linked images in have the images showing up as just a big message about upgrading.  Not happy about that way of going about it at all, and will not "upgrade" or use the service again. 

[Kavik]

Agreed, is completely ruined several (hundreds of)  thousands of great forum posts. Way to alienate your long standing members by cutting off what was originally the primary function of the service, right?
For the price they're asking, i can set up my own web server to host 

[cbwx34]

I too, was a 'victim' of the photobucket debacle.  I've had good luck using imgbb,,, free and pretty simple.  (Not sure if there's a downside to it).

[Ken S]

Our forum photo environment is changing. I won't rant about the new PhotoBucket policy. It is what it is, and we either live with or without it. In my case, I became so frustrated with all the ads and paid for one year. (I have since cancelled the subscription and now use only the forum photo attachment option.)

Tormek IT changed the photo maximum size to 250kb for each photo with a maximum of four photos per post. After some testing, I have found the 250kb maximum size quite adequate for my needs for computer screen viewing. Please keep in mind that for more than thirty years I have been printing my own prints in the darkroom from 4x5" negatives and presently print from 24mp digital images. I am fussy about photo quality.

Learning to post photos was frustrating for me. (Thank you, Grepper and Rob, for your patient tutoring and encouragement.) What finally worked for me was modifying (editing) a rarely viewed post (until now, the initial post of this topic). I practiced attaching and deleting photos until I finally learned how to do it.

I do have some suggestions: First, when I attach photos in the future, on the line below my signature, I will type "see attached photo(s)". I usually do not log in unless I plan to post. Photos can only be viewed when logged in. Right, wrong, or otherwise, that is how things work. Other forums work this way, too. When I notice attached photos, I will log in.

If I feel the need for more than four photos, I will divide the post into two posts. I realize my posts are too lengthy; splitting them might have other benefits.

For more involved posts, I have been composing them in a word processing program (often the simple notes program) and select all, copy, pasting them to the forum. This has spared me much frustration with lost posts.

I generally shoot forum photos with a DSLR and process them in Lightroom CC. Occasionally, for quick work, I just use the ipad camera and photos program. My low expectations for this quick method have been surprisingly surpassed. I am amazed.

I suggest creating a collection of photos you attach to the forum. If these get pulled down by a third party, you can always modify your posts. Delete the offending message and reattach the photos using the forum procedure.

Ken

[Elden]

   I have been making headway on getting the old Photo Bucket pictures replaced in my posts. Yes it is taking a while to accomplish the job. One has to search and find the posts with pictures. Having the pictures still available on Photo Bucket is nice even if you do have to download them one at a time. Seeing the pictures helps to remind me some of the posts I need to search for and subsequently repair. Figuring out which picture belongs in the proper spot can be a pain.
   Many thanks to Ken S who contacted Tormek IT, Juhani Tahvanainen. Juhani increased the allowable number of photo attachments permissible to 8! That is a great help. Thank you Juhani. Of course if one has been lengthy in his posts, he still might be in trouble! The one I took care of tonight had 10 pictures attached in a single post. What can I say? Ken, you are not the only wordy one on here!

[cbwx34]

   I have been making headway on getting the old Photo Bucket pictures replaced in my posts. Yes it is taking a while to accomplish the job. One has to search and find the posts with pictures. Having the pictures still available on Photo Bucket is nice even if you do have to download them one at a time. Seeing the pictures helps to remind me some of the posts I need to search for and subsequently repair. Figuring out which picture belongs in the proper spot can be a pain.
   Many thanks to Ken S who contacted Tormek IT, Juhani Tahvanainen. Juhani increased the allowable number of photo attachments permissible to 8! That is a great help. Thank you Juhani. Of course if one has been lengthy in his posts, he still might be in trouble! The one I took care of tonight had 10 pictures attached in a single post. What can I say? Ken, you are not the only wordy one on here!

Kudos to you for undertaking this... I know it's not an easy task, especially dealing with photobucket.  But you have some great and helpful posts, and am appreciative that you're taking the time to do this.

One thing you might look into (when you recover from your current work )  is a "Collage" app or program.  They're available on most platforms now, and allow you to combine several photos into one (sample photo attached).  Of course then you have to deal with the size, but often resizing and/or resaving a photo will reduce the size enough to use.

Thanks again for your efforts.

[Elden]

One thing you might look into (when you recover from your current work )  is a "Collage" app or program.  They're available on most platforms now, and allow you to combine several photos into one (sample photo attached).  Of course then you have to deal with the size, but often resizing and/or resaving a photo will reduce the size enough to use.

cbwx,
Thanks for the advice. I have wondered how you have done these types of pictures, however, not enough to try to find out.

[Ken S]

Elden, old friend, how can you possibly think of me as wordy? With fewer than four thousand posts, I tend to think of myself as a man of few words. (    )

Words can inspire me. My wife and I normally don't watch television during the week when our grandchildren are with us. This morning we watched an outstanding PBS program on Martin Luther. One thing which struck me was a comment about his catechism writing being succinct. My new goal on the forum is to be succinct.

I agree that the new, expanded eight photo limit is very nice for those of you who are wordy. For my simple tastes, should I ever need more than eight photos with a post, I would post a "part two" post.

I did some tests and have determined that the 250kb maximum image size is more than adequate. I am pleased with the new policy.

Ken

[Elden]

Ken, I was saying what my memory tells me you have said yourself, only in my words. Don't get a hernia striving to be succinct!
    The allowable eight pictures is sufficient.  As you stated a second  post is easily done. The ten picture post was in an old thread (Hillbilly adjustable swivel work table." I originally thought that the sum of image sizes could be 256kb maximum. Consequently, some of my early picture replacements received fairly severe cropping.

Tormek,
    I agree with Ken, I am thankful and well satisfied with the new photo attachment policy!

[RickKrung]

One thing you might look into (when you recover from your current work )  is a "Collage" app or program.  They're available on most platforms now, and allow you to combine several photos into one (sample photo attached).  Of course then you have to deal with the size, but often resizing and/or resaving a photo will reduce the size enough to use.

Thanks again for your efforts.

Good idea, the collage.  May I suggest that anyone using the collage approach limit the number of individual images to four total and two across.  This will minimize the extent of side scrolling required while reading posts and possibly making the collage vertical rather than horizontal if using more than four images. 

Besides wanting to do as little side scrolling as possible, I have other motivation.  I have been the process of reading and studying an excellent thread in "Knives" started by Wootz: "Knife tip grinding - To Pivot or Not To Pivot".  That is such and excellent exchange of information and development of concepts and so lengthy, that I wanted to export it for offline reading, including photos.  I've done that and ported it to MS Word where I am editing it to remove extraneous stuff, of which there is a lot. I will then print it as a PDF and store it in iBooks on my iPad for reading/study.   It is huge, 78 pages. 

My point here is that I've often had to save the photo images and insert them manually. I usually size the images to be about 3.5 - 4" max. to save space on the printed page and it is easier for page formatting. Inserting a single image wider than about four would exceed the page width and while setting the page to Landscape is possible, I'd rather. 

Just a thought,

Rick

[Dakotapix]

cbwx -- Thanks very much for the suggestion about finding a collage App. I do all my online work on my iPad and immediately went to the App site and found several collage making Apps. I acquired one of several among the free Apps called " Live College" and it works great. Very simple.

[cbwx34]

cbwx -- Thanks very much for the suggestion about finding a collage App. I do all my online work on my iPad and immediately went to the App site and found several collage making Apps. I acquired one of several among the free Apps called " Live College" and it works great. Very simple.

Cool... hope it helps.  "Live Collage" is mainly the one I use... also one called "Pic Collage"... it has a "Freestyle" that lets you put the photos wherever you want.

Thanks!