[FAQ] How to Post Pictures on TVF

[Michael]

Hello there! 

So you've joined the forum. Welcome! After you've created a username and gotten involved here, you might want to post a picture to show off a coil build, some juice you like, or basically anything. So here's a quick tutorial to show you how to do that!

First of all, you'll need to use an external photo sharing/storage site such as Photobucket, Flickr or Imgur. Since those are the photo sites I've used, I'll post this tutorial giving details based on those sites, but all photo sharing sites are basically similar so this should apply no matter what you're using. 

For what it's worth, Imgur appears to be the most reliable of these sites. Photobucket has a ton of pop-up ads on its desktop site, and Flickr isn't as popular and is owned by Yahoo (who also aren't as popular as they used to be), while Imgur is one of the most popular and streamlined sharing sites in the world thanks to its prevalence among reddit users. 


Using Photobucket

(fair warning, Photobucket has a fantastic mobile app but the desktop site is riddled with pop-up ads, so if this is the sharing site you choose be sure to use an ad blocker or be prepared to close a ton of annoying ads.)

In Photobucket, the first thing to do is upload the picture(s) you want to share. To do this, you can just click the "Upload" button at the top of the page. Once you've uploaded your photo, click the "Link" button, as seen below.



Then after you click "Share," a small pop-up will appear with options for sharing. If you click on "Direct" it will copy the photo's direct link to your computer's clipboard so that you can paste it elsewhere.



After you've copied the link, log onto the forum and open a new reply to whatever thread you want to post your picture to, or if you're starting a new thread click the "New Thread" button in whatever sub-forum you want. To insert a picture into your reply, click the button that looks like a polaroid picture at the top of the reply box, just to the left of the envelope as seen below. Then all you have to do is paste the link into the URL section (be sure to delete the "http://" that's already in the URL section, since the copied link will say "http://" within the link so it won't work if you don't delete it) then click "Insert" and it should insert the picture into your reply. 



Using Flickr

When using Flickr on a computer, the "Upload" button looks like a small cloud with an arrow inside, at the top right corner of the page just to the right of the search bar. Upload the pictures you want, then go to your photo stream and click on whatever picture you want to share to bring up a full-page version of that photo. From there, click the "Share" button, which looks like a curved arrow:



You'll get a pop-up with sharing options, where you need to click "BBCode" to get the right link.





After you've copied the link, the easiest thing to do is just come to TVF and paste the whole thing into the "Reply" window. It's already formatted in BBCode (which is the type of code this forum uses) so it will insert the pic, along with a URL so that people can click on the picture to see a full version on the Flickr website. If you don't want the picture to click-through to your Flickr profile, you can edit the code as seen below:

This is what the original code from Flickr will look like (without the spaces in the tags):

Code:

[ url= https://flic.kr/p/QJEUQQ][img ]https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/274/31988009712_7f9447785e_b.jpg[ /img ][ /url ][ url= https://flic.kr/p/QJEUQQ]TVF 1[ /url ] by [ url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/146360294@N08/ ]Michael TVF[ /url ], on Flickr

And to remove the link, delete everything except for what's between the image tags.

Code:

[ img ]https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/274/31988009712_7f9447785e_b.jpg[ /img ]

Using Imgur

Imgur is one of the most popular photo sharing sites, especially among reddit users. The important thing to remember when using Imgur, is DON'T click the button that says "Share to community." If you click that button, it shares the post to the entire Imgur site, and you'll get a lot of annoyed messages from people telling you how to share a photo privately, or (more likely) just cussing you out for not knowing. So follow these steps.

On the top left of the page, there's a big green button that says "New post." Click that. If you click the arrow, it will pull up a small drop-down box with options, so click "Upload images." If you didn't click the arrow, and just clicked on the words instead, then you'll get to the same place anyway.

Upload your image(s), and wait for it to finish. Once it's done, DO NOT click "Share to community." Instead, hover your mouse over the image and click the button seen below:



Then when the sharing links window pops up, click "Copy" next to the BBCode option.



Then all you have to do is come here to the forum and paste that directly into your reply. It's already formatted using the forum's IMG tags, so you don't have to worry about pushing the "Insert an image" button or anything.


Using Other Photo Sites

Photobucket, Flickr and Imgur are the only photo sharing sites I'm personally familiar with, but nearly any site should work as long as it's able to be viewed publicly (for example, Amazon Prime pictures can only be viewed by Prime members, so it won't work with the forum since TVF isn't a prime member since it isn't a person with an Amazon account). You should be able to share from nearly any site, using a similar process as what I've shown above. The main thing is finding the static URL of your picture, and shortened links don't work form my experience.

And of course, if you have any questions then feel free to ask and we'll be happy to help "

[Spasmod]

Excellent How-To - Thanks Michael!

[Robjenko]

Michael there is an easier way to import from Photobucket,
Bring the picture up on main screen and click the IMG box the link will auto copy,


you then simply paste it on the main page like this as shown in this pic

[Michael]

Updated 01-11-2017 to add information on Imgur. The more I use that site, the more I fall in love with it. Seriously, if you're not already using Imgur then you should. It's easy to use, it's incredibly popular so it's reliable since they have so many users so it won't be in danger of going offline any time soon, and it doesn't have Photobucket's annoying popup ads. 

[Don]

Just to add a 2019 addendum. Photobucket tried to extort a ransom from all its users. This failed miserably but I really would not use it nowadays.

There is another option if you can read German, Abload.de

[TinWhisker]

Supermotors.net free hosting there too.