I would love it if someone could explain in simple terms what I'm supposed to do to get a picture the appropriate size on these forums. I posted recently on the citrus forum and it was too small. In looking at the picture now I see it is 2.22 MB. I used Photobucket to upload that picture.

I see many large beautiful pictures on GardenWeb and I'd like to do that as well.

I can use Picasa to re-size pictures but struggling to figure out how to do that even with Picasa and video tutorials by Geeks on Tour. They talk about 1024x768 etc... and the number I'm working with is in MB. You can see how confused I am.

Thank you so much for helping me conquer this concept once and for all.

Ginny

Oh, wait--I just read your post again. You want an answer in MB. I think you mean KB, don't you? I've never used that size criteria to resize a picture, but my suggestion would be to try a number between 45 and 50 KB, and see how that works for you.

When you go to Photobucket and up load your pictures
from your Photobucket Album click on the green "Up Load" Button.
But before you actually "Upload" where it says "select photos and videos" if you scroll down a little you will see
the next box that has Facebook--Myspace---Twitter--Etc. Now just below that in real small type you will see the words "Customize your upload options". Click on that, and then choose the size picture you would like to have.
Put a dot next to the size you want (I use 800x600). Then scroll down a little more and click on the "SAVE" button..

When your ready to put a picture in the Fourm. Choose the picture you want and then just "LEFT" click on the HTML code you will see the words "copied" flash for a second or two then just click paste.
Preview your message and pictures before submitting. if it's to big or to small, go back to Photobucket and change the button to a different size...

Hope This Helps.

Have A Nice Day
Linesman

Thank you so much for your help. You saved me from hours more of a bad headache.

Ginny

Or you can leave your high resolution and monster pixel files alone and define the physical size to be displayed by simply adding a "width" designation within the HTML code in your post.

Example, here's a raw posting of my pool:

That's a pretty large (pixel) photo. Someone viewing on a smaller screen might have to scroll left/right to take it all in. Annoying to say the least.

Instead of futzing (is that a real word) around with the file, I'll just force it to display smaller by adding a "width" designation (in pixels) to the HTML code in this message.

The HTML for the above photo is:

<IMG SRC="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c218/MongoCT/080530PoolGarden00 2.jpg?t=1297966025">

If I add a "width=" definition to the html I can make the photo smaller. Or larger. Here I'll define the photo to be 500 pixels wide by adding "Width=500" between the photos URL and the "greater than" character that ends the HTML code:

<IMG SRC="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c218/MongoCT/080530PoolGarden00 2.jpg?t=1297966025" width=500>

Which makes the photo below 500 pixels wide:

If 500 is to large, how about 300?

<IMG SRC="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c218/MongoCT/080530PoolGarden00 2.jpg?t=1297966025" Width=300>

Results in:

You could define it by "Height=" or by "Width=", by defining one dimension it'll display proportionally correct.

You can skew the photo by defining both and not having them proportionally correct:

<IMG SRC="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c218/MongoCT/080530PoolGarden00 2.jpg?t=1297966025" height=200 width=500>

results in a short squat:

I use this all the time because I only have to have a single file of a photo on my hosting site. If I want it bigger or smaller for posting, I can define the size when I post the photo, and here on Gweb I can redefine the size of the photo if needed when I preview my post.

Easy and fast.

In general, you'll want to copy the URL of the full-sized photo and not of the thumbnail. I've seen a few instances where people see the thumbnail of the photo they want and just "right-click copy address" on the thumbnail instead of using the hosting sites' URL generating/copying feature.

Or you can just open up the full-size photo and "right-click copy address" on the full-sized photo.

I've looked at the test site a few times. I'm guessing that it is a place where you can put your pictures for purely testing purposes and get feedback from others about how to post pictures correctly?

I haven't seen much talk about picture size and how to change them. That was my problem. When I uploaded from Photobucket the picture was too small. Linesman provided me with what I needed, to change the picture size under the "Customize Your Upload Options." It had been set to a very small picture size and once I changed it my pictures were larger and easier to see.

What I'm also trying to understand is the whole process:
I take a picture with my 6.1 Kodak camera. The picture size is therefore________
When I upload it to Photobucket it remains 6.1 or do they change it as they "store it"__________
When I upload/send it to GardenWeb for sharing I can then change the picture size on Photobucket___________

It's this basic stuff I need to understand. I'd also like to find a website that gives pictures of different size pictures.

Of course talking about a picture in terms of 800x600 vs MB is confusing.

I'm always trying to understand something new to me, makes it easier to do it.

I'll try to do some more reading on the test site as I'm sure there is alot I can learn there.

Ginny

To answer your questions, here's the long story. And I'm not kidding. It's long. Way too long:

"What I'm also trying to understand is the whole process:
I take a picture with my 6.1 Kodak camera. The picture size is therefore________"

Your file size depends on the settings on your camera at which you are taking photos. Most
cameras offer a couple of choices, like "Image Quality: FINE/NORMAL/BASIC"
and/or "Image size: LARGE/MEDIUM/SMALL". Those choices will define the
amount of jpeg compression that your photo undergoes and thus they will define the
size of the file that comes out of your camera. Generically a 6MP camera is probably
putting out jpeg photos in the 2-3MB range.

"Jpeg" is a compression program. It's a program that reduces the MB file size of the program
by discarding redundant pixel color information from the photo's file for similar-colored
pixels in the photo. It does not get rid of or discard any pixels. It just "averages" out red/
green/blue information assigned to similar colored pixels.

jpeg looks at the photo's individual pixel information and says "these reddish pixels that are
next to each other in this photo are so close in color, I'm going to consider them the
exact same color". So it keeps the R/G/B information for one of the pixels,
discards the RGB info for the other two, and assigns that saved RGB info to all three
pixels. That allows your file to be smaller without destroying the overall visual
integrity of the photo when you view it.

If a file were to be over-compressed...too much information thrown away...then it can get
ugly looking, very blocky.

"When I upload it to Photobucket it remains 6.1 or do they change it as they "store
it"__________"

Using the default settings on PB it'll be uploaded as a small file. A MUCH SMALLER file.
You've discovered the "Customize Your Upload Options" and you can use
that to get a larger and more usable file size uploaded to your PB account. More about
that later.

"Of course talking about a picture in terms of 800x600 vs MB is confusing. "

Your photo is made up of little dots, or to simplify, "pixels". If you have a photo that is
"800 by 600", that's 800 pixels or dots wide by 600 pixels/dots tall. That's how "big"
your photo appears. 800 dots wide. 600 dots tall.

Each of those dots or pixels is a color, all those little colored dots together make up the
photo. If each of those pixels is a different color, then the file size (the "MB" or "KB") will
be large because the file has to store red/green/blue information for each and every
one of those tiny pixels.

If you take a photo of a piece of red paper, then theoretically the photo's jpeg file size
will be smaller because so many of the pixels will be the same red color. The file
doesn't have to "remember" as much red/green/blue information even though the
number of pixels in the photo is the same.

So if you take your glorious 6MP photo that's 3000 by 2000 pixels and upload it to
Photobucket at the 320 by 240 pixel option, PB is going to throw way a lot of pixels.
You uploaded a detailed file with 3000 times 2000, or 6 million pixels, and
Photobucket is going to throw away and discard over 5.9 million of them! Gone
forever! It'll display that photo small, 320 pixels by 240 pixels, so to the eye it will still
look okay at that small size. But if you try to blow up or magnify the photo, pixels will
have to be created to fill in the "holes", and the color information for those created
pixels will be guessed at based upon what the neighboring pixels look like. You'll end
up with a blocky looking photo.

So the picture can have a physical size defined in terms of how many dots or pixels make up
the picture. 3000 x 2000, 800 x 600, 320 x 240, etc. The pixels define how big or small
the picture will be represented on your computer monitor or on a piece of paper when
printed out.

The photo file size, in MB or KB, is how much information is assigned to remember the color
information of the pixels that make up the photo. 6MP is a large photo and will take
longer to upload than a 1MP file. It's how much space the photo will take up n your
computer's hard drive.

I'm going to run you through a few examples, I hope this helps to clarify:

I have a 2MB photo on my computer. I just uploaded it to photobucket, during the upload
photobucket automatically reduced the file size from 2MB down to 38kb. Ouch!

It reduced the pixel size (or the number of "dots" that make up the photo) from 3341 x 2217
(3341 pixels wide by 2217 pixels tall) to 310 x 212.

That was done using the default upload setting of 320 by 240. This file is tiny, only 38kb, so
it'll upload fast. But the small file can limit the quality of the photo seen by the viewer.

Here is the quality of the 320 by 240 photo:

By adding a "Width=" designator to the HTML code, I can make your browser display the
photo larger. Previously it showed at 320 pixels wide, because that's it's size of the
photobucket file. I'll add "Width=800" to make
it display 800 pixels wide. Again,
it's a 38kb file size, 319 x 212 photo that's being forced to display 800 pixels wide.
Where did the extra pixels come from? They were made up, their color information
copied from neighboring pixels in the photo's file. Since they had to be guessed at, the
photo looks blocky due to the groupings of exactly-colored pixels all clumped next to
one another:

The photo shows larger, but it's blockier.

Now going into photobucket's upload settings I chose "Best possible quality (while staying
1mb or less)". A large file size...but not ridiculous.

Photobucket uploaded my same original 2MB, 3342 x 2217 pixel photo as a 745kb file that
is 2301 pixels wide by 1527 pixels tall. At 745kb it's a large file size so it'll upload
slower, but with all those pixels the resolution will be quite good.

When I now have gardenweb show this new photo file at its native resolution, it looks like this:

Since most people have their computer's screen displays set at 800-1200 pixels wide, this
2301 pixel wide photo causes you to have to scroll left/right to take it all in. It's not
viewer friendly.

So now I'll limit the photo by adding a "Width=800" to the html code and it'll show better. A
better size, and with nice resolution:

There actually is a point to this post, and it's this: Photobucket has an 800 by 600 upload
selection. If you want a "bang for your buck" upload selection, use the 800 x 600 choice.

Uploading my 2MB file using the 800 by 600 option gave me a 134kb file with pixel
dimensions of 800 wide by 530 tall. A very manageable file size that will upload
quickly, and a pixel size that will display nicely:

Still awake? Not me. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Ginny

GW has now changed their program so it is much easier to upload pictures now.

When you have the box open to "post a Follow-up" diretly above the "message:" box where you input your text you will see the "Subject of Posting" line, where the title for the forum appears.

Above that you will see your screen name and directly above your screen name there is a line that says, "Image File Upload(optional)" and a gray bar with a button on the right end that says "Browse",

Click on the Browse button and it will open your computer where you locate your picture files, then select the desired photo from your files and click Open and it will put the photo in your post