I've seen a few requests for this information since I started posting on the Quilting Forum, so I thought I would just enter it all here. If this doesn't work for you or if you have problems, send me an email and I'll see if I can help. I love to see pictures so I'm happy to help anyone make that happen!

DON'T BE NERVOUS! This may sound complicated the first time but once you've done it you'll see it's easy and fun. You'll be posting pictures every time you visit the forum!

First of all, you need an account on a photo sharing site where you can store some pictures. You can't link directly to photos in your computer. Photobucket is the one I use the most and I think it's very, very easy, but Picasa, Kodak Gallery, and several other sites work just as well, I'm sure. These sites all have free accounts available and so you can start posting photos today without any expense. Cool, huh?

Photobucket.com

So, once you have the account set up, follow the instructions for uploading pictures from your computer. You can add them one at a time, or upload several at once. (See below for some thoughts on setting up albums.) Don't worry about losing them. You are just copying them to Phtoobucket and you'll keep them on your computer. Besides being able to share them, it's also a good backup for your most precious pictures.

When you have some photos loaded, your page will look something like this:

To add a photo directly into your forum message, click once on the line under the photo that's labeled HTML Code. Then go to your message in the Quilt Forum (or whichever forum you want) and paste it into your text message. It will show up just as text until you hit the "Preview Message" button. Then the picture should show up. If it doesn't, check to be sure you selected the HTML Code line instead of one of the others.

You can add as many pictures to a single message as you want, but if you do more than 3 or 4 it gets very slow to open for people who use dial up.

Here's a good thing to understand: your picture doesn't really get transferred to GardenWeb. What happens is that the HTML code is telling GardenWeb (with magic computer instructions) where to go in Photobucket to find the photo AND it's also telling it to display the photo. If you delete the photo or even move it in Photobucket to a different album, GardenWeb will still have the old instructions and won't be able to find it. The link will be broken. If you edit the picture in Photobucket, making it smaller or adding a border, that will show up the next time someone looks at the message in GardenWeb. The real picture stays in Photobucket - GardenWeb just temporarily imports it each time someone opens your post. I hope that makes sense. If it doesn't let me know and I'll try again!

About albums: When you first set up your account, you'll see where you can "Add a new album". Since you won't want to move photos later (because you'll break the link), it's a good idea to set up a few albums right away. I suggest one for Home (house pictures), one for pets, one for garden, one for quilts, one for vacations, etc. It's easy to add them at any time so they don't need to all be set up right away, but a couple are a good idea. I even have one called Miscellaneous for any pictures that don't see to fit anywhere else!

Kate