Best way - Free online hosting like at ImageShack

TxChristopher · #1 06-10-2006, 08:49 PM

I use ImageShack to host my pictures.

You can host pictures at ImageShack without registering, but registering is better because it tracks your pictures for you and will organize them for you for later use should you need the images for another post or some other use.

This thread will cover how to quickly host pictures at ImageShack without registering.

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First go to www.ImageShack.us and you will see a screen like below:

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Next click on the browse button, circled in red below:

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A window should pop up like the one below. Navigate to the folder that contains the picture or image you want posted on The Diesel Spot:

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Often it is easier to find the picture you are looking for if you have thumbnails instead of filenames. Click on the icon circled in red below and then choose "Thumbnails", this will allow you to see thumbnails of the pictures in the folder you are browsing.

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Now that we have our thumbnails, scroll through and find the image you wish to post, but before you select it, hover your mouse over the thumbnail and check the size of the image. We don't want to post gigantic images on the board, 640x480 makes for an excellent sized forum picture, so if you see that your image dimentions are larger than 640 x 480 then you need to make a couple quick and easy changes before you upload it to ImageShack. The image in the example below is 2560 x 1920 which is very large, so we would quickly resize it along the way to uploading it to ImageShack. Double Click it to select it for uploading

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Once you have double clicked your image as above, the small window will disappear and the ImageShack page will come back to the front, your chosen image filename should be in the box circled in red as below:

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The image is ready to be hosted, but for this image we will resize it. If your image is already 640 x 480 or smaller, skip these resize steps. To resize the image, first check off the "resize image?" box as shown below:

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If resizing the image, we need to set the size we want the image resized to. Click the drop down arrow circled below to see the resize options:

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After you click the drop down arrow several choices will appear, select "640x480 (for message boards)" as shown below:

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If the size is correct, then now we are ready to upload the image to the ImageShack database. Click on the "host it!" button as circled in red below:

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Once you click the "host it!" button as above it should change into "uploading..." as is circled below in red:

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When the image is through uploading, the ImageShack page should reload and look similar to the picture below. There is all sorts of code to insert in various forums and boards, the code we want is labeled "Direct link to image" and is at the very bottom of the code list. An example is circled below in red:

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Now we need to copy our code so we can easily post it in our message for the forum. Best way to do that is to move the mouse directly over the code and left click one time anywhere over the words. When you do that the entire code will be highlighted blue as is circled in red below:

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Without moving your mouse from atop the highlighted code, right click one time and select "Copy" as shown below:

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Now that we have our image code copied to clipboard, we can go over to where we want to post the image in our thread. We want to put the ImageShack code that we copied into the body of our message, then post the message. To insert it, first click in the message where you would like the image to appear, then click the yellow "postcard with mountains in the background" looking icon that is circled below:

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When you click on the icon as shown above, a window will pop up like pictured below.

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Next, you should hover your mouse over the text box of the new window and RIGHT CLICK your mouse anywhere in its text box, and then select "Paste". If you make a mistake and left click it to where "http://" is no longer highlighted, simply clear out http:// manually then RIGHT CLICK your mouse in the text box and select "Paste" as shown below:

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After you paste the code into the box it should appear similar to the picture below:

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Click the OK button as below in the small window and the code will be inserted into your message. Unlike attachments, the code can be placed anywhere in your message, so you can have text before and after the image if you want. It makes for a very clean post, and is better for other people to look at than the attachment method.

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After you have done all of the above, the ImageShack code should now be in your post, all nice and neat and ready for posting. Add whatever text you want both before and after it, just don't type in the middle of it. Now you too can post nice big clear images on The Diesel Spot!

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