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Learn how to use a free image hosting service to host your graphics
You can find several free image hosting services. Just be a bit picky with what you choose as you want your images to actually stay up, and not die out due to to much bandwidth used or server crashes. You will also want to consider the age of the hosting servers because new services that do not make it, tend to close up their doors and leave. Stick to the more popular services You can view several free image hosting sites here.
You will need to have an image hosting account somewhere and we will be using the very popular Photobucket Free Image and Video Hosting and you can Get Started Now with the link.If you think you will need more space you can always sign up for the professional membership (we have went with the Pro service in the past) as it is reliable and helpful. To Go Photobucket Pro the choice is yours.
(Please note image over 800px wide may not show in the forum as we have this setting set to protect the forum pages from scrolling to the right on standard resolutions)
*When you sign up please be sure to write down your login information as this forum has nothing to do with your Photobucket account and we cannot offer you the login information.
Once you have your account you're ready to begin.
Please note my screenshots contain colors that go with my choice of photobucket themes. Your photobucket account will have the standard blue/white colors unless you choose a theme.
to your account.The very nice thing about Photobucket is that you can have different albums. You can name them, move images from one album to another and more. Photobucket helps you size, and edit your images with the tools they offer.
You will see here in this screen shot that the forum account has a few albums so far. You can create an album for each category, color, size, whatever your heart desires.
To make a new album you simply type in the name you want the album to be and click the save button. To add images to that new album you simply click on the album title and it will then open that album so that you can add new images.
We made a new album called photobucket tutorial, and you can see it listed in our albums list. I will select that album to load it.
Now I can upload my photobucket tutorial images to this album. While in my album I will locate the upload section as shown.
In this image you will see you can choose to upload images from your computer and this is the default selection.
When you click the upload button it will bring you to your computer. Locate the folder that contains the images you want to upload. In the image below I can click on 1.gif, and then click Open. This would begin the upload. If you want to upload more than 1 image at a time see next step.
If you have more than 1 image you can hold down your CTRL key and select all the images you want to upload. Once all the images are selected you can click Open.
The images will begin to upload to your Photobucket account into your album of choice.
When the images are done uploading you will be presented with a page where you can add titles, tags (keywords) and descriptions. If you do not want to add any of these you can simply ignore them by clicking on the button "return to album"
When you return to the album you will see your images
There are TWO WAYS to get the code for your image
You can do this
To get the BBCode for the image so that you can add it to the forum. ROLL OVER the image of choice, and you will see a code box pop up. The code you are after is called IMG CODE as shown below. You can highlight and COPY the code. It can be tricky depending on which browser you're using.
Or you can do this
Locate the image you want and click on it one time. You will see the window change as shown.
In that window you will see a box that contains the mixed codes for the image. If you click on the IMG CODE it will copy it for you.
Head back to the forum and start your new post or reply. Place your cursor into the spot where you want your image to be shown.
There is another way to do this. This way is best if you're using a URL that is not from Photobucket, and you have the permission to use the image (such as from your own hosting)
Take note of the orange buttons above. You will see the Img button. If you place your cursor where you want your image, and then press the IMG button above, it will place the opening and closing BBCode for an image. If you simply place your mouse/cursor in between the opening and closing of the IMG code you can paste the URL. See image below.
NOTE: This is VERY IMPORTANT to do if you have taken a long time with your post it is highly suggested you copy all of your post and code into a notepad. WHY? Because sometimes when you go to click preview it could lose your work (rare, but can happen) so if you save it before you do this you can simply paste it back in and then click preview again. We have set things up so this hopefully will not happen, however things beyond our control can cause issues so please if you took time to make a long post please be sure to copy it to back it up (I just did to make sure I did not lose this tutorial text)Now that you're ready to preview your work go ahead and click preview.
The preview will open and below that you will see you can continue to edit your work.
If all is exactly what you wanted to see just hit submit and your post will be active!
Hope you found this Photobucket - Forum tutorial helpful!
PS: All images for this tutorial are being hosted by Photobucket.
