High Sierra Topix

Hi Eric, and thanks in advance for your help with this. I have a problem with changing the image size to fit the limit of 2.0 mb. Sometimes I have managed to get the photos in, other times it has been hopeless. Most of our photos are in the Picasa site, and have been slightly modified- generally only cropping and shading effects. Might you know how to adapt the images to fit the reqs.? All the best, Harlen.

Lots of software can do that. I use Irfanview which is free. Ctrl-R brings up the resize/resample menu. Setting the picture height to 1200 pixels with the 'preserve aspect ratio' checked will fit your picture into a 1080p max size. That should get it well below 2MB and is about the best most monitors can display anyways so little if anything is lost for computer viewing.

Don't use Picasa...use Photobucket...but -
With your already edited/cropped picture wide open on the screen - right click on it - Open... (left click the rest) with Paint.
(Top left) Click on lil Resize box - click on Pixels...(type in 1000 for the largest dimension)...click OK.
Top left - File - Save as to Pictures or to Desktop on your computer...Save.
You can then post the desired photo directly using Upload Attachments/ Insert Photos (bar under your response) from your computer.
Follow forum directions...Choose File...click on picture to select...Add the File...Place in Line.

From PM:

Harlen wrote:Hi Eric,

I am still enjoying my "honeymoon period" with your Topix website. I wonder though, if you could assist me again with photos? When I try to include photos to posts I usually am told that they exceed the 2.0 limit. Sometimes if I persevere, I manage to get them in, but I sure would like to save the time struggling at it. My pictures are generally stored on the photo site "Picasa"- might this be part of the problem? I often use that "poor man's photoshop" to effect slight improvements in cropping, and by deepening shadows, though I try to avoid the unrealism caused by adding "saturation," or other such changes.
What can I try to more easily add a photo? Thanks in advance Eric, and there is no hurry- respond when you've got the time. Harlen.

Hi Harlen -

I think the advice given by markskor and Dave_Ayers above (as well as other advice in this thread) answers your questions. Unfortunately Picasa/Google make it very difficult (intentionally) to "hotlink" your photos on forums like this (i.e. using the Img or rimg BBCodes). You could use an alternative service like PhotoBucket or Flikr, or, resize using Irfanview, MS Paint, etc. and then upload here. I know the disclaimer says 2MB is the limit but it's actually 2.5MB.

ERIC

I am not going to pay the outrageous fee of $400 a year to Photobucket for third party posting. Thus, bye-bye photos in trip reports, for now. Any suggestions? If I transfer photos to another site, do I have to re-load every photo in past reports?

If you hotlinked them and then delete the source account, yes, unfortunately you do. As discussed above, the alternative is to add your photos here as attachments. Doing so ensures they will show up no matter what.

I tried the attach method. It does work. I will use this with new trip reports but replacing photos in old reports will go slowly- a cold winter's day project!

I know, total PITA! Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help.

Another (potential) option for those with some tech know-how and a willingness to invest a bit up front, Network Assisted Storage (NAS) might be something to consider. Synology is a good brand with a fairly straight forward operating system. Like with Google Photos, Flickr, DropBox and other hosting services, you store all of your media in one place (in this case, on your own NAS device at home or work) and then set permissions differently only for what you want to share. You can change permissions for only one photo, or, for entire albums/folders. To embed a photo, you grab the source URL and insert it using the img or rimg BBCode like normal. Just tested this method on HST with the "Photo Station" app on my Synology NAS and it works perfectly. Security and/or bandwidth limits might be an issue depending upon the model of NAS you employ and security settings. That part I've not tested. Do your research first.

P.S. I have a DS414 with 2x 4TB and 2x 2TB hardd drives. With the proprietary Synology RAID I net nearly 8TB of storage with full redundancy. As I need more storage, I simply replace the smaller drives with larger ones.

To add insult to injury, now my Photoshop Elements 10 will not work after the latest Microsoft update.

Evidently you can reload Photoshop but then it will not work again after the next Microsoft windows update.

So, I am looking at getting another photo processing program. There are things about Elements that I am not that fond of. Any ideas of another software that does not cost more than about $200?