I know this is off-topic for this form, as it is really an FAQ, and I will post it there, but many people still seem very confused about how to post pictures here, so hopefully this should help.

There are two different ways to upload pictures. The first is to upload a picture directly to a thread, which can be EITHER as the first post in the thread, OR in a reply. OR you can upload a picture to the appropriate Photo Gallery and use the IMAGE TAG to show the picture WITHIN your post, as a full sized picture. If you upload a picture directly to a thread, it will appear as a small picture below your note, as compared to WITHIN your note. People can then click on that picture and it will enlarge. Also, they can also ROTATE that picture, if shows sideways or somehow upside down, which somehow happened with one person’s picture. If you use the IMAGE tag, the picture CANNOT be rotated or otherwise changed.

Attached to this note are two pictures that were uploaded directly to the note, and also at the end is a photo from the SXM Photo Gallery, where I used the IMAGE tag. The picture within this thread is actually a picture I received from Pat from her trip at Beachside Villas in November 2018.

The below LOOKS complicated, but it really very easy, especially if you just want to attach pictures as an attachment to your note.

Before you attempt to upload pictures, make sure you have a decent internet connection, or it may time out on you. If you don't have a relatively fast connection, wait until you do, to avoid a lot of frustration.

TO UPLOAD A PICTURE DIRECTLY TO A THREAD, either in an original post or a reply.

Compose your note as normal. Scroll down and click on USE FULL EDITOR, if you didn't already clicked on it. Once a new screen pops up, again SCROLL DOWN (if necessary) and click on the little paperclip that says ATTACHMENT MANAGER. Once the pop-up screen comes up, click on the Select a File to Attach, or drag and drop the picture.on the arrow that says drag it here. The picture must be a MAX of 8 megs. If you want, you can type a caption for the picture. The caption will appear under the photo ONCE YOU CLICK TO ENLARGE it, but it will NOT appear when you see the small pictures on the first screen. If you forget to do the caption to the photo when you upload it, you can't add a caption later. You have to delete the picture and re-upload the pic with the desires caption. You can upload up to 20 pictures. (I actually don't know whether you can attempt to copy more than one picture at a time to upload, as I've never done it that way. My connection here at home is crappy, so I have not attempted to do that today. If I think about it, I will edit this post tomorrow to fix that, one way or another.) Once you are done with uploading all pictures that you want to upload, click DONE. I do not know why, but IF YOU CLICK ON PREVIEW, THE PICTURES DO NOT SHOW UP So you have to go ahead and post your note, and then look at it to see if the picture is there. If the picture(s) is/are not there, you can try to edit the post immediately to try again, or you can delete the post.

TO UPLOAD A PICTURE TO THE PHOTO GALLERY

Go to the appropriate Photo Gallery, which could be BVI or SXM or General . Click on New Image Gallery. Put I n a title for the gallery, which could be your name, or what the picture is about, such as “Irma Satellite Image”, and if you want, but you have to put SOMETHING in the description. Then click on the paperclip, Attachment Manager. Once the pop-up screen comes up, click on the Select a File to Attach, or drag and drop the picture on the arrow that says drag it here. The picture must be a MAX of 8 megs. You can attach up to 20 files one in a single photo gallery. For whatever reason, the pictures in the gallery will NOT show up when you preview the Post. But they should be there when you actually post it to the forum.

HOW TO SHOW PICTURES WITHIN A POST

It used to be that many people here had Photo Bucket accounts and you knew how to just use the image tag to post pictures within a report. So long as a picture is anywhere on the net already that ALLOWS off-site linking, you can just use the image tag, and you don't have to upload your pictures here. So, if you have your own personal website or whatever, that you can link the url of the picture, you can use the image tag. BE ADVISED THAT IN ORDER TO USE THE IMAGE TAG, the picture HAS to have a jpeg extension. If you are doing a trip report or other long post, it is better to compose OFF LINE and copy and paste your text to a post, and then edit it to add the pictures. Once you are in FULL EDITOR mode, use the IMAGE tag (the little picture which is immediately to the right of the smiley face once you're in full editor) to show the picture WITHIN the post. Depending on your browser, right click on the picture to get the url and copy the link. When you use the IMAGE tag to display a photo WITHIN a post (as compared to as uploading a file as an attachment to a post) the picture WILL show up when you preview the post. So if you are using the IMAGE tag, and insert the url of a photo which is either in the Photo Gallery OR somewhere on the net and the photo does NOT show up in your post, then you have done something wrong.

Once you upload the pictures to the photo gallery, you can use the IMAGE tag in full editor (the little picture which is immediately to the right of the smiley face once you're in full editor) to show the picture WITHIN the post. Please note that IF YOU UPLOAD A PICTURE TO THE PHOTO GALLERY, AS OPPOSED TO UPLOADING THE PICTURE AS AN ATTACHMENT DIRECTLY TO A THREAD, THE PICTURE WILL SHOW UP EXACTLY AS IT IS UPLOADED TO THE PHOTO GALLERY. That means if your picture shows sideways in the photo gallery, it is going to show up sideways in your post. In order to get the url to display, you will need to right click on the image that you want to display to get the url (in most browsers), to give you the url. Within the photo gallery, you can click on each picture and make it larger, to look at it. However, if you want to use the image tag to display a picture in a post, DON'T enlarge the picture in order to get the url that you need to use to employ the image tag. Right click on the original SMALL picture within the gallery to get the correct url.

TAKING PICTURES WITH A CELL PHONE

If you take pictures with a cell phone and the picture is taken in portrait mode (up and down versus being wider from side to side--landscape), usually the picture will upload incorrectly, for whatever reason. To fix that problem, download the picture to your laptop and save it on your laptop, rotate it if necessary, RESAVE IT AS A DIFFERENT FILE, and then upload as normal. OR try to remember to just take all photos in landscape mode and you shouldn't have a problem. If you can't figure out how to re-save the pictures, it's best to just upload your photos directly to the post, as an attachment, as compared to uploading the photos to the photo gallery.

This picture is displayed within the post.


And then the below pictures are attachments, that will enlarge when you click on them.