• Welcome, Guest! We hope you enjoy the excellent technical knowledge, event information and discussions that the BMW MOA forum provides. Some forum content will be hidden from you if you remain logged out. If you want to view all content, please click the 'Log in' button above and enter your BMW MOA username and password.

    If you are not an MOA member, why not take the time to join the club, so you can enjoy posting on the forum, the BMW Owners News magazine, and all of the discounts and benefits the BMW MOA offers?

Need a better photo uploader

AjaxTheDog

New member
It is fairly common to see people who haven't been on the discussion forums for a long time having difficulty uploading photos due to size limits. I know that every photo my phone or camera takes must be significantly downsized due to MOA's size limits before I can successfully upload it. It's an PITA extra step that may be beyond the technical abilities of some members and they just give up and don't upload anything. That's really too bad as pictures are often a necessity to explain whatever they are posting about.

I know that when I upload large sized photos to Craigslist or eBay both websites automatically accept and resize them to whatever their limits are. I don't know if MOA uses a commercially available forum software or if it is home grown, but if it is the former could you please investigate whether it has this ability and can be turned on to automatically accept and downsize large photos? It would make posting a lot easier and friendlier.

Thank you.
 
It works best to reduce the picture size on all the forums I'm on.
ADV does not seem to have a file size limit to upload, but if you don' reduce the picture before upload the picture does not fit on the screen and you have to scroll left and right or up and down to see all the picture.
 
Bill in Colorado -

We're using the built-in features of vBulletin. I'm not aware of any kind of "apps" or "add ons" that might work with vBulletin...all that is really outside of our capabilities regarding the forum. We can adjust things like numbers of images uploaded per post to some limits on sizes. vB DOES the things you talk about...it will do some resizing and as you say within the limits of the software.

I appreciate the rock-n-hard place when it comes to graphics and the various users we have. I'm a little better than average, having scanning something near 15K slides over the past 10 years. Once my cousins found out I could do that, I've been scanning slides of people I don't even know!!

I suppose it should be a basic understanding that the image only needs to have enough resolution based upon the least common denominator, which for us is the monitors people use. We clearly have no control over that and probably people understand even less about their screen resolution. Which basically comes down to "bigger image is not necessarily better". If the monitor can't handle it, why allow such big pictures. All they do is slow down upload/download time and then potentially make people scroll up/down or left/right to see the entire image. That will just p'o people off.

This has come up from time to time...maybe I can start a thread in the Software Help section where people can talk about their favorite program and give some basic instructions on how to use it. I've been using a free shareware program for a long of time. One thing I discovered a year or so ago was a Windows keyboard shortcut. It's Ctrl-Shift-S, pressed all at the same time. The screen goes a little dark but then I can use the mouse and move the handles around to crop what I see on the screen. That's copied to the clipboard. Since we can't upload images from the computer's clipboard, we have to paste it into one of the shareware programs...heck even Windows has the Paint program which will do the same thing...it allows cropping, resizing, even a little picture control. Once done messing with the image that was captured, save it out to someplace on the computer, maybe use some kind of "trash" area that you don't care about, and save it. Now you have something to upload.

We really need some kind of control happening on the user side which is then more compatible with the forum software. I don't know much that can be done about vBulletin. Of course, there is the hot link from smugmug, snapfish, etc., from a person's account, but it's really best to upload to the MOA servers, not link because those links aren't permanent. Plus, if someone has one of the online photo accounts, they probably already know about sizing, sharing, etc...and those platforms have those tools built in.
 
...heck even Windows has the Paint program which will do the same thing...it allows cropping, resizing, even a little picture control. .

That's what I use since it's already on the computer and it's easy to understand for basic stuff.
 
There are free apps that do just that, reduce your photo size for web use.
Most of them are one or two clicks operations.
I use Photo & Picture Resizer on my android phone and Light Image Resizer in Windows.
I prefer to use those than rely on websites automated functions.
 
Pat -

I'm aware of those web-based programs...sort of like "tinyurl" where one submits a lengthy URL and the site returns something that is much shorter for cut-n-pasting. I've wondered about uploading an image to website for resizing...what does that website do with your image? I haven't read the fine print...maybe they have some policies regarding that. I prefer to resize on my local machine...usually I save my downsized image in my Download folder (Windows)...I sort of use that for trash. I also change the title of the image to include "LR" which to me signifies that it has a lower resolution that the original image. While it is still in my Download folder, I can still retrieve it if I wish to use it in another forum/location.

I don't do this sort of thing on my smartphone...I prefer the controls and bigger screen on my home computer.

To each their own...once you get a process and it works, by all means, keeping doing that!
 
Pat -

I'm aware of those web-based programs...sort of like "tinyurl" where one submits a lengthy URL and the site returns something that is much shorter for cut-n-pasting. I've wondered about uploading an image to website for resizing...what does that website do with your image? I haven't read the fine print...maybe they have some policies regarding that. I prefer to resize on my local machine...usually I save my downsized image in my Download folder (Windows)...I sort of use that for trash. I also change the title of the image to include "LR" which to me signifies that it has a lower resolution that the original image. While it is still in my Download folder, I can still retrieve it if I wish to use it in another forum/location.

I don't do this sort of thing on my smartphone...I prefer the controls and bigger screen on my home computer.

To each their own...once you get a process and it works, by all means, keeping doing that!
I think you got me wrong, the apps I wrote about are standalone apps or programs, not web extensions like tinyurl. I agree with you, I don't like what websites do to my my photos.

Photo & Picture Resizer I use mostly to publish to Facebook directly from my cell phone. You control what file size you send and save on cell data.

Light Image Resizer I use to reduce photos from my DSLR camera. The originals are usually in RAW format from which I extract a JPEG with either Adobe Lightroom or Silkypix Digital Camera Utility and then reduce, rename and watermark in batch with Light Image Resizer on my PC. Light Image Resizer is a standalone application. The free version has limitations but you can with one right click select a JPEG, resize and rename and then save. With the pro version you can batch as many photos as you want. I could reduce and watermark in Photoshop or Lightroom but not batch. And certainly not do it in one or two clicks.
 
Pat -

Sorry I didn't catch your specific drift. But at this point, I say you should step to the head of the room and provide us with a zoom meeting on how to do this stuff! Impressive!!
 
I wish I could find suggestions by others on the forum...I might look around a bit. I've used the program Irfanview for years. I guess I've gotten so used to the features, etc., that I don't think I'll be looking around just yet. But, thanks!

I just went to google and searched for "image resizing software"...lots of things come up.
 
I think that whether Apple or Windoze, all the computers have the ability to resize the pictures to what is best on the forum. One can Google a “how to” with their device and have a try. Once you get a system that works, make a note and refer to it as necessary.
A bit of a reference for this forum is-

Best sizing for picture upload is around 1MB OR roughly 1024x768. (From Kurt)

One of the reasons that some of the social media sites are so easy to upload pictures to is that their GUI (graphic user interface) wants your pictures on their platform.

Once, maybe twice, that you do it on your own it won’t be such a chore. Of course you can (most likely) adjust your favorite camera (phone?) to shoot pictures that are in a ready to go size. Shooting “RAW” mentioned earlier is a real memory hog but best for those that have enough experience for it to make a difference.
OM
 
Certainly phones can be "adjusted" to make pictures the right size, OM. But if you limit the resolution from the beginning, you can never get it back. It was drilled into me to use your camera/smartphone at the highest resolution you can select...deal with resizing as needed later on. In reality, only a handful of images we take end up on a forum somewhere...best not to restrict the vast number of other photos right out of the gate. IMO.
 
Certainly phones can be "adjusted" to make pictures the right size, OM. But if you limit the resolution from the beginning, you can never get it back. It was drilled into me to use your camera/smartphone at the highest resolution you can select...deal with resizing as needed later on. In reality, only a handful of images we take end up on a forum somewhere...best not to restrict the vast number of other photos right out of the gate. IMO.

I always leave my phone and camera set to high rez in case I want to print a 8x10 or send a picture to the MOA ON.
99% of my pictures don't need to be high rez, but like you mention you can't take a picture in low rez, then adjust it up to high rez.
 
Why have an extra steP

Yes, I know that I can resize photos using paint, etc. My point is that every photo device made today will take photos that are too large to upload to MOA. Then I have to go through this step making them smaller. What a PITA if you have to do this for several photos.

I participate in another forum, https://www.britishcarforum.com/bcf/forum.php , that appears to be using the this same software package as MOA uses for this forum. When I upload a photo there I never get a rejection, it just takes them and automatically downsizes them for whatever their limit is. Super easy, let the computer do the work.

I think I will ask their administrator how they do this. Probably just some setting deep in the software....
 
Probably just some setting deep in the software

There is a “hack”, actually a few, that can be slid into the VB software. This requires more IT maintenance and messing with when the forum is upgraded or has a problem.
OM
 
Perhaps this will be helpful to Mac users. I find that a photo (JPG file) or screenshot (PNG file) which is on the Mac desktop can be easily opened in the Mac program "Preview." Once opened, it's very easy to use the dropdown "Tools" menu and use "Adjust Size" to a reasonable size (I usually use 5 inches of width). You then close "Preview" and upload the photo from the desktop. Takes very little time, and uses programs already resident in a Mac.
 
Perhaps this will be helpful to Mac users. I find that a photo (JPG file) or screenshot (PNG file) which is on the Mac desktop can be easily opened in the Mac program "Preview." Once opened, it's very easy to use the dropdown "Tools" menu and use "Adjust Size" to a reasonable size (I usually use 5 inches of width). You then close "Preview" and upload the photo from the desktop. Takes very little time, and uses programs already resident in a Mac.

Nice John :thumb

I do it on the Mac the same way.
Maybe someone can do an easy peasy tutorial for a Windoze machine.

OM
 
Maybe someone can do an easy peasy tutorial for a Windoze machine.

OM

Select the picture you want to reduce.
Rt click and Edit (This will open Paint)
Select Resize
Select Pixles
If the picture is Landscape enter 1,100 for the witdth.
If the picture is Portrait enter 750 for the height.
Save

This method uses Paint. Paint is on most Windows computers.

1,100 and 750 is what I use but you can vary those numbers a bit.
 
Back
Top