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FAQs
Photo Gallery
Photo Gallery
Question
- How much does it cost to add my Photos to the Members Gallery?
- How do I upload photos?
- what are the rules for using the Members Gallery?
- Who owns the images that I upload to TheBeachcats.com?
- I can't get the title of the album I just created to change, it just stays on "untititled".
- What size images are allowed, and what happens if mine are too big?
- How do I now send a link for my picture album to the Beachcats Yahoo Group member who was enquiring about it?
- How do I sort the items in an album?
- How to add video?
- How to move a photo or video to another folder? I see the option, but nothing happens after clicking on it
- How do I upload an article that I scanned in. I found a great article from 1994. I scanned it in as a .pdf and would like to upload it for everyones benefit. Thanks. Jeremy
Answer
How much does it cost to add my Photos to the Members Gallery?
The Members Gallery is a free service of TheBeachcats.com. You must be logged in with your member username and password in order to create an album and upload photos, but that too is free! All submissions to TheBeachcats.com are governed by our Terms of Service.
Posting pictures in a forum post:
Putting an image into a forum post is pretty easy, you just need the location (url) of the image and then use that in your post.
There are some basic concepts you need to understand, such as the fact that the url of the image itself is different than the url of the page the image is on. The instructions below will explain how to put your image into the photo albums here at TheBeachcats.com and then get the url to post in the forums. If your picture is already on the Internet (Picassa, Photobucket etc.) then skip down to "Adding your pictures to a forum post."
Getting your picture into an album at TheBeachcats.com
You can upload your images from your computer to TheBeachcats.com by creating a new album that you control. You can create a new album inside most of the main albums, so pick the most appropriate.
Here is a list of the main photo albums and how they are meant to be used.
Beachcat Beauty: artistic pictures involving beachcats, that great shot of the sunset behind your boat, the perfect beach, artsy sail photos, or beautiful crew members decorating your boat. Show your artistic side here.
Beachcat Hull Flying: obviously this album is for that perfect shot you finally got of flying your beachcat.
Beachcat Identification: for documenting all the beachcats ever made. If you have good shots of a particular model with an emphasis on showing their shape, rigging, and construction details, post them to the appropriate models album. Inside this album is "Unknown Beachcats", if you find a beachcat that you can't identifiy create an album in there that shows lots of shots so other members can identify your boat. When you post a new unknown, create a topic in the forums to alert members to look.
Beachcats Regattas: most of the yearly regattas have an album here, if you have pics from a regatta then post them to the appropriate existing album or create a new regatta album if it's new.
Beachcats Situations: funny-scary-weird things that happen to beachcats and beachcat sailors go here.
Beachcats Technical: use this album to both document your repair/modification/invention or to post pics of a problem/damage/question to request help in the forum.
Beachcats People: here is where members can have their own personal album to document their beachcat sailing to share experiences and just show off. Create the album with your real name as title so others can locate your album.
Beachcats Groups: similar to Beachcats People, create an album for your local sailing club/group/buddies and post the pics here for everyone to see.
Beachcats T-Shirts: post pics of regatta shirts and of you and your crew wearing t-shirts from TheBeachcats.com.
Beachcats History: do you have old photos from the early days of beachcat sailing? Please scan them and post here. If you can't scan them yourself pease contact Damon at TheBeachcats.com and arrange to mail them to me, I'll scan and return.
Creating your album and uploading pictures
So go to your chosen album (open it in a new window so you can keep reading here) and create a new album by following these steps.
- Click on "Add Album" in the left menu.
- Fill in required album name, use something like hobie18maststep (no spaces or punctuation)
- Fill in Title (Hobie 18 Mast Step Repair)
- Summary can be left blank unless you need extra title info.
- Use the description field for details about the purpose of the album, location etc.
- Click the "Create" button.
- Don't mess with any of the other settings that come up.
- Click on "Add Items"
- Depending on how many pictures you have either use the form fields or the Java Upload Applet to add your pictures. (The upload applet requires a fairly new version of Java on your computer and will probably throw up security warning, if you have trouble just use the web form.)
Adding your pictures to a forum post.
Now that your pictures are up on the Interweb here is how you add them to a forum post.
When you are typing the forum post you'll see a bunch of buttons like
With your cursor on the spot where you want the picture to go, click on the Image button.
That will produce something like this
[img][/img]
Which designates that whatever is typed between those two tags is an image url. So now we need to find the url of your image.
Finding the Image URL
Open a new browser window and go find the image you want to insert on the web. Once you see it on your screen you can right-click (control click for Macs) directly on the picture. What happens next depends on the browser you are using.
- Firefox has the choice of "copy image location".
- Chrome is also easy with "Copy image url".
- Safari has "copy image address".
- Internet Explorer you have to choose "properties", then manually copy the image url from the properties dialog box.
Once you have done one of those the image url is now in your clipboard, ready to paste.
So go back to your forum post and use one of these two methods.
- Right-click between the [img] and the [/img] and choose paste.
- Place your cursor between[img] and [/img] and then on the keyboard press Control V "Ctrl V" to paste.
Now you should have something like
[img]http://www.example.com/images/myimage.jpg[/img]
Now preview your post by clicking on the preview button, if the image shows up you can complete your post and submit it.
simple huh?
what are the rules for using the Members Gallery?
First, you must register for a free membership on TheBeachcats.com to be able to upload photos. Rules for acceptable use of the photo album:
- Beachcats related pictures only, TheBeachcats.com will be the sole judge of what is related to sailing beachcats. If you have questions, use the contact form.
- This is not a porn site. Any abuse of the photo album in that manner will dealt with harshly.
- Number two doesn't mean all nudity is banned, use descretion. If you have ANY question about what is acceptable use the contact form to request a ruling BEFORE posting the photos.
- Pictures may be uploaded in jpg, gif, png, avi, mpg, mpeg, wmv, mov formats. Yes, you can upload (small) movies too!
- Max file sizes for still images: Unlimited, the server will properly resize your large pictures for you, so if you don't have (or want to learn how to use) photo editing software, you can upload pictures straight from your digital camera or photo disk.
- Max file sizes for movies: Movies are not resized, so please keep uploads under 2mb. If you have large movies you would like to share, use the contact form to contact TheBeachcats.com.
Who owns the images that I upload to TheBeachcats.com?
As creator of the "artistic material" you hold the copyright to your images, and that does not change when you share them with TheBeachcats.com. As copyright holder you grant to TheBeachcats.com free use of your images. This includes but is not limited to:
- Displaying the images on TheBeachcats.com or affiliates of TheBeachcats.com.
- Using the images to create other works. (such as thumbnails)
I can't get the title of the album I just created to change, it just stays on "untititled".
Change the album title and description by using the "properties" selection on the drop-down administration list inside the album.
What size images are allowed, and what happens if mine are too big?
- The maximum size allowed to be stored in the photo galleries is 1280 pixels on a side. So 1024 x 1280 or 1280 x 1024 or even 1280 x 1280 would upload without resizing the original.
- If the image you are uploading is larger than 1280 pixels on either side, it is automatically resized down to fit this maximim. Keep in mind there is also a maximim total upload size of 10mb, so if you try to upload 5 pictures of 3mb each from your digital camera, it won't work, you will need to upload them one at a time. For very large pictures (over 1mb each) you will get better results by resizing the pictures yourself closer to the size limit before you upload.
- At the time the image is uploaded, two additional images are created for browsing, the thumbnail, and the intermediate image that is used in slide shows and when using the "next" link inside albums. The size of the thumbnails and browse images are set by the album owner in "properties", usually to 150 pixels for thumbs and 640 pixels for the browse image.
- When you upload pictures to TheBeachcats.com photo album, keep in mind that this is not meant to be secure lifetime storage for your pictures. If you have pictures that are important to you, be sure and make local copies and back them up yourself. Otherwise a server or software failure could cause you to lose images.
Just go the your album and copy and paste the URL from the address bar into your email. The link will be very long and might break in email, so you might consider using the Tiny URL service at http://www.tinyurl.com. You can copy the url into their form and it will be converted into a very short URL that won't break in email.
How do I sort the items in an album?
You can only sort the items in an album you create, or one where you have been set as the owner. In that case follow these steps. 1. Go to your album page http://www.thebeachcats.com/index.php?module=pictures&g2_itemId=53380 2. If you are logged-in you should see some links at the left column, one of them is "Edit Album" click it. 3. Now you should see a page with some tabs, one of the tabs is labeled "Album", click it. 4. Under the "Sort Order" section you have a drop down list of ways to sort the album. Two are confusing, Creation Date = the time you added the picture to the album. Origination Date = the time the picture was taken, based on the data from the camera. If you have edited-cropped-resized the picture before uploading it, the camera data may have been erased, so that won't work for sorting. 5. Once you have selected your sort type, be sure and submit the form with button at the bottom of the page. 6. Visit your album to be sure it sorted the way you thought.
You can add small videos (under 4mb) directly to a photo album the same as photos, just click on "Add Item" in any album you have either created or have permission to add into. For larger videos, put them into the Videos section of the site. Click on the Catamaran Video link in the main menu and then on the Add link in the Video menu. Fill out and submit the form. Large Videos cannot be uploaded directly to the site, they have to already exist on the web. YouTube is a convenient way to share videos, just enter the link to the YouTube video in the URL box if that is the way you go.
You cannot currently move an item to different album. You’ll need to delete the item and upload it to the new album instead. This functionality will be available in the future.
You can upload PDF documents into the photo albums the same way you upload pictures. PDF’s will not automatically create a thumbnail, so you would have to manually create a 150pixel square thumbnail to represent the document. It’s best not to mix photos and PDF’s in the same album, so create a new album in the album where you want the PDF to appear and upload it there.