Adding Photos To Your Blog

Open up any newspaper or magazine, and where do your eyes go first? The headlines and photos. Adding a photograph makes your blog more engaging and really captures your readers' attention.

First you will need a place to store, or 'host' your photos. Currently LocalBizBlogs does not offer image hosting, although we may in the future. That's not a problem because there are many free photo hosting services available. Today we'll look at two of these services: PhotoBucket and ImageShack.

Each automatically generates a link needed for posting your photo to your blog. All you have to do is copy and paste.

PhotoBucket
PhotoBucket is a free photo and video hosting service. You can also make slideshows, albums and order prints. It is a very popular site, many people using it for storing photos they post on social sites like MySpace and eBay. Their free account will allow you to host 10,000 photos at 1MB max per photo. They also have a Pro account for high volume users.

ImageShack
ImageShack offers free unlimited hosting for photos at 1.5MB max per photo, but does not support video. ImageShack is also widely used. A quick look at their blog indicates they are focused on evolving their service. (A good blog speaks volumes about a company) I like the fact that you can upload photos directly from their homepage, and you can start using the service without setting up an account.

I'm working with ImageShack for today's demonstration because it allows you to resize your photos OR link to large photos by thumbnail.

Step One - Select Your Photo
Load ImageShack. You will see a box with several options for uploading photos. Click the 'Browse' or 'Choose File' button. The button will read either way depending on your browser. A window will pop up prompting you to find the photo you want to upload. Choose your photo.



Be sure to enter an email address if you don't have an account with ImageShack. They will send you an account activation email, which will come in handy if you decide to continue using the service.

Step Two - Determine the Photo Display Size
Modern digital cameras take very large pictures, larger than what you can fit on your computer screen or on a blog. These images need to be resized (downsized actually) in order for people to be able to view them. This process requires some forethought on what you are trying to achieve with your photo. It all boils down to this: Do you want to show fine detail?

•If displaying fine detail is important, then you will want to keep your photo as large as possible. In this case, we leave 'resize image' un-checked. Your photos will maintain their large size, which will take them longer to download. Alternatively, you can choose to display your photo as a thumbnail, which opens to the full size photo when clicked.

Here is an example of a thumbnail that opens to a full size photo when clicked:



•If fine detail is not important, then check the 'resize image' box and set the drop-down menu to '320x240 (for websites and email)'. Your photo will fit the width of your BizBlog perfectly and take less time to download.

Here is an example of what a photo resized for your BizBlog will look like:



Go ahead and check the 'remove size/resolution bar from thumbnail?' check-box. You can play with that later.

Now you're ready to click the 'Host it!' button. Large images may take a few moments to upload.

Step Three - Adding the Photo to Your Blog
ImageShack should direct you to a page with your photo and several boxes containing links to your photo. To add this image to your blog, you will need to copy and paste one of these links to the body of your blog.

If you decided that fine detail is important (discussed in Step Two), then copy the link next to 'Thumbnail for Websites'.



Then simply paste this link to the appropiate area in the Body of your BizBlog. Once saved, your blog post will display your photo hosted from ImageShack.

note: In order for your photo to display properly, some users may need to click edit and then save to reinitialize the post. We are working on a fix for this.

If you decided that fine detail is not important, then copy the link next to 'Direct link to image'.



To add this photo to your blog, create a new post and click the 'Insert Image' icon (looks like a tree) in the blog's toolbar.



This will bring up the 'Insert/edit image' window. Paste your photo's link into the 'Image URL' field. Click the Insert button and your photo will be added to the blog. Once saved, your blog post will display your photo hosted from ImageShack!