Image Hosting - What You Should Look For
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Let's start with the most common situation: you are a forum frequenter, a contributing member in a community. As you may know, all forums let you display an image inside your post if you use the popular tags used on forums and bulletin boards. As long as you follow the basic rules you shouldn't have a problem with it.
For almost every forum you will come across, the formula used is the following:
[url=Path to image][img] Path to thumbnail image [/img][/url]
or simply for no thumbnail/link
[img]Path to image[/img]
Now to understand the upper line you should know the syntax of the tag. The rule is that for any tag, you first submit the command that shows what its tag is between the brackets "[]". At the end, the tag is closed with a slash "/" before the tag name, also enclosed in brackets. For images, the correct tag to use is img, while for links, the URL is used. For images, the link to the image is put between the braces, but for links the tag contains the full URL because, between the brackets, users will see something that points to the first link. With this knowledge in your grasp you should understand the codes generated by the sites without any problems.
Now that we know how to display images via tags, the question remains of where to host the images, since we just need to use the links. If you are looking for an image hosting site, the following properties should be considered.
The first and most important point to consider is the the uploading options. It's possible to upload from a file, URL, e-mail and of late from mobile phones as well. You should also see what formats are supported for uploading by the image hosting site. The repertoire is usually quite long but every one of them offers support for jpg, bmp and pang; these are the most important formats.
Then there is also the issue of the maximum size of a picture. You may have a gigantic LCD of 24" which lets you take screen shots of 2MB high-quality JPGs, but what is the point of it if the site allows only 1.5 MB? This is definitely a thing to watch out for. When you're rushing and need a fast hosting site, though, you know you can skip over a site that says up front it doesn't support images beyond a certain size. So this is a lack I personally consider a plus.
Hosting more than one file at once in a single browser tab is also great when you want to host a series of pictures. And watch out for eventual bandwidth/storage restrictions that may delay your work or create an unpleasant experience to those trying to view your images. By the way, these include the strange, apparently useless add-ins for a site, like the requirement to sign up to view the picture, enter a code to view it, and so on.
A great site should offer a clean and easy upload without any unpleasant memories for anyone. Any extras they can offer above those previously mentioned are a bonus. Giving you organized statistics of your pictures and a "same type" library is always welcome as long as it achieves the task in a stylish way. But the most important attributes of a site are to be consistent and always available, stable and reliable. Here are a couple of sites that I recommend checking out.
Next: Pick Your Favorite! >>
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