FAQ: How to Link To Images Properly

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This one of several AW FAQs about images. Other related FAQs include:

FAQ: Image Size Guidelines

We ask members not to hotlink images on sites that you do not control. Instead, use a free image hosting site or your own site.

How Should You Link to Images

Get a free account at Google Photos or Flickr or Picasa or Shutterfly or Postimage.org.

The best option is to link to an image on your own Website or blog.

Use a site or blog account you own, and upload the image there, then link to it.

Image Shack or Photobucket work just fine, but both require you to have a paid account, and in the case of Photobucket, the account that allows hotlinking is pricey.

Linking to covers from Amazon is OK, but be aware that sometimes those links stop working.

Look for a Share button or menu item on your site.

Copy the image URL or use the Share feature to create BBulletin code, the code used by the AW Forums software, to link to the image.

Look for a link that ends in an image format, like .jpg.

Then follow these steps to link to your image.

Linking to an Image in a Post


  1. Copy the address of the specific image on your hosting account that you want to link to in a post.
  2. Write your post.
  3. When you are ready to insert the linked image, position your cursor where you want the image to show.
  4. Click the Image Insert button
    insertimage.gif

  5. Copy the URL for the image in the field.
  6. Click OK.

Ultimately, you want a link that looks like this [IMG]http://somewebaddress.example.com/mypony.jpg[/IMG]

The
insertimage.gif
button formats a normal link so that it is in BBcode.


Note: These Sites and Services Won't Work Correctly

  • Many of the camera manufacturer's sites for image uploading directly from a camera (like Canon Image Gateway) won't work.
  • DropBox and Google Drive don't work properly, even if you simply copy and paste the link.
  • Photobucket free accounts no longer allow image linking.

Caution

Please don't use the image tool
insertimage.gif
to link to images on: Facebook, IMDB, Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons or an AOL or Google or Bing Image Search cache.

Save the image to your own account on one of the approved image hosting sites, and link to that.

  • Please do not link to very large images; keep them to within about 400 x 400 pixels, and small files, please. Large images mean your fellow members will have to wait, and the delay is likely to frustrate members on dialup.
  • We have a lot of members who pay for Internet access based on how much data they use, and a lot who are still using dialup. Large images are really annoying to those members.
  • Be courteous and comply when a Mod asks you to reduce an image in size.
  • Don’t link, post or use images in violation of copyright. Just Don't.
  • Don’t link to, post or use images that involve strategically covered erogenous zones, sheer and see-through clothing, wet t-shirts, lascivious or sexually provocative poses, close-ups of breasts, buttocks, or crotches, or images that are designed to sexually exploit. That includes avatars.
  • Remember that resolution (the number of dots or pixels per inch) is different than the size of the image. Images for the Web are generally at 72 DPI. An image that has a higher DPI (say 300) is going to be a larger file size. It will not behave the way you expect, and will be larger as a file than is necessary.
  • Remember that chocolate is one of the basic food groups.

We will remove all ability to link images if we have to, but that would be really unfortunate.


Please work with us on this!

If you see something that you think might be a problem, just click the report post
report.gif
icon. That alerts a mod that something needs to be looked at. Thanks guys—
 
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