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Hotlinking Photo Host Choices


Gorby

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9 hours ago, BearAndRaggedStaff said:

I've successfully used Blogger today for my first post.

Excellent.

It seems to work well as a photo host and as I start a new post for each WIP or RFI it's really easy to find a photo if I need it at a later date. I'm not so keen on the new interface – it looks nice, but isn't as easy to use.

 

Windows XP wow that's a blast from the past. That and Win 7 are the best OS that MS produced. Why do companies have to screw up something that works well?

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  • 5 weeks later...
On 12/11/2019 at 18:13, SteveR said:

Thanks for mentioning my site @Gorby

HobbyPhotoHost is 100% free. You can upload photos from Desktop or Mobile up to 4MB per file. There are options to upgrade your account for a small subscription, but the free service is all most people would ever want/need. A subscription service just increases the maximum upload size, allows you to keep images private, remove watermarks as well as a few other things it allows you to add your own watermarks. But if all you want to do is share an image, there's no charge. Obviously, subscriptions help to fund the server, offsetting the free users.

 

The site is new(ish), but I have nearly 20 years experience in PHP, CGI/Perl and web development and developed the whole thing by myself from scratch. While I don't have the power and resources of huge established companies you get a personal service and direct contact with the developer/owner, me :) and I'm always open to suggestions.

 

Thanks!

 

PS. There are no adverts on HobbyPhotoHost... none at all!

Just signed up to this, thanks. Couldn’t see how I could copy link when using iPad so first post via pc. Is there a way? Thanks

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9 hours ago, Chrisj2003 said:

Just signed up to this, thanks. Couldn’t see how I could copy link when using iPad so first post via pc. Is there a way? Thanks

I haven't personally used HobbyPhotoHost and I've never used an iPad and currently my brain seems to be in hibernation for the summer (and then probably the autumn... winter...) so I wonder if @SteveR could possibly answer that one.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I don't know if this has been mentioned, I was too laxy/impatient to read through five pages of posts, but when I share pictures for sharing (regardless of the medium: online hosting, email, etc...), I use GIMP to shrink the image to width 800px and a resoltion of 96dpi (standard monitor resolution).  The resultant file is a smidgin ove 500 kb.  The loss of any detail is negligable because it's being viewed on a monitor or mobile device anyway.  The small file size also reduces load times and saves storage and data transfer allocations.

 

I also use a free webhosting site, Neocities, to store my pictures. But since I don't share them to places likely to get 1000s of hits, the loading should be quite low.

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29 minutes ago, alloydog said:

I don't know if this has been mentioned, I was too laxy/impatient to read through five pages of posts, but when I share pictures for sharing (regardless of the medium: online hosting, email, etc...), I use GIMP to shrink the image to width 800px and a resoltion of 96dpi (standard monitor resolution).  The resultant file is a smidgin ove 500 kb.  The loss of any detail is negligable because it's being viewed on a monitor or mobile device anyway.  The small file size also reduces load times and saves storage and data transfer allocations.

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned before either – I don't think it has and it's a good point to make.

I also use GIMP* to crop the photo and reduce in size. I use 180dpi and reduce the image size to 160mm (about 1130px) width or height (whichever is the greatest). Then I save the file with an image quality of 90% which reduced the file size to around 200 - 300kB. As you say, the reduction in quality of the image is barely noticeable on a monitor (with my eyes anyway).

 

 

* for anyone that doesn't know what GIMP is, it's a completely free image manipulation program– a bit like Photoshop but without the cost. It's excellent and well worth downloading if your looking for a photo editor.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Someone shared an easy and fast way to downsize your photos. 

1. Open your folder

2. Select the photos you want to resize, you can select multiple photos

3. Right click the photos and select "Send to" and then "mail Recipient"

4. A pop out box will appear asking you what size to attach the photos, I usually select medium at 1024x768

5. Windows will pop out an email with the resized photos attached

6. Select the photos in the email and right click to save them into the right folder

7. Delete the email

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1 hour ago, CasualModel98 said:

Someone shared an easy and fast way to downsize your photos. 

1. Open your folder

2. Select the photos you want to resize, you can select multiple photos

3. Right click the photos and select "Send to" and then "mail Recipient"

4. A pop out box will appear asking you what size to attach the photos, I usually select medium at 1024x768

5. Windows will pop out an email with the resized photos attached

6. Select the photos in the email and right click to save them into the right folder

7. Delete the email

 

I use either Paint on my PC or Edit on my IPhone/IPad.

 

 

 

Chris

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I use this: https://bulkresizephotos.com/

 

Drag your photo's in the page, enter the percentage to which you want them shrunk (?) and they're downloaded as a zip file. Zip file opens after download and simply drag them back in your folder, replacing the originals. Really quick and easy. The resizing all takes place on your computer so nothing gets uploaded to a server. 

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On 8/20/2020 at 9:44 PM, Chrisj2003 said:

Just signed up to this, thanks. Couldn’t see how I could copy link when using iPad so first post via pc. Is there a way? Thanks

Hey Chris,
Sorry for not seeing this sooner! Unfortunately I don't have an iPad to try this with... but I would expect it to work the same as it does on any mobile device... so simply clicking the "Britmodeller" share code button will automatically copy the required link to your clipboard. You should then be able to 'long-press' and paste the link wherever you like.

 

Worth noting that you also need to have Javascript enabled on your browser

 

Best

Edited by SteveR
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  • 1 month later...

Very good thread.

 

Just a note to those who host their own images. Recent versions of Chrome have stopped allowing what is referred to as “mixed content “. In practice this means if a website uses https then all the images it loads must also use https. Even if your link uses http Chrome will change it to https. Unless your image host has a valid SSL certificate (padlock icon) the image will fail to load. 

 

Most website hosting services should be able to provide an SSL certificate for free if they have not already done so. 

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Has anyone tried using Amazon Prime? It allows you to use a link to share photos but when I try it here all I get is this

https://www.amazon.co.uk/photos/share/R9zt785QcMD3vnmAhDMWYwvw2lwAt3P8GOunZcBKT0P

If you click on it you end up in my Prime account

 

If I try the 'insert image from URL' the insert box goes pink and nothing happens

John

 

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1 hour ago, John R said:

Has anyone tried using Amazon Prime? It allows you to use a link to share photos but when I try it here all I get is this

https://www.amazon.co.uk/photos/share/R9zt785QcMD3vnmAhDMWYwvw2lwAt3P8GOunZcBKT0P

If you click on it you end up in my Prime account

 

If I try the 'insert image from URL' the insert box goes pink and nothing happens

John

 

 

Can I just say 'Thank You'!

 

I recently lost almost all my reference pictures, due to a virus which fried both my PC and my back up external drive, which was connected at the time but it seems that I have an Amazon Prime Photo account, which I don't remember setting up, and lo and behold, when following your link, I'm taken to my account which holds many, but not all, of the pictures I had previously saved!

 

Guess I need to keep a record of all the sites I have or will use, rather than relying on fading grey matter 🙂

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On 28/10/2020 at 14:54, John R said:

Has anyone tried using Amazon Prime?

Originally I said that Amazon Photos wasn't suitable for hotlinking - it was possible but there were too many steps for it to be practical. I've just had another look and they seem to have changed it. As you say, there is a 'share link' button but as you've found, it doesn't display the photo in the post - just a link to view the photo in the original location.

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/photos/share/wvFNgCGBQnjBugTx8l8nvzvwBg4DcGWge2uMhSrGA3J

 

It seems to work when you just click on the photo and then left click and select 'Copy image location'.

BMJ5Ab4OQJ-SlYBUtzS61Q?viewBox=528,960&o

 

Having said that, I don't know if the link is permanent as some companies reset links so that you can't use their site as a host.

 

** UPDATE ** The link no longer works so it looks like Amazon Photo isn't a good option.

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3 minutes ago, John R said:

I can't get any of that to work any differently to my original effort

Have you just tried pasting the link (from left clicking and selecting 'copy image location') directly into your post? Don't use  the 'Insert image from URL' button. That button is useless.

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I dislike links to photos that I have to click on to see. I like seeing the pictures in the posting.

 

I have avoided posts that have links rather than pictures.

 

 

 

Chris

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  • 3 weeks later...

That second one doesn't work at all, it's just a blank page with a broken image icon in the middle. I can't see it on my Android phone or Windows 10 PC. The first one works, but I have to click on it. It also features a rather large advert for Amazon Photos. Are you Jeff Bezos? If so, can you lend me a tenner?

 

(Sorry, this was a reply to Gorby's post about Amazon Photos. Dunno why it hasn't showed up as a quote).

Edited by Ned
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9 minutes ago, Ned said:

That second one doesn't work at all, it's just a blank page with a broken image icon in the middle.

Thanks Ned - that answers that question. It originally did work and now it looks like the link has broken. Looks like Amazon Photos is a no go.

 

PS. I'll just go an check to see I'm Jeff Bezos - you never know, it might be my turn today. :smile:

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Thanks for all of this research Gorby, along with everyone else that has contributed. I was going to start my first WIP yesterday, but didn't get beyond the "here's my first photo" post. It's changed so much in just a few years since I last did any posting, that was to Land Rover and VW forums just a few years ago. I think we all used Photobucket back then, I guess the big boys (Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc) are a lot more interested now that they can figure out what we're into by what we take pictures of. Having our pictures is useful to them, but allowing us to use them ourselves by linking to them easily seems to be a different story.

I think I'll give Google Images a go. I'll take pictures with my Google phone, sync the pictures to Google Cloud, let Google Images sort them for me, and then use Google Chrome to link them to BM. That all should work as long as I can remember my Google password 😀

I'll have a go and see what happens. I'll do stupid things like move images into different albums to see if the links still work and report back.

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1 hour ago, Ned said:

Google Images

Do you mean 'Google Photos'? Google images is their search function.

If you do mean Google Photos don't for get you will have to generate a direct link for every photo using https://www.labnol.org/embed/google/photos/  or eventually the links will fail and your old post will loose there photos. I lost eight months of photo links before I realised that.

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6 minutes ago, Gorby said:

Do you mean 'Google Photos'? Google images is their search function.

If you do mean Google Photos don't for get you will have to generate a direct link for every photo using https://www.labnol.org/embed/google/photos/  or eventually the links will fail and your old post will loose there photos. I lost eight months of photo links before I realised that.

Sorry, yes, Google Photos. Using the link generator seems to be the only option when posting here - if you paste the simple link from Google Photos into the 'Insert Images from URL' box, it just turns the text red and nothing else. There's no error message, but at least you don't end up posting an image that's going to disappear a few days later. I wonder why Google don't provide external links that actually work. Something to do with privacy I suppose.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Ned said:

I wonder why Google don't provide external links that actually work. Something to do with privacy I suppose.

Some companies do it so that you can't use them as a photo host, although I'm not sure that's why Google Photo links don't last.

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