I use tinypic.com. You can only upload one photo at a time, but there's no middleman; it uploads to the TinyPic site, click on the html code to copy and paste that in your message.

I'll post more detailed instructions if anyone wants.

Claire

I use photobucket. When I go to upload to photo bucket, I can easily search my hard drive for pictures, and by hitting the ctrl key, I can choose multiple photos to upload. The photos upload quickly, and photo bucket is pretty easy to navigate afterwards - simple clicks to add titles, and change sizes. And it's a simple click to get the html code for posting here on GW.

I forgot to mention that you don't need an account to use tinypic.com. Anyone can upload photos. You can try it without having to set up an account and the pics are never deleted (at least not in the last few years). The disadvantage is that you can't organize them and remove them if you want.

Easy enough to try it and see which you prefer.

Claire

Another vote for Photobucket. I have used it for years. Uploads are extremely fast and you can upload multiple photos at one time. They make it very easy to cut and paste the URL. If you are into statistics, you can get info on how many times a photo has been viewed, etc.

I have always used Tinypic.com, but the other day I was looking at an old thread that I had posted photos to and all the photos that I originally posted were gone but it wasn't blank, it had someone's family photos in their place. Very weird. I am thinking about trying to use a different method now too.

That's scary, PM2. I've never had a problem with TinyPic, which is run by Photobucket. I just don't want to be bothered with setting up an account and having all my albums public or having to go back and delete them.

Claire

I don't want to have albums online either. I have wondered if there isn't a way to post photos directly from your own computer?

Ann,

What I've done in the past is to upload to my webspace (Cox is my ISP and they give you webspace for each email address - you can have 9 total). You can organize into folders however you want. Then you need to add the URL to your post here on GW, but it can be tedious.........e.g. http://www.somethingcox.net/users/billri/files/something/foldername/filename.jpg.

Well you get the idea. And it's case sensitive, and numerals have those % symbols before and after. One character that doesn't match and your photo won't show up.

I just got a Shutterfly account so maybe I'll look into that.

Bill

I guess I could look into my Comcast account. I imagine they offer webspace too, I haven't used it. I wonder if you aren't able to just copy/paste the address to make it a little less tedious?

If you try Shutterfly, let us know. Thanks, Bill :-)

There are privacy settings on Photobucket so you can decide whether the public sees them or not. It's not really a concern for me because I only upload pics of plants on Photobucket. Anyone trying to invade my privacy may die of boredom looking though pics of trees and shrubs.

I would think again about the notion of not having your albums online. One of the worst things about the digital age we live in is that a hard drive crash can wipe out years of photos unless you were diligent about backing them up. Having them online in some type of account can save you a lot of grief if this happens.

That's a very good point, tree oracle. I have tried Picasa Web Albums and had only gardening photos there too. I just haven't used it in awhile. Yes, people would die of boredom is right...lol. My reason for not using the online albums is just having to do everything twice. I store and organize them on the computer then I would have to do the same on the online album.

I have all my photos on memory cards. Not that any way of saving them is fool proof. If you have them saved online, isn't it a smaller file than the full photo file?

A friend of mine is a web developer and he created a folder on his web server for me to use for various Internet purposes (Gardenweb, Craigslist, etc). I copy photos to this folder (using ftp) and then embed the html code in my post. This is similar to using server space on your ISP's server.

It's not the easiest way to post photos here, but it is private and secure. It is too bad that it's not easier to post photos on this website. It's discouraging for computer-challenged posters.

PM2 that is weird about your photos on tinypic. I wonder if your tinypic code was re-used by these other photos?

I think all paid email accounts include ftp (photo/web storage) space. You have a lot more control and no advertising because this is space that you are paying for. Most people pay for ftp space but many don't realize it is available.

My email is with sovernet and I have a (long neglected) web site plus lots of stored photos. I have an inner folder entitled 'post' specifically to contain images for posting to forums including this one. This way the url of any photo stored in my ftp space that I intend to post will have the same url except for the image name and file extension on the end.

Flickr.com is an excellent photo storage site without all the 'bells and whistles' advertising of photobucket. Photobucket must have some sort of bandwidth limit because if you post too many images or a photo gets too much traffic, the photo will often disappear from the forum where it is posted.

As to actually posting a photo from your web site, you could do this, but you would not want to because it would point viewers directly to your computer creating a big security risk. However I believe that Picasa.com encrypts information so that you can share it directly from your computer safely. I could be wrong about this, but I think this is how Picasa works.

I use google's picasa web; I can upload lots of shots all at once into a single album, direct from iPhoto. When I view the pictures in the album, there's a little window next to the image that has the html code needed to embed the image in a web page.

It's kind of nice because you can select the size (I find huge photos annoying on this forum, they make it hard to read the threads) and then just click, cut and paste. The image when it appears on garden web includes a link to the original on picasa, so that provides a route to get to all the photos in that album.

I use the albums for all sorts of things, but mainly gardens and travel photos. It's free, and it's very handy!

Another vote for Google Picasa - and the albums can be either private or public. Very easy to use.

Thanks for the reminder for Picasa. I think I just got out of the habit of using it. I also always enjoy Flickr anytime I've visited there. I might look into that too.