Linking images from G-Photos to your post
Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2019 8:14 pm
Hi all, thought It may be useful to post the technique I find to work on my Windows 10 (Lenovo) laptop to enable images to be included in posts by linking, via this forum's IMG tags, to 'shared' images residing in a G-Photos album.
If you need to check that others can see your images, open an 'incognito window' in Chrome and you will not be logged into your Google account. Then when you visit the forum to view your images that you hope others can see, you will appear as 'an other' (i.e. not the image's owner) to the forum, and if the image is successfully shared you will, as an anonymous forum visitor, be able to see it, as will other logged-in or not users of the forum. If you can't see the image and just see the kind of 'stop-sign' image, the share is not working....
Looking at the image as yourself in the forum will always enable you to see your image even when others can't, as the brower and Google will know you are the owner and don't of course need permission from a share to view your own content!
Anyway, here's what I hop is a helpful demo of how to create and use a shared album, from which images when linked-to with the IMG tags, will be visible to everyone....
Copied from my post in another thread,
The image in G-Photos must be shared, or reside in an album that's shared.
There's a small 'trick' to setting the share which I personally found a little counter-intuitive before I discovered it by accident really....
For example, to create a shared album in G-Photos....
First create and name a new album then populate it with images,
This screen 'comes up' next - album creation isn't complete, yet...
Click the 'share' icon/button in the top right corner,
The share box appears,
Click the 'create-link' button as in above image, without selecting a particular person (contact) with whom to share. We are creating a share that anyone with the link (which is of course inside the IMG tags in your post to show the image/s) can use to see the image - as in your forum-post. The images in this post are residing in the actual shared album created in this example post!
The created link appears but you need do nothing with it - it doesn't need to be copied or anything...
Simply click anywhere outside the white box containing the link to make the next screen (see below)...
Incidentally - I usually select the little unlocked-padlock icon (top right corner of white box) and set the share permission to deny the addition of photos to the album by others - nearly forgot to mention that!
This is the next screen, showing your new album and it's images - but the creation of the (shared) album isn't quite finished,
As the image above shows, the back-arrow top-left of the screen must be clicked to complete the creation of the shared album, after which, any images subsequently added TO THAT ALBUM will automatically be of a 'shared' status - ready to include in posts.
Here's the next screen - creation is completed at this screen. The new album shows-up in the G-Photos front-page list of your albums, with you'll notice, the 'shared' status attached to it.
Opening the album then opening any image in it will show the image and you'll be able to right-click it to get the image's address,
Here the album is opened and the images are shown,
An image selected comes up as below, a right-click anywhere on the image brings the address box up,
After the right-click and selection of 'Copy image address' from the white-box's menu, the image address will be copied into you 'clipboard' and is then available to paste into the forum's IMG tags, either with the paste command or a Ctrl-V keypress shortcut as for any paste..
Put the IMG tags into your text, better on it's own line, then paste your shared image's address (previously copied into your clipboard) between the tags and it'll be available for all to see.
Linking to images this way means there's (virtually) no limit (at least it's nowhere near the usual 5 when the forum's hosting your downsized image) to the number of images a post may include - and they do NOT need to be downsized to either the 1000-pixel in any dimension size-limit of the 500k storage-size limit!
Sorry this looks complicated but it's easier and faster thatn it looks.... promise...
If you need to check that others can see your images, open an 'incognito window' in Chrome and you will not be logged into your Google account. Then when you visit the forum to view your images that you hope others can see, you will appear as 'an other' (i.e. not the image's owner) to the forum, and if the image is successfully shared you will, as an anonymous forum visitor, be able to see it, as will other logged-in or not users of the forum. If you can't see the image and just see the kind of 'stop-sign' image, the share is not working....
Looking at the image as yourself in the forum will always enable you to see your image even when others can't, as the brower and Google will know you are the owner and don't of course need permission from a share to view your own content!
Anyway, here's what I hop is a helpful demo of how to create and use a shared album, from which images when linked-to with the IMG tags, will be visible to everyone....
Copied from my post in another thread,
The image in G-Photos must be shared, or reside in an album that's shared.
There's a small 'trick' to setting the share which I personally found a little counter-intuitive before I discovered it by accident really....
For example, to create a shared album in G-Photos....
First create and name a new album then populate it with images,
This screen 'comes up' next - album creation isn't complete, yet...
Click the 'share' icon/button in the top right corner,
The share box appears,
Click the 'create-link' button as in above image, without selecting a particular person (contact) with whom to share. We are creating a share that anyone with the link (which is of course inside the IMG tags in your post to show the image/s) can use to see the image - as in your forum-post. The images in this post are residing in the actual shared album created in this example post!
The created link appears but you need do nothing with it - it doesn't need to be copied or anything...
Simply click anywhere outside the white box containing the link to make the next screen (see below)...
Incidentally - I usually select the little unlocked-padlock icon (top right corner of white box) and set the share permission to deny the addition of photos to the album by others - nearly forgot to mention that!
This is the next screen, showing your new album and it's images - but the creation of the (shared) album isn't quite finished,
As the image above shows, the back-arrow top-left of the screen must be clicked to complete the creation of the shared album, after which, any images subsequently added TO THAT ALBUM will automatically be of a 'shared' status - ready to include in posts.
Here's the next screen - creation is completed at this screen. The new album shows-up in the G-Photos front-page list of your albums, with you'll notice, the 'shared' status attached to it.
Opening the album then opening any image in it will show the image and you'll be able to right-click it to get the image's address,
Here the album is opened and the images are shown,
An image selected comes up as below, a right-click anywhere on the image brings the address box up,
After the right-click and selection of 'Copy image address' from the white-box's menu, the image address will be copied into you 'clipboard' and is then available to paste into the forum's IMG tags, either with the paste command or a Ctrl-V keypress shortcut as for any paste..
Put the IMG tags into your text, better on it's own line, then paste your shared image's address (previously copied into your clipboard) between the tags and it'll be available for all to see.
Linking to images this way means there's (virtually) no limit (at least it's nowhere near the usual 5 when the forum's hosting your downsized image) to the number of images a post may include - and they do NOT need to be downsized to either the 1000-pixel in any dimension size-limit of the 500k storage-size limit!
Sorry this looks complicated but it's easier and faster thatn it looks.... promise...
