I just want to start off by saying a few things. 1: Yes I know I post way to many pics and I'm gonna be more conservative from here on out and 2: All credit for this "how to" post goes to ghtd36 over at Rock M Nation for posting the how to post a picture thing a week or 2 ago.

Pictures, let's face it, are like Napoleon Dynamite. You either absolutely love every single thing about it or only certain things (I.E overflow thread pics, memes, ect.) are enjoyable to you. You might even hate every single thing about pics and wish guys like me would forget how to post them. But they will, of course, never go away. So here are some nice tips (courtesy of ghtd36) to make the most out of pictures so all of us picture posters at Royals Review never fail again.

(Italics are the exact words of ghtd36's original tutorial)

Part 1: the Picture

A few tips about finding good pictures, or better yet, nice gifs ( moving images that are either really addicting or rather annoying) to suit a live thread nicely.

1: Make sure the pic falls under one of the following categories : Funny, poignant, or clever. 90% of people here would probably like to avoid staring at pics of the pregnant Octomom or other gross, disturbing, or ( I admit to doing this) completely pointless pictures.

2. If you want to search for that perfect pic, I recommend Google Image Search, as it is very powerful and can find almost anything you ask of. There are other sites for gifs and pics, but this is a nice choice. So let's say you've found a pic or gif that you can't live without posting to use as a metaphor for one of Kyle Farnsworth's many fails. Great! that leads to step 3...

Part 2: Host the Photo Please!

I cannot stress this enough: do not just plug in a URL once you find the image. Not only might it cause your image not to come up, but it's called bandwidth theft (or hotlinking).

Let's just say, for example, that Royals Review was some two-bit operation that paid for its own servers. Those servers can only handle so much bandwidth, so they have to be careful not to use all of it. But if they post a funny picture, and you use that picture directly off of Royals Review, that also steals their bandwidth, since they are powering both the image on their site and the image on your site. It makes you a jerk.

But beyond that, it could cause something like this to be posted instead of your image:

And trust me, that's the tamest picture that will come up if you hotlink. I've seen terrible, terrible things from hotlinking. Ever heard of goatse? Let's just move on.

Anyways, the point is, you need to host the image somewhere else. Download the picture to your computer (right-click --> save image as...) and set up an account on Tiny Pic. It's a wonderful, easy and free image hosting site. It's where all the cool kids go to avoid being a hotlinking douche.

It's very easy: just sign up for a free account, hit the "upload" button, and you're set. They'll give you a link and everything!

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BOOM! You are now ready to post that awesome photo of yours!

Part 3: Insert the link

Amazingly easy if for some reaon you don't know.

1: Click the picture on your comment poster of a tree.

2: Insert the link in the box that pops up.

3: Hit OK

BOOM! You can now post your pic.... oh wait. NO IT IS NOT READY TO BE POSTED!!! I'VE SKIPPED THIS STEP COUNTLESS TIMES AND IT IS THE ONE THING THAT SHOULD NOT BE SKIPPED EVER!!!111ONE!!!

Part 4: For the love of God and all that is holy, SIZE YOUR IMAGE

This is the ultimate reason images can be the death of you! The image is either WAY too big (that one's the killer), or WAY too small. Now serious props to ghtd36 for spreading this final step around Rock M, as I had no clue about this until the original picture posting post (say that 5 times fast) was released for all to see.

This is the biggest mistake that people make: images that are too big or too small. To explain this, we need to break down the coding.

<img src="http://i42.tinypic.com/24d0wm1.jpg"/>

It's very straightforward. "img" indicates that this is, in fact, an image. "src" means source, telling the script where to get the actual image from. And then there's the URL in quotations. Simple, right?

To adjust the size, you need to change either the height or width. For example, if I were to put the above code in and press "Post", it would look like this:

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Let's say you want it a little bit bigger. You can adjust the height or the weight by changing a little bit of the code. I'll add the phrase "width=300" to the code, as below:

<img width=300 src="http://i42.tinypic.com/24d0wm1.jpg"/>

Note the difference, in between the "img" and the "src". Now note the difference in the image.

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See? It's bigger, because I told the script to make the image 300 pixels wide. Ha! Computers! Fun!

Now you want to make it smaller. Same thing, and while you can still do something like "width=100", I'll use height to explain this one. Just add "height=100" to the coding, like so.

<img height=100 src="http://i42.tinypic.com/24d0wm1.jpg"/>

And notice the difference in the image.

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It's small Colbert! See? Images, and dorkery, can be fun!

Now, please be courteous with the images. Nobody wants to see a 900 pixel-wide picture of a woman with a weight problem.

General rules of thumb for sizing:

-If the image is taller than it is wide, width=250 or height=500 should be your max.

-If the image is wider than it is tall, width=300 is usually a nice measurement.

And I really can't stress this enough: use the preview button. Take an extra two seconds to see if the script is right, and if the sizing is appropriate. Otherwise, you'll look like an ass. Don't make the mistakes I have ever again!

And one more general courtesy, while I'm on the topic: please put something in the subject line. That way, if you click on the subject line, it will close. That is especially important in long game-day threads, which tend to have a lot of images that can bog down computers. Trust me, people will thank you.

And now, the final step!

Part 5: Post your awesome picture!

That's it! You are done. Now you just wait at the thread and see if the responses are wins like "lol" or "best pic ever" and pray that they won't be "never post this again" or "SMALLER" Once again, I can't stress enough, thanks to ghtd36 for all the wonderful tips, especially the image sizing tutorial. Now this will hopefully make our threads for long, slow moving, packed up, extra inning overflow threads even more enjoyable!

Peace and Love, and special thanks to Rock M's ghtd36! Hope this will make game threads much better for the future!

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