Screenshot Link Question

[Mobius]

Hey all, I've been thinking recently about the rules in regards to screenshot uploading, posting, and linking, and I totally agree with and (mostly) understand them.  Since I bought FSX, I have been taking screenshots that I would like to share, but they are all absolutely huge, so they require compressing beyond recognition to fit the requirements to be posted here.  So I was thinking, would it be all right to upload the shots somewhere like photobucket or something, then use a hyperlink with a thumbnail that was uploaded here as the link itself, so you would have a small thumbnail of your shot, then have the thumbnail be the link to photobucket (or wherever) just like if I were to post www.simviation.com as a link to SimV?

For example: (click it)



Please, if this does break the rules, please feel free to delete it, I was just trying to illustrate my point.

Thanks.

[Theis]

Well, I don't personally see a problem with it, since you are linking to the image, and not directly showing it from photobucket..

But if the mods agree, it's a whole different topic

[pete]

Here's the image resized to 800 pixels in irfanview



Not sure what the problem is .. 80K & I still recognise it ...

[Mobius]

There's no problem, I just thought I had a fancy idea.  I've never tried Irfanview, so I'll give it a go, but sometimes no matter what I try to do to, the shot loses its crispness and quality by compressing it and/or resizing it, and and was just curious if posting shots the way I did above was legal, or whether it would break the forums somehow.  If it would, I would be more than happy to go back to the usual way.

Thanks pete.

[pete]

Yes - it is outside the rules. Why? Because if we allow hosting on other sites - those sites are outside our control & we could have a situation where the forums would be peppered with little red x's.

It's like files - if we don't have the base file for a repaint I generally don't post the repaint. It's called reliability.

[Hagar]

Yes - it is outside the rules. Why? Because if we allow hosting on other sites - those sites are outside our control & we could have a situation where the forums would be peppered with little red x's.

I think you're missing the point Pete. The thumbnail would be hosted here as usual but linked to the full sized image on another site. This is exactly the same as posting a link to the image or a webpage. No red X's involved as the thumbnail is the link. It's your decision but I can see no objectons to that.

PS. I think image hosting sites like Photobucket actually compress the images before posting them so this might not be much of an advantage.

[Mobius]

/\ Yep, Hagars' got it, but Photobucket only compresses images that are over 1 MB in size, which is quite an improvement in quality and size when compared to the 100 kB limit we have now.