How to change avatars and post pictures & videos

[Mayo]

(To serve as a reference for the five "How do avatars work?" threads we have every week)


Most posters on 2+2 have an avatar. That's the little picture under everyone's name. And now you can have one, too!

Find a good picture, then click here to join in the fun.

It says there that you have two options:

Option 1 - Enter the URL to the Image on Another Website
Option 2 - Upload Image From Your Computer

That's a damn dirty lie. "Option 1 - Enter the URL to the Image on Another Website" doesn't work. I don't know why. No one does. But it doesn't. You have to use "Option 2 - Upload Image From Your Computer".

Illustration:



There are two constraints on the file: It must be 80 by 80 pixels or smaller, and the file size must be less than 250 kb. Your file can be a .jpeg or .gif. If you meet those constraints, it should work. Go post "wat" in bbv4life and see it for yourself!


It didn't work! What do I do? Have no fear! It's probably one of these problems.

PROBLEM 1 - The picture is too big:

vBulletin Message
The Dimension limits for this filetype are 80 x 80. We were unable to resize your file so you will need to do so manually and upload it again. Your file is currently 522 x 326.

It's too big! You need to shrink the picture to 80 by 80 pixels. For non-moving images, you can do this in Microsoft Paint pretty easily. Open the file, and click on "Image" and then "Attributes" to get the dimensions of the picture. Then click on "Image" and "Stretch/Skew" to stretch the image. (Keep the two stretch factors equivalent to keep the picture from getting "squished.") Keep messing with it until it's 80 by 80 pixels or smaller. Then save it to your hard drive, and try again.

For animated .gif images, it's tougher. You can use a program like Adobe Imageready which costs money but works well or try some online tool like this one that is free but doesn't work that well.


PROBLEM 2 - The file is too large:

vBulletin Message
Your file of 1.20 MB bytes exceeds the forum's limit of 250.0 KB for this filetype.

Your filesize is too big. Assuming it's within the 80 by 80 pixel limit, this pretty much means you have an animated .gif that is too long. You'll have to cut frames out. I don't know of any way to do this without a .gif editor like Imageready, which costs money. If you send me a nice PM, I'll try to help you out, though.


PROBLEM 3 - "Upload failed due to failure writing temporary file":

vBulletin Message
Upload failed due to failure writing temporary file.

You tried to use "Option 1 - Enter the URL to the Image on Another Website!" I told you, it doesn't work. Go find the image you want, right-click on it, and select "Save image as". Save it to your hard drive, then try again using "Option 2 - Upload Image From Your Computer".


PROBLEM - Something else:



Sometimes it just doesn't want to play nice. You do everything right, but no go. Sorry. If the file's small enough and the right size, and it still won't work, that's when you post in ATF. We'll try to help.

[CrazeeAsh]

Just wanna say thanks for the thread Mayo! I've been having mega problems trying to change my av but thanks to your "Changing your avatar for dummies" guide I can change it with ease.

[jmitchell42]

Hi all.
I see posts quite often about not knowing how to post a picture, so i thought i would make a tutorial of sorts to help people out. I am going to make some assumptions though. I am going to assume that you already know how to get a picture from where ever you might want it to your computer. I am also going to assume you know how to set up a imageshack or photobucket account. if you don't have one of these, go there and make an account. they are free and pretty easy to learn.

Once you get the picture to your computer it is pretty easy to get it into a post.
when you first get into your photobucket, you should see a box near the top that looks like this:

just click the button there and then this screen will pop up for you:

Then just choose whatever pic you want to post and it will upload into your photobucket. After it does that, hover your mouse over the pick and a drop down menu appears. Go down to the image code, click on it to highlight, and right click and copy (or just press ctrl c).

Then, go to the thread where you want to post the picture and paste. One thing to keep in mind with photo bucket though is that the [img] [/img] tags don't need to be manually put into your post. Photobucket already has them in the code. All you need to do is ctrl v to paste your picture into a thread.

With imageshack the process is much the same. When you get into your imageshack just click on upload image:

Press 'browse' and choose the picture you want to upload.
Once it is in your imageshack, you again need to copy the code for that image. The problem most people have is figuring out which code to use. To find the code for that image click on this icon:

and that will bring up another page with the different codes for the image.
Go down to the direct code and copy (ctrl c)

Then go to the thread you want to put the picture in. Now, imageshack is different from photobucket in that you do have to manually put in the image tags. So, basically just type in [img](paste code here)[/img].
you can also click on the post image button at the top of the reply box here:

Note: if you are using photobucket, you do not need to use the image bucket or you will end up with an extra set of image tags.

I know that this may seem pretty basic to most, but I do remember the frustration in not knowing how to post a picture and getting made fun of for it. I hope this helps. thanks.

[Bobo Fett]

Posting Youtube videos:

Originally Posted by gambit8888

-Go to Youtube and find a video you wanna post
-Click the SHARE button underneath the video
-Click the EMBED button
-Copy the code above the option button

-Come on here and type [youtbue]
-Paste the code next
-Delete everything from the h to the /
-type [/youtube]

-Then preview your post on here to make sure that it shows up and it plays also.

Good Luck

OR

Originally Posted by jh1711

You have the id of the video in your address bar (the letters after 'v=' or in between 'v=' and '&'). You can just copy that and place [youtube][/youtube] tags around it.

The ID looks like this:

Originally Posted by LeonardoDicaprio