HOW TO GUIDES for all Newbies. If anything is not covered here, then please request help and somebody will be only to willing to assist you.

Firstly you will need a Photobucket Account, or similar photo storage site account. Without one you will be unable to post pictures or have an avatar and/or signature picture.

As Photobucket is the only storage unit I know, I will explain the links for that site. It is free and very easy to use, just go to the link below and register. Hopefuly other sites will be similar.

photobucket.com/

NO HOTLINKING PLEASE For those who do not know what this means, it is connecting to another site to show a picture. The way to be sure you are doing it correctly is to have the picture you are using on your computer, and then upload that picture from your computer into Photobucket.

HOW TO POST AN AVATAR (the small picture under your name)

Avatars for this site are set at 64x64 pixels and no more than 25kbs. The following link is quite useful for shrinking a picture to the required size if you are having difficulty. Also, keep the name of the picture you are using short. If the name is too long you will probably get an error message.

http://www.resizemypicture.com/resizer/resizer-main.php

Ok, so you have the picture at the correct size on your computer, so upload it into Photobucket. Now look at the codes below the picture. The one that says DIRECT LINK is the one you need, so left click on the link to highlight it then right click on the link and copy.

Now go to JDR, and above the Home Page picture, on the right hand side, you will see MY CONTROLS, click on it.

A list will appear on the left hand side, and you need to click on EDIT AVATAR SETTINGS. Look at where it says ENTER A URL TO AN ONLINE AVATAR IMAGE, and you will see that it already has http in the space, you need to delete it. Now paste the code that you copied from Photobucket and click on UPDATE AVATAR.

Congratulations. You now have an avatar, and I am sure it is gorgeous. :claphands

HOW TO POST A SIGNATURE PICTURE (the picture below your post)

We have no set size for signatures (also known as siggy lines), but we try to keep them a reasonable size as some people use dial up, and the larger the pictures, the slower it is for them to open the site, so please be considerate. If your siggy line is regarded by Admin as too large, we will ask you to make it smaller. Please do not take offense at this. :P

As a guide, my siggy below is 490 x 190 pixels, and is about average for the site.

Ok, to post a siggy line, follow the instructions for posting an avatar, but once you have clicked on MY CONTROLS you need to click on EDIT SIGNATURE. Remember to delete the http that is already there before pasting your link. Once you have pasted the link, you can also add a writen line below the picture if you wish. Keep it clean, and no links to your personal blogs or anything like that please. :thumbsup

Congratulations, you now have a siggy line for us all to admire. :thud

HOW TO POST PICTURES, MAGAZINE SCANS ETC.

Again, the picture should be placed into Photobucket or similar.

As with the siggy line, we discourage large pictures being posted on site, but that can be overcome in several ways.

There are four links below the picture in Photobucket. The one you use to have a picture of a reasonable size showing on JDR is the bottom one IMG CODE. Just copy and paste the link into your post, and we see a the picture in your post like this. (picture chosen for Karen).



If the picture is large, then you have two choices. You can use the DIRECT LINK code. This will give us a clickable link that takes us directly to the picture in your Photobucket. If you use this option, you must type [url] immediately before the link and [/url] immediately after the link with no space, or it will not be clickable. This is what will appear. Give it a click.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v189/jep...il07Johnny2.jpg

You can also show us a thumbnail of the picture which we can click on to see the large version. To do this, click the little box below your picture in Photobucket, then go to the bottom of the page and click on GENERATE HTML AND IMG CODE. The third link down says IMG CLICKABLE THUMBNAIL, left click on it to highlight it, then copy the link and paste it into your post. It will appear as a small picture like the one below. Go on, click on it, you know you want to. :rolleyes:



That is all there is too it folks, give it a go, it is far easier to do than it is to explain. :blink:

Anne x

:claphands Bravo Anne--I don't know how you could make it any clearer---wish I had such wonderful directions when I first started doing all this-lol! Well done!

-Donna

Perfectly worded.


Nice pic! B)

How do I make a video in my photobucket into an avatar? I don't know how to save it in the right file format.

Like how Karen has an animated avatar.
Thanks.

Someone made that for me Osh, I have no clue how it was done. Hopefully someone who does know will jump in to help.

Anne, thanks for the step-by-step instructions. However, I am having one problem. I was able to do a signature from a photo I put in Photobucket, but I was trying to make it a bit smaller and cannot. I went in to edit on the Photobucket picture and resized it and hit apply. I then went back to the picture and copied the IMG path (also tried copying the Direct Link path and using the IMG in the control panel here), but the picture still stays the same size. Can you or someone give me any tips on how to make the picture smaller?

Terry I'm not the most tech savvy, but I use these sites to resize my pics. Once resized you then save them to PB again.

This one you need to copy/save the pic from PBucket to your computer first:
http://www.resizemypicture.com/resizer/resizer-main.php


Or this one---step by step instructions. I've used this one to resize my avatar, but think you can shrink pics here, too.
http://www.shrinkpictures.com/

-Donna

:thanks Donna. It worked! :snoopy

:thanks
Thank you for the easy instructions. I now have an avatar!! I am on my way. woohoo :teamdepp