SUBSCRIPTIONS! Get image uploads and no ads!

fretfinder

I subscribed a while ago but I frequently get hit with ‘your photo is too large’ when trying to post an iPhone pic on the forum. Then I have to faff about turning it into a jpeg and smaller (which I do by emailing it to myself and then resaving it, is there a better way?) and then trying again. Any plans @digitalscream to increase the size of pics you can just drag and drop?

digitalscream

fretfinder said:

I subscribed a while ago but I frequently get hit with ‘your photo is too large’ when trying to post an iPhone pic on the forum. Then I have to faff about turning it into a jpeg and smaller (which I do by emailing it to myself and then resaving it, is there a better way?) and then trying again. Any plans @digitalscream to increase the size of pics you can just drag and drop?

Not immediately - the price of the subscription is based mostly on the size of images and the cost of the storage over 10 years. It's a movable feast, so for example if I bump the limit up to 5MB, there'll just be someone else who wants it at 6MB etc.

The simplest option (which I use) is just to set the camera resolution to 1080p before taking photos for upload here.

Now, of course, the forum is supposed to convert the images before storing them...but it doesn't, because something's broken and I've been periodically trying to figure out exactly why that's happening. Being stupid, though, it doesn't actually give any error messages so I can't even work out where it's going wrong. It just silently stores the original somewhere along the line. As soon as I can fix that, I'll put an announcement in here.

mrkb

fretfinder said:

I subscribed a while ago but I frequently get hit with ‘your photo is too large’ when trying to post an iPhone pic on the forum. Then I have to faff about turning it into a jpeg and smaller (which I do by emailing it to myself and then resaving it, is there a better way?) and then trying again. Any plans @digitalscream to increase the size of pics you can just drag and drop?

There’s an option at bottom left of image selector on iPhone to resize the photo - I choose medium and it works well.

Seanw1

Hi. I subscribed but still can post images. Does something need to be activated? Thanks 

digitalscream

Seanw1 said:

Hi. I subscribed but still can post images. Does something need to be activated? Thanks 

Apologies, I have no idea what happened there - the email addresses match, it just didn't add the required access. That's fixed now!

DoctorX

On iPhone/iPad, if I’m adding a photo from my library and the file size is too large, I tap “show selected” at the bottom of the screen, then tap on “Actual Size”:

You then get options for different sizes:

Teyeplayer

Why didn’t I do this when it was launched? This is so much easier for adding images and small price to pay for use of the place. 

MagicPigDetective

Finally got round to it... I'm in 

darthed1981

Finally got around to subscribing - sorry really should have before the amount of time I waste here!

What's the lag before the ads disappear and I can post pictures?

digitalscream

darthed1981 said:

Finally got around to subscribing - sorry really should have before the amount of time I waste here!

What's the lag before the ads disappear and I can post pictures?

Usually 10-15 minutes before Patreon decides to tell us what's happened, sometimes up to half an hour.

By the looks of it, you've got the Subscriber tag now - let me know if it's not working.

And...thanks!

BillDL

When you are subscribed the only problem with the way images are embedded into a comment when sourced from your computer (don't know about mobile phones) is that if you try and open them in a new browser tab or save them, there is no file extension eg. .jpg, .png to a target file.  The browser will prompt you to save the image because it doesn't know what file format it is, and when you save an image to your computer without a file extension it will not open by default in an image viewing/editing software until you rename the file and add on a file extension to the lengthy alpha-numeric file name.  Given that the setting on most users' PCs is to hide known file extensions, those users won't be able to just rename and add a file extension to the file name without changing the settings to show file extensions.

For the most part this doesn't really matter too much, but there are times when people might need to see the image in  larger screen area and in higher definition in an image viewing application on the computer so they can zoom in and see close-up views of things like scratches or fret wear on a guitar being sold, or get a good view of electrics in a guitar when somebody is asking for advice.

I realise it's just the way the software behind the website needs to handle and stores images, and the ease with which subscribers can upload images far outweighs this minor inconvenience.

Sporky

Might also be specifically to prevent over-use as an image hosting site, hotlinking out to elsewhere?

BillDL

I suspect it's possibly an encoding/decoding method used to reduce the amount of storage taken by JPG images without deliberately "compressing" them and losing quality.

digitalscream

BillDL said:

I suspect it's possibly an encoding/decoding method used to reduce the amount of storage taken by JPG images without deliberately "compressing" them and losing quality.

Actually, it's none of the above - the storage system we use automatically sets the content-disposition to "attachment" on all requests, which means it doesn't display directly in the browser. I haven't found a way around it yet (raised a support ticket about it, and the response was, "That's by design"). It's wicked-hard to get around it with the current platform limitations, unfortunately.

Emp_Fab

Ok, what's the damage currently for a year of posting nonsense without seeing scantily-clad women?

Nitefly

Emp_Fab said:

Ok, what's the damage currently for a year of posting nonsense without seeing scantily-clad women?

£3.50 per month plus VAT.  I just do it by Direct Debit.

Revolutions

+ VAT? It’s so messed up that the government add an additional 20% just because it’s classed as a sale via an online platform.

digitalscream

Revolutions said:

+ VAT? It’s so messed up that the government add an additional 20% just because it’s classed as a sale via an online platform.

Yeah, it's because it's going through Patreon. Of course, when I finally figure out the best way to do this without going through Patreon, I'll probably have to put the price up to that anyway (given the hosting costs, which never realistically come down).