poppei

oh okay I had the same problem for weeks, and tech support kept sending back condescending little notes that didn't really explain it...

1) take the photo and put it in photoshop or something so you can reduce the size of the file. the way i usually do it is to crop it till the "aspect ratio" is about 235 wide by 175 high (for an "avitar", that thingie of you on the front page). But SG is tolerant of other sizes in journals and boards, especially the height. the width matters most. big files or wide pics can cause probs.

2) after the pic looks right, it's important to put it through "save for web" (or something like that) which will reduce the actual size of the WHOLE file. make sure it outputs as a JPEG, which will look the best.

even if you do not modify the picture at all, as in #1, you want to reduce the file size somehow, as in #2, to 100k or under.

3) upload the pic you wanna embed in your journal onto a server somewhere. the easiest and most organized way to do this is to make a folder in your SG pics called "random pics" (for the message boards, your journal, etc.). put the pic there for storage.

4) next you gotta find the actual linkof the pic so you can cut-and-paste it into journals, boards. The way you do that is to keep opening the thumbnails until you get the "raw" pic in your browser.

IMPORTANT: Click--on the picture--one more time to get PAST the part where it shows the pic big on the screen and has the numbers that say "autoplay", etc. that's not going to give you the right link. (this is what nailed me for so long! lol). there's a different way to do this on a PC and a Mac, so you DO have to check the FAQ for the exact keys to do this on your computer (sorry! it sounds more complicated than it is). You'll know when you have it right because the picture will show up in it's OWN browser window, there'll be no SG stuff around it, and a long address will be in the top of the browser window. It should look something like this: (holdon...gonna go get one....)

...okay I got one outa my pics folder. it looks like this:

http://suicidegirls.com/media/members/1/85/171851/40383/445376.jpg

On a Mac, the way I got that was to ctrl-click the picture when i was on the SG thingie with the numbers and autoplay displayed. that brought up a menu and I selected "open image in new window". the new window had that long address in it, which i straight copped by highlighting it and hitting the "copy" command.

Now watch what happens when I press "image" as I write in your journal and paste the whole goober into the window that pops up:



PS, make sure you erase "HTTP://" outa the little window first or it'll end up saying it twice and ruin the whole thing.

{{...checking to see if it worked...}}

TA-DAAA!!! like I said, i just figured this out yesterday and was VERY EXCITED. I'm a giant computer nerd too, so son't feel bad. SG's explanation leaves more questions than answers. and it's not really as complicated as it sounds. you can get used to it pretty quick once you've gotten it right once.

Feel free to ask me as many times as you need to if you have questions. I like doing tech support, believe it or not.

[Edited on Mar 05, 2005 7:11PM]