Real Estate Views from St Pete

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Uploading Photos to Active Rain

There are lots and lots of pages on Active Rain about uploading photos, and the instructions are very easy. I've been doing it ever since they added the feature to the site last year.

So why was I having trouble uploading photos yesterday? I thought perhaps their "photo server" was down, and just blogged about other things than architecture.

Today I figured it out - really by trial and error. Unless the instructions have changed, I don't remember seeing anything about file size. One great thing about uploading to Active Rain is that you can set the size in the popup box to shrink the size of the photo ... but that step comes AFTER the photo has been uploaded.

My camera is a few years old, so it's probably a 6 MB rather than a 10 MB or 12 MB that you have today. Nonetheless, the typical photo is about 3 MB - which I can e-mail to anyone with a professional e-mail host, but which is JUST TOO BIG to upload to Active Rain. The server times out.

So, resize your photos BEFORE you try to upload them to Active Rain. 

13 comments • Sharon Simms St Pete FL - CRS CIPS CLHMS RSPS • December 22 2007 05:32PM

Comments

Hey Sharon,

I learned that the hard way too. Took me a couple hours to figure it out a few months ago.

Sean Allen

Posted by International Financing Solutions over 4 years ago

Hey Sharon,

I learned that the hard way too. Took me a couple hours to figure it out a few months ago.

Sean Allen

Posted by International Financing Solutions over 4 years ago
Our MLS requires they be much smaller than Active Rain will take.  It is also a good idea to resize when putting photos on your website so the pages load faster.
Posted by Randy L. Prothero - Hawaii REALTOR® (808) 384-5645 (Century 21 Liberty Homes ) over 4 years ago
The best results for interent size is 780x1060 format which you should be shooting to put on the net.
Posted by Gary Bland R (S) E-Pro, ABR (Hawaii Life Real Estate Brokers) over 4 years ago
Sharon, I think the maximum size is 1 meg.  I've had to email photos to myself in a smaller size, then save them on my desk top then load them into my posts.  There is probably an easier way to it, but I haven't figured it out.
Posted by Patricia Kennedy (Evers & Company Realtors) over 4 years ago

Sharon,

I've never thought about it  :) 

I've resized all my photos for blogging and never experienced that problem, but initially i was more afraid of my photos being used for commercial reasons (since I sell my images for that purpose), that I've made them all small for blogging reasons  :)

Posted by Mehmet Met Dilsiz (FND Photography / M2 Real Estate Solutions) over 4 years ago
I too learned  by trial and error.  Gary thanks for the tip about the ideal picture size for the web.
Posted by Jennifer Fivelsdal Rhinebeck Real Estate (Serving Dutchess| Columbia|Ulster Ctys (LIC. R.E. Broker JFIVE Home Realty LLC ) over 4 years ago
Sean - isn't it frustrating to think that something is wrong with the system rather than with the size of our photos?
Posted by Sharon Simms St Pete FL - CRS CIPS CLHMS RSPS (ALVA International, Inc.) over 4 years ago
Randy - you're so right about making photos smaller for our websites - there's little that's more frustrating than sitting there waiting for a page to load because of the photos. Most people won't wait and will just go on to another site.
Posted by Sharon Simms St Pete FL - CRS CIPS CLHMS RSPS (ALVA International, Inc.) over 4 years ago
Gary - thanks for the info. What's the reason we should shoot at that size rather than reduce to that size? We may also be using the photos in printed materials.
Posted by Sharon Simms St Pete FL - CRS CIPS CLHMS RSPS (ALVA International, Inc.) over 4 years ago
Patricia - unscientifically, I think that's about the size that works. There's an Image Resizer Power Toy that will reduce the size a batch at a time, and perhaps some of the photo programs do that as well. You're obviously doing it the long way.
Posted by Sharon Simms St Pete FL - CRS CIPS CLHMS RSPS (ALVA International, Inc.) over 4 years ago
Mehmet - that's a good example of accomplishing the results without the intentions. Wouldn't the smaller size still allow people to take your photos (wrongly?) for commercial use on the web, rather than print?
Posted by Sharon Simms St Pete FL - CRS CIPS CLHMS RSPS (ALVA International, Inc.) over 4 years ago
Jennifer - it's such a shame that many of us need to learn by trial and error - this kind of thing should be in a FAQ that every new (and old) blogger can check and use as a resource.
Posted by Sharon Simms St Pete FL - CRS CIPS CLHMS RSPS (ALVA International, Inc.) over 4 years ago

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