How to Post Photos to the Gallery

Posting photos to the Astrographica Gallery is really rather simple. One of the best things about it is that you don't have to create any re-sized versions of your photo (e.g., large, medium, thumbnail). All of this is handled automatically by the Gallery. Simply upload the largest image you want displayed, and the Gallery takes care of the rest.

Here's how to do it:

1. Log in to Astrographica if you haven't already.
2. Navigate to the Gallery (click the "gallery" link on the left).
3. Click the "Your Album" link on the upper-right to go to your personal album.
4. Click "Add Items" on the left.

Posting photos to Astrographica can be done in one of two ways, depending on where your image files are located:

If you have your photos on your personal computer.

1. Make sure the "From Web Browser" tab is selected.
2. Using the "Browse" button, navigate to the location of the image on your computer.
3. Enter the title of the photograph in the "Caption" field.
4. You can upload more than one file at a time using the other File/Caption fields.
5. Click the "Add Items" button at the bottom of the form when you are ready to upload.

If you already have your photos posted on your own web site (or another online gallery):

1. Make sure the "From Web Page" tab is selected.
2. Enter the URL of the page that has your photo(s) on it. The easiest way to do this is to have a second browser window open, pointed to the target page. You can copy the address from the second browser window to the "URL" entry. Be sure to enter the URL that pulls up the highest-resolution photo you have (assuming that's what you want in the Gallery).
3. Once the URL is entered, click "Find Files."
4. On the resulting page, select which image file you want to upload. It will probably be the first or second item, but may be further down if your image is small. Click "Show Entire List" if needed.
5. Enter your photo's title, summary, and description information. Note that a link back to your original page is already provided in the "Description" text. You can add further description by typing in this box or by copying/pasting from your original page.
6. Click "Add URLs" at the bottom of the form to retrieve the image(s) from your site. This may take a few moments, especially for large images.

The instructions continue as follows for both upload methods:

1. If the upload was successful, you will get a link to your new image in the Gallery. Click on it to see the image.
2. Click on "Edit Photo" on the left sidebar.
3. On the "General" tab, you can edit the Title, Summary, and Description fields. Be sure to click "Save" at the bottom of the form to save changes.
4. Note: You can also enter search keywords so that your photo will come up when someone searches for "nebula" or "galaxy," etc. Don't enter object names here, as those are entered in "Custom Fields" (see the next step).
5. On the "Custom Fields" tab, you can enter detailed information about your photograph. [b]At a minimum, please fill in the "Object(s)" field with usual catalog designations (e.g., NGC, IC, M, etc.). This will aid in indexing photos by object, a very important function of the Astrographica Gallery.
6. Be sure to click "Save" at the bottom of the Custom Fields form to save changes.
7. Now click "Create Link" on the left sidebar.
8. Select which object-type album you want to place a link to this photo in using the drop-down selector.
9. Click the "Link" button to create the link.
10. If your photo contains more than one type of object, consider linking it to multiple object-type albums. Just use the "Create Link" function again.

That's it! Your photo is now uploaded and can be viewed by others. If you now wish to post a message to one of the forums about your photo, see How to Post to the Forums. You can even include a hot-linked thumbnail of your photo in your post!