If you want your images to be used in a template or on your blog, they need to go live on the web first; once they have got a universal ID or URL, they could be used anywhere on the web unless you want to keep that URL private.
If you are using a paid service like ImageShack or Photobucket to store your images, you have got the added advantage of getting a direct link to your image without compromising with its size. But if the volume of your images is too low or the number of images are not too many, and if you are using Google drive to store your images, you can create hot links for them using one of the following techniques.
1. Right click on the image > Get shareable link > Sharing settings > Anyone with the link can view > Copy link. This link will appear in the following format:
https ://docs.google.com/document/d/1FlXS0JlqXmBnx4CCvASGTpfQs/view?usp=sharing
The highlighted area between d/ and /view is your File_ID or image ID. Now copy the following link to your notepad:
https ://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=FILE_ID
Now replace highlighted FILE_ID text from above link with your FILE_ID number. That will be the downloadable direct link for your image.
2. Right click on the image > Get sharable link > Sharing settings > Anyone with the link can view > Copy link. This link will appear in the following format:
https ://docs.google.com/document/d/1FlXS0JlqXmBnx4CCvASGTpfQs/edit?usp=sharing
The highlighted area between d/ and /edit is your File_ID. Now copy this link to your notepad:
https ://drive.google.com/uc?export=open&id=FILE_ID or
https ://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=FILE_ID or
https ://drive.google.com/uc?id=FILE_ID
Now replace highlighted FILE_ID text from the above link with your FILE_ID number. That will be the viewable direct link to your image.
3. Right click on the image > Open with Google Docs
File > Publish to the web > Publish > Copy the link
Now paste this link in the address bar of your browser. After the image is visible, right click on it and copy image URL or copy image location. Paste it to note pad. Google Photos normally pulls its images through a more complex back-end system and you will get a crazy long URL. This is your direct link.
This method has got another advantage also. It has an option to get a direct iframe embed code which you can modify to use anywhere. You can use this image on your web-page after modifying the following tags according to your preferences:
< img alt="Name of the Image" src="image_url" style="height: 200px; width: 300px;" />
The procedures given above are also applicable to MP3 files.
I went through many image hoisting websites and I was particularly impressed by the following two :
village.photos (formerly villagephotos.com) and tinypic.com . On village.photos you can also edit your work. One more, imgbox.com is also a good one but its link produces a very poor image when used with html. Maybe they are compromising too much with image quality.
1. Right click on the image file and then left click on ‘Embed’.
2. This will generate an iframe code which contains the image URL in the form of:
https ://onedrive.live.com/embed?cid=abc123&resid=pqr4567&authkey=xyz789
3. Now replace ‘embed’ with ‘download’ so that the URL becomes:
https ://onedrive.live.com/download?cid=abc123&resid=pqr4567&authkey=xyz789
This is the direct link to your image in Onedrive.
Dropbox could also produce direct links but I am not much in favor of that. Please note that flickr is just a storehouse and doesn’t provide the option of universal links for your images. It is like keeping your car in a luxurious garage, they won’t allow you to drive your car on the roads!
If you are a photographer or belong to an allied profession and if you want to keep the original quality of your images intact, it is best to opt for paid services like Photobucket or Imageshack.
File Size of an Image
The next point worth considering is the image file size. Is the file size of your image too heavy so that it takes too long to load it on the website? Can it be made lighter without losing the quality so that it would load quickly? Please note that there is no relation between the physical image dimensions (width and length expressed in pixels) and its density or weight expressed in MB or KB. Thus, an image of 1920 x 1080 could be 100 KB or a small image 500 x 250 could be as heavy as 2 MB. (1 MB = 1024 KB). But there is no need to worry as we have software which is able to change all these factors. Let’s get down to practical calculations of the matter.
The speed of the broadband internet which I use fluctuates between 4.5 Mbps and 500 Kbps with an average speed of 1.5 Mbps. According to my observation, at 1 Mbps speed, a 2 MB image takes 5-6 seconds to load, at 500 Kbps it will take twice as much time to load the same image. At 500 Kbps a 512 KB image takes 1 sec to load while a 250 KB image will take a half second to load, irrespective of their width and length. Don’t bamboozle between MB and Mb or KB and Kb. (1 MB = 8 Mb and 1 KB = 8 Kb). Let’s talk the standard conventions which are most widely used. Now, how much patience can a human being have in order to wait for an image to appear on the screen? I would take 1 second for an image! Online image compressors or other related software ask for a % value to be applied for your JPG image. If you enter 45%, it means that the new image will be compressed to 45% of its original file size WITHOUT DISTURBING ITS PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS unless you choose to.
Now, the next question is: How to find out this percentage value? According to my observation, if you view a 2 MB (2448 KB) image on a 16 inch wide screen and view it again on the same screen after shrinking it to 250 or 300 KB, you would be hard pressed to find any difference in the quality despite the fact that it is compressed by 90%! To play it safe, let us keep the image file size to 450 KB assuming that one may view it full screen and take the internet speed as low as 500 Kbps, the formula would be:
Value in % = (450 x 100) / 500 = 90
In other words, if the file size is z KB and the speed of internet is y Kbps, the value in % would be:
Value in % = (z x 100) / y
If your units are in MB and Mb, the same formula will hold good.
If the file size is z MB and the speed of internet is y Kbps,
Value in % = (z x 1024 x 100) / y
If the file size is z KB and the speed of internet is y Mbps,
Value in % = (z x 100) / (y x 1024)
Geometric Size of an Image
A situation may come where the physical dimensions of the image are 650 x 250 pixels but you want to view it full screen of size 1024 x 768 or 1920 x 1080. Don’t worry. Image resizers can stretch it to any length! Just specify your desired dimensions and hit convert. But a note of caution here – if the original file is as light as 50 KB and you expand it to full screen, the loss of quality can occur here as enlarging an image never increases its weight in KB or MB.
Crediting the Image to Its Source
Lastly, you would like to credit the image to its source; in fact one must do it, it is courtly to do so. The images, which are open for public use or those of the places which are National properties usually do not need it. Once the image becomes viral, it could be found on many websites and people attribute it to that website from where they have copied it! In the process, the original source is lost in the smoke. But how will you find the ORIGINAL source of the image? You will find it written in many places that the website which has the largest size of that image is the source of that image. No, this is completely wrong. I use the following method to find the source of the image:
Google or any search engine gives the option of entering a custom period to search any particular image. Reverse image search detects it quickly. Right click on the image and copy-paste its URL or location in the search field. I start with dd-mm-2005 to dd-mm-2010 and then go on adjusting the range back and forth. The earliest date which appears against a search is the source of that image.
Here is an exercise for you – Find the ORIGINAL source of the following image: https://goo.gl/xQMF3m
Now this is another unsolved puzzle for me. Track this URL in reverse image search: https://goo.gl/gGynFH . This event took place in 2014. Naturally, you expect it to appear on web-pages published after 2014. But you will find it appearing with dates 2009, 2010, 2011….. Unexplained phenomena!
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