WordPress is an incredibly simple content management system that makes blogging a breeze. When it comes to image management though I have had some previous problems which has made me realise that it is best not to load your photos using the WordPress image manager.
WordPress uploads your images into WordPress folders rather than directly to your site. This can cause problems if you need change the theme of your site and the folders are in a different place.
Another reason to not put your photos in the WordPress folders is when you go to backup your files, images take up too much space. For safety sake, I would keep your photos outside of the WordPress system.
So, how do you go about adding photos to your blog posts?
FTP
If you don’t know what this is, just skip this section. If you have access to your hosting via FTP you can save your photos directly into files on your hosting server. You would then link to your photo using html code that that links to the image.
Free Image Hosting
picasaweb from Google and flickr by Yahoo are two such sites that offer simple photo hosting accounts. You can login to these services with your respective email account.
Once your photos are saved at picasaweb/flickr, click on “Link to this Photo”. This will give you the HTML code for the photo. Copy and paste this code into your blog post. Be aware of what image size you select as well. If you select the 800 pixel wide image and your blog only displays posts at 600 pixels wide it will make your site look messy, and possibly broken.
Premium Image Hosting
If you are serious about photography I would recommend looking into using a premium image hosting site. Personally I use SmugMug, but there are loads of other sites that offer similar services.
To see SmugMug in action, have a look at my site at Nomadic Photos. I brought my own domain to SmugMug, and they do the rest. You can upload as many photos as you like and you can also set up a shop to sell your photos. Each photo comes with different options as well, so you (or anyone else) can add your photo to a blog/web site.
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