How to insert a photo using Typepad

Since I'm on a roll today, I wanted to add one final tutorial on Typepad posts: how to add a photo.

Like adding a link, adding a photo is super-easy in Typepad.

1) Get your photo onto your computer. I don't care how. For me, this means taking a photo with my digital camera and downloading the photo to my computer. Or it means finding a photo on the internet, like at Flickr.com, and saving a copy of that photo on my computer. Save it in a folder that is easy to find...perhaps your Desktop or My Documents folder.

2) (Optional) Get your photo ready. For many people, you will skip this step. If you would like to crop the photo, adjust the colors or lighting, or even change the overall size of the photo, you can do this using a program such as Adobe Photoshop, but this is not necessary. Tyepad will automatically resize your photo to make it fit into the post, and it's your option whether or not you want the full-size, large file size version of the image to be uploaded as well.

3) Place the cursor where you would like the photo to appear in the post.

4) Click on the "Insert Image" button to the left of the "ABC" spellcheck button above the posting area. This opens a popup window.

5) Choose your image by clicking on the browse button. You will need to find where your image is on your computer. If you saved it on your Desktop or My Documents folder, these will be easy to find. When you find your photo, select it and click "Open" to select it.

6) Now the tricky part...click on "Use Custom Settings" for some formatting options of your photo.

• "Wrap Text" means the text of your post will appear next to the photo. If this is unchecked, the text of your post will be pushed beneath your photo. Use this only if you want your text to appear to the side of the photos you are inserting. Notice that I unchecked this option for this post as I wanted the images to stand alone, without text squeezing into the narrow space next to the images.
• "Create Thumbnail" means Typepad will create a smaller version of your photo. This is great if you don't have a program like Photoshop to make your photos smaller. Just tell Typepad how big you would like the photo, and it will automatically shrink it for you. 300-400 pixels is a good size photo that spans most of a blog's main column.
• "Popup Window" means the full size version of your photo will also be uploaded to the blog, and will appear when readers click on the Thumbnail version. A new window will pop up on the screen showing the huge original photo. This is dangerous if your photos are larger than 600 pixels wide as they are so big they may take forever to download onto your readers' computers, or may be too wide for a reader to even see on their screen. To see this in action, visit my other blog for the Janesville Performing Arts Center and click on one of the images in the post.
• Finally, click the "Insert Image" button on the bottom and the image magically appears in the post you are writing. When you save the post, the photo will also be saved and appear on your blog.