I have a confession to make. I am officially a blogging idiot! This is my first experience with WordPress, and since initially setting up my site, I have not had the time to really look into what my options and restrictions are with regards to my blog. I must admit that I am having a hard enough time coping timewise with publishing a new post every day and keeping up with the 300 or so emails I get every day regarding my blog and the other blogs that I have started following. I know many of you will understand what I am talking about.
So, there I was last night preparing my post for today, when I received a notification that I had run out of upload space. What the *&%#?? You see, being the blogging idiot that I am I have been posting full size images every day, not even thinking about how much space this was taking up. When I get to work every day and proofread my blog for the day, the pictures alway appear instantly (no loading delays), so I figured the size was fine, and I really didn’t want to have multiple versions of all of these photos on my computer if I didn’t have to. I know, I can hear you laughing already. Well, I panicked because I have never missed a day of blogging yet, but I really didn’t want to pay for extra space. I know how to resize photos, but I had no idea what an acceptable size was.
That’s where my hero comes into the picture. It was 10:50 pm last night when I desperately emailed my always very helpful blogging friend, Gary, to see if he could help me with my blogging emergency. Within seconds he replied, telling me to call him. I felt really bad calling him so late at night, but he didn’t mind at all. He talked me through resizing my images to a more appropriate size for the internet and also how to delete the large images from my old posts and reinsert smaller versions. This way I can gain back my free space.
I know I have a lot of work ahead of me this weekend, but it will be worth it in the end! So, for my first properly sized photo I have chosen a beautiful sunrise from South Carolina to signify the dawn of a new day in my blogging knowledge. If anyone has any awesome tricks they have learned using WordPress, I welcome any suggestions that will improve my blog. And once again, my thanks goes out to my friend, Gary. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!! 🙂
photos from the loonybin 
Don’t feel too bad. I know this happened to another blogger.
I blog with a fast but not superfast connection so I prefer blogs that don’t take forever to load.
I recently found this blog. It helped me when I had some questions. http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/
Thanks Judy. I just checked out that site, and it provided information about the maximum main-column width for my theme and recommended a resolution to use. I guess I will be experimenting for the next little while, so everyone will have to be patient with me. 🙂
Shame Cindy!!! When started my blog last year, I also uploaded full size photos… needless to say, my internet cap did not last – so I had to revert to smaller photos!!! I’m glad I did, because a few weeks later I noticed the little upload message… you have x% left of y amount!!! I was just lucky!! Good luck with all the image changing… that is quite a set-back!!! 😦 **
Thank you for letting me know I am not the only one to have done this. You made me feel better instantly! As for changing the images, I am very stubborn and have a lot of patience, so I will get it done. Luckily I have kept a running list of all the photos (image # and date) I have used in my blog, so it won’t be as bad as it might have been. 🙂
I’m in the same boat–but what I can’t figure out is, why can’t you delete photos out of your gallery? Or can you? And is this your actual blog photos? Oh dear, I am in trouble…
Don’t worry, I have it all figured out (I think LOL). My blog has a maximum width of 640 pixels, so I am resizing my photos in Photoshop to a width of 600 pixels. When I do that it brings the size down from like 35 MB to under 1 MB and the resolution to 72, which a blog advice website said was good. I have also read that it is better to do the resizing outside of WordPress so that it doesn’t affect the quality as much.
Ok, then I go into my media gallery in WordPress and delete permanently the photo I want to replace. Then I go to the particular post and delete the photo there as well and upload the new smaller version. I have only done this for a couple of posts and I have gained back a great deal of space already!! It will take some time to do them all though. I don’t know if I am doing it the best way or not because this is all a learning experience for me, but at least I have some space back, and I don’t notice any difference in how my photos look on my blog.
You are waaaay over my head on this photo sizing stuff. All I know is your photo here looks fantastic as always. Blogging in general remains a mystery and a miracle at the same time.
Awww Dor, you are so sweet! I am loving the whole blogging experience, but I do know that I still have a lot to learn. It’s just finding the time to learn that’s the hard part, as well as trying to find any empty space in my brain to store all the new information. 🙂
That is a glorious photo!
Thank you so much. I do love it – it’s one of those photos that makes me feel totally calm and relaxed when I look at it. 🙂
Tsk,tsk, full size images just ready to be stolen, not good, not good at all. It certainly explains why the images would take forever to download in the email I get when you write a new post though. For what it’s worth, I don’t post anything larger than 800 pixels on the longest side at 72 ppi, rendering it virtually unprintable if someone were to try to steel it. Even then, I reduce the size further before inserting them into a post on my blog. Also WATERMARK EVERYTHING! If someone does want to do a screen grab, copy, or share one of my photos it will have my logo and website address on it for all to see.
One last “for what it’s worth,” that photo is EXCELLENT Cindy! I like how the shadow leads to the silhouette, and the sun’s reflection on the water leads right to the sun. And then you have the faint rays radiating out from the sun itself. One hell of a photo!
Jeff, you just made my day!! I was so worried that making the pictures smaller would affect the quality, but now that you have told me the size you use, I know everything will be fine because your photos look incredible! As they say, you live and learn, and I now know how to resize my photos appropriately, so it’s all good. Now I just have to learn how to watermark them. Thank you so much for your advice and for your comments about this photo. It means a great deal to me. 🙂
I’ve had good luck sizing them to 800px at 72ppi for all my web sharing. I keep a folder of all my shared images sized that way so I don’t have to save different sizes for different places on the web. At that size they are too large for my blog posts, so I use the wordpress tools and take them down to 70%, sometimes even down to 60%, and they look fine to me.
You should be able to watermark them in CS5 very easily I would think, using the text tool on a separate layer and playing with the opacity. FYI, in case you don’t already know it, the © symbol is “option-G” on a Mac, or “alt-G” on a PC.
I don’t know if my thinking on this is correct or not, but I checked the maximum width for the theme I am using and it is 640 pixels, so I am resizing (in Photoshop) the width of my photos (landscape) to 600 pixels which brought the resolution to 72ppi and the size to under 1MB. Does that sound ok? That’s how I did this sunrise photo. And thanks for the tips about watermarking. I will give that a try. 🙂
Hey, Cindy, I’m honored that you called on me when i n need, delighted to hear that you’re well on your way to regaining the space you thought you’d lost, and always happy to help in any way that I can!
Gary, you’re the best!! If I was there I would give you a great, big hug (as long as your wife didn’t mind LOL). Now I’m off to regain more space. 🙂
Love these kinds of pics, water is my favorite subject & I live inland. What was I thinking?
I know what you mean! I spent my whole childhood sailing with my family, and now I never spend any time near the water (except on the occasional vacation). I miss it! If I won the lottery, I would definitely have a home built overlooking a lake. 🙂
I can feel the physical changes in my body as I approach or leave large bodies of water. As I’m leaving my shoulders start to get tight & as I’m approaching each breath gets a little deeper as I relax into the peace the water brings me.
I’m the same way. That’s why I enjoyed our trip to South Carolina so much. Every morning I dragged my hubby out of bed just before dawn and we headed down to the beach to take pictures. I never got tired of feeling the breeze off the ocean and smelling the sea air. Those were the moments when my soul felt most at peace! 🙂
This is an absolutely stunning picture! Wow! 🙂
Thank you so much. I’m really glad you liked it!! 🙂
huh…where can I check how much space I have? Nice pic!
OK…if I’m running out of space, what do I have to do with my photos? Does this have anything to do with organizing?
Thanks TBM! Now assuming that you are not just making fun of me in these two comments 🙂 and are really asking a serious question, you can click on “media” in your dashboard and it shows you how much upload space you have remaining. I have a lot of work ahead of me downsizing my photos, but at least I have regained enough space that I won’t miss any days of blogging.
It looks like I’ll be running into a problem real soon…I need to do something about it. Good luck to you.
Have you been posting your photos full size too?? It’s kind of nice when I hear that I’m not the only one who has done this. 🙂 At least it’s fixable – time consuming but you can gain back your space.