To upload an image, you first need to create a digital file which stores your image, and the digital file needs to be in the correct format for the internet. You then navigate to an image upload form on our website, fill in the details, browse to the digital image file on your computer (which tells our website where to grab the picture from), then hit the upload button to copy the file across to our website. Our website then performs some tricks like making smaller versions of your image before displaying it on our web pages.

Step 1: Creating Your Digital Image File

There are several ways to create a digital image file. You might take a photograph of your artwork and then scan this into the computer. Or you might have a slide of your artwork which is scanned into the computer via a slide scanner. Alternatively you might have a digital camera which takes a digital photograph, and the files from the camera are then copied on to your computer. When you get a digital image file on to your computer that you want to upload to our website, remember where it is stored. Placing the file on the Desktop is usually and easy place to find it again.

Step 2: Making The Digital Image File Web ‘Safe’

Not all digital files are compatible with the internet. Some files, such as those which end in ‘.psd’ (meaning it is a Photoshop image) will not display on a web page. They first need to be converted into a web safe format. Web safe formats include JPG, JPEG, PNG and GIF. Simply changing the last three letters of the file name (the ‘extension’) will not change the format of your image. The image needs to be digitally converted by an image manipulation program. The basic technique for converting an image into a web safe format involves opening the image up in an image manipulation program, then telling the program to save the image as a web safe format. If you do not own any fancy image manipulation software, you can download the GIMP for free. Download this version for Windows, or this version for Apple OSX. If your picture has lots of detail, you should use either PNG or JPG/JPEG. If your image has flat colours you should use GIF.

Make sure the image does not use CMYK color space. It should use RGB.

Remember where you have saved the file on your computer.

Step 3: Finding The Image Upload Form On Artabase

There is more than one page on Artabase that you can use to upload an image. Which page you use depends on which image you are uploading. You might be uploading a picture for your Artist profile, or a picture for your Exhibition, or even a small picture for your user account that shows up when you make comments in the forums. All of these forms can be found under the ‘My Account’ section which you reach by clicking on ‘My Account’ in the heading (after signing in). Use the tabs on the page to navigate to the area in which you wish to add a picture, for example, go to ‘Profiles > Artist’ if you want to upload an Artist picture, or ‘Listings > Exhibitions’ if you want to upload an Exhibition picture.

Step 4: Fill Out The Upload Form

Hit the ‘Browse’ button to look on your computer for the digital image file you want to upload. If you followed our suggestion earlier, you might have saved it to your desktop so it was easier to find. If so, navigate through your file system to the Desktop and when you find your file, select it and hit ‘Ok’.

Fill out the following details. If you are not sure about different types of licenses, just leave it as is, which will mean your image is ‘Copyright’, so if someone else wants to use your image they must first ask your permission.

Hit Ok, and you should be done!

Step 5: Er, I can’t see my image on the screen

If you see the name of your image instead of the uploaded image, it might mean you have uploaded a CMYK image instead of a RGB image. If so either repeat Step 2, or send an email to info@artabase.net letting us know the problem, or alternatively just give it a few days because we regularly look through the site and when we see an image like this we fix it ourselves.

If you still have questions, please feel free to email info@artabase.net