[blog 2006-03-17] Tips for Project Authors

Here's a couple tips for project authors to help make good instructables quick and easy...

Upload your photos by Email. In the left column of the file-upload page is a link to the email-upload page. You can email all your photos to the special email address, it's usually the easiest way.

Use Photo-Notes. When you are editing a project, just click-and-drag on your photos to add photo notes. Photo-notes are really good for pointing at specific bits of a complex photo, and save a lot of time compared to other ways to do this.

Upload high resolution images. We are storing all your original high-res image uploads and the next update of Instructables will allow users to access the high-res versions. 2-3 megapixels is a good size for most project photos.

View higher-resolution images. In the upper-left corner of all project images, click on the "i" in a box. Then in the left column choose "large" image size, if a large image is available. Then below the main image click "download this version (large)" to view the larger image.

You can use a little HTML in your text. You can use the 'b' and 'i' tags for bold and italic text, and 'a href' to make links. lists and tables do not work currently.

Photo tips: keep your background clear of unrelated objects, and take plenty of photos since "a picture is worth a thousand words". You can easily point out things with photo notes which are much harder to describe in text.

Popularity: the standard Explore link shows all projects in order of popularity. To reduce paging through to find your project, try this: Explore 100 most popular at a time. You can also check the Newest 100 projects all at once.