GTPhoto Help/FAQ

Signing up
- How do I sign up?
- What is my password?
Viewing albums
Commenting
When logged in
Troubleshooting
Error Messages
Miscellaneous

Signing Up

How do I sign up?

To sign up for a photo album, go to this page, fill in the information, then click the sign up button.

What is my password?

After you sign up for a photo album, check the email address you entered into the email box for new mail. Within a few minutes, a password should be emailed to that address, along with the confirmation of your account creation. If you have forgotten your password, nothing can be done yet.

Viewing Albums

What is the link to my pictures?

The link to your pictures is http://photos.gavintech.com/users/YourUserName, where YourUserName is the user name you use to log in to your account.

How do I prevent people from viewing my pictures?

To only allow people you authorize to view your pictures, set your view password, explained later under the question "How do I set a view password?". What this will do is force any user attempting to view your pictures to enter a password, which can be different than your account password, to get access to your album.

Why is the all albums link password protected?

To prevent album viewers from getting around view password protection, the all albums link is view password protected if any other albums are view password protected. Hence the all albums link will only be password protected if the user has set a view password and is password protecting an album.

Commenting

How do comments work?

Any person who is viewing your photo album can leave a comment on any of the pictures in your albums. Replies can then be added to this initial post, plus more initial posts (threads) can be started. The latest thread to receive a reply (or to be posted initially) is placed at the top of the comment list, with the next most recent below it, continuing to the least recently posted/replied at the bottom.

Who gets emailed when I make a new comment?

When a thread is started initially, only the album owner gets an email (except if the poster also happens to be the album owner)

Who gets emailed when I make a reply?

First off, the photo album owner gets notification. Then the person who started the thread. Then anyone who is part of the reply path between the thread starter and you. ie: the person who you are replying to gets a copy, as does the person he/she replied to, and this continues down the chain until the thread initiator. Note that only one email will be sent to any address in this string, even if that person is in the chain more than once.

How do I delete a comment?

Only the album owner can delete a comment. When logged in, click on the manage photos link in the sidebar. Browse to the photo owning the comment that you wish to delete. Click on the delete comment link beside the comment.

How do I restore a comment?

Only the album owner can restore a comment. When logged in, click on the manage photos link in the sidebar. Browse to the photo owning the comment that you wish to restore. Click on the restore comment link beside the comment.

When logged in

What can I do when logged in?

When you are logged in, you can create albums, delete albums, upload pictures to our servers for inclusion in your albums, manage your account details, change your password, change captions of photos, change the albums that photos are in, and delete photos.

How do I change my password?

When logged in, click on the manage account link in the sidebar. Under the change password prompt, enter in your new password into each of the two boxes, and click "Change Password". The next time you try to access any administration page, you will be prompted again for your user name and new password.

How do I get new pictures on my photo album?

First, you have to have some pictures to put on your photo album. These can be from a digital camera, or scanned in with a scanner. The method for attaining digital pictures varies greatly from device to device, and is out of the scope of this FAQ. It will be assumed that there are digital pictures stored on your computer, in a known directory. When logged in, click on the upload photos link in the sidebar. This will take you to a screen where you can choose the picture to upload (click Browse and select the picture you want to place on our servers). After you have chosen a picture, click "Upload this picture" to be taken to the picture modification screen. Enter in a caption and select which albums to display this photo in, then click "Modify Photo" to complete the upload.

What types of pictures can I upload?

You are allowed to upload jpeg, gif, and png style photos. Unfortunately, uncompressed formats such as tiff (commonly used with scanners) are too big to fit on our servers, and take too long to download to be useful, so you must compress these images into jpeg first before uploading them.

How do I make a new album for pictures?

When logged in, click on the create an album link in the sidebar. At the screen that comes up type in a new album name and click "Create this Album"

How do I sort pictures into albums?

When logged in, click on the manage pictures link in the sidebar. Select the album with the photo in it, or if the photo is not in any albums click on Unsorted Pictures. Click on the photo you wish to modify to bring up the Modify Photo screen. Select which albums you wish the picture to be in by selecting the check boxes under "Modify the albums it belongs in". Once you are finished choosing the albums to place the photo in, click on Modify Photo to save your changes.

What happens when I delete an album?

When you delete an album, all photos that were in the album (and not in any other album) get moved to Unsorted Pictures. No photos are deleted from your photo album by deleting an album.

What happens when I delete a picture?

When you delete a picture, the photo is removed from our server, and all comments regarding that photo are removed as well.

How can I upload more than one photo at a time?

To upload multiple files, you must first package them into one zip file. Use a program such as WinZip or Compressed Folders in Windows XP to add all of the files you want to upload into one archive. Next, when logged in, click on the upload photos link in the sidebar. Instead of browsing for a specific photo, select the zip archive. When you click upload photo, you will notice that the next screen is a little different; it lists all of the files that have been added to your photo album. Follow the link at the bottom of the page if you want to modify the captions and albums of your new photos.

How do I set a view password?

When logged in, click on the manage account link in the sidebar. Under the Change viewing password prompt, enter the new view password into both boxes, and click the Change View Password button.

How do I arrange the pictures in my album?

You can set a priority on each photo to dictate exactly where they show up in your album view. You must be logged in to set the priority. Click on the manage photos link on the sidebar, and browse to the photo that you wish to change the priority of. Enlarge that photo, and click on the modify photo link in the sidebar. Set a priority in the priority box and click on the modify photo button to complete the process. The higher the number, the closer to the first page the photo will be. Conversely, a lower number will place the photo nearer the last page of that particular album.

How do I prevent automatic picture resize

When you sign up for a photo album, automatic picture resize is enabled by default. To turn this option off, you must be logged in, and you must be a paid user. Click on manage account in the sidebar. Uncheck the option labelled autoresize photos, and click the modify details button to complete the process. Photos already resized will need to be reuploaded.

Troubleshooting

My pictures are too big!

The best way to reduce the size of your images (if they are too big datawise) is to reduce the resolution they are stored at. To do this, you need a fairly powerful graphics program such as Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Photo Editor (part of Microsoft Office). Consult the manual for these software applications for help in changing the resolution of a photo. Another method of reducing the photo's size (both in data size and in physical size) is to resize the photo smaller. Less powerful program such as Microsoft Paint (in Windows 98 or higher) can resize photos fairly readily. Again, consult the manual or the help file for help on resizing the photo. Note that by default all of your pictures are reduced to fit on an 800x600 computer screen when you upload them. See the FAQ titled how do I prevent automatic picture resize to find out how to opt out of this process.

Why do I have to log in each time I change pages?

This has been fixed in the most recent version of photo album. If you are still having problems with this, submit it to the ask a question database with a reproducable series of steps so that we can troubleshoot this problem.

Why are all of my pictures smaller after uploading them?

All large photos are by default reduced to a size that will make them fit on an 800x600 screen when enlarged. This both makes the site more browseable for older computers and saves you album space. If you would like to disable this option, see the FAQ entry labelled how do I prevent automatic picture resize.

Error Messages

Passwords didn't match

When you tried changing your password, whatever you typed in the first password box didn't match what you typed in the second password box. Click on back and enter in your new password again.

There are no photos in the album you selected

You clicked on an album, either to modify photos inside of it or just to view them, and the album is empty. Go back and select a different album.

You must supply your username and password to modify info

To get into the administration page, you must supply the username you registered with and the password supplied to you by email.

Error retrieving authenication data from Photos database

This usually denotes an error on our part. It means that the database holding the information about your photos, albums, and comments can't be accessed at the current time. Wait for a few minutes and then try again, but if the error keeps up for an extended amount of time, email us.

Album already exists

You tried to create an album with exactly the same name as another one that already exists. Click on back and choose a new name for your album.

Invalid file format

You tried to upload an image that was not in jpg, gif, or png format. Convert the image to one of these formats with the help of a photo editing program, and try again.

File Too Big

You have reached the maximum size of your photos account. Either go and delete some photos to make room for this new one, or upgrade your account to a higher level (if one exists) to alleviate this situation.

That user name has already been taken

Someone has already taken your user name! Try adding random numbers to the end, for example if you wanted the user name "kloostec", and found it was already taken (because I have it :D), try "kloostec1" or "kloostec3282" instead, or just don't choose the nickname of the developer.

That email address already has a photo album

You have already registered a photo album under that email address. At the current time, we can only allow one photo album per email account, so go an sign up for a hotmail account or something and use that email address to sign up for a photo album.

Skipped filename: Too big - delete some pictures first

You have reached the maximum size of your photos account. This error, and the procedure to fix it, is the same as "File Too Big" above, just this specific error occurs when you are doing a batch zip style upload.

View Password Required

The owner of the album you are trying to view has set a view password, which means that you must enter a password just to view his or her photo album. If you know what this password is, enter it in the box and click Submit to view this user's pictures. If you do not know it, you must contact the owner to find out this password.

No File Uploaded

This error is usually caused when the file was not found on your local computer. This should be fairly rare if you use the browse button to find the file you are trying to upload, but if you tried to upload a file by typing the path into the input box, you may want to go back and check that you didn't accidentally type a mistake.

Miscellaneous

What is the competition page?

The competition page allows users to compete for recognition as best or biggest. Photo album owners are ranked in a number of categories, and the top five albums from each category are displayed. Links to these superior albums are provided so that other users will have something to aspire to.

What is the super user page?

The super user page is for administrators only. Do not confuse this page with the normal login page. Currently, Chris Kloosterman is the only user to have access to this page, and it provides him with quick links to administration tasks on the photo album site. There's nothing in there... honest!

What is the ask a question page?

The ask a question page is an open forum for new users or users who need help to ask their question to the whole body of photo album users. Any album owner can go and answer people's questions, providing a peer help style of support. The best supporters are eligible for various prizes, such as permanent accounts and recognition on the competitions page.

Can I reference my pictures from other webpages?

Paid, permanent/beta and god users can use <img> tags directly, but free accounts must link to the album on GTPhoto.

What is voting?

Voting is a way to let the album owner know that you like a picture. The more votes a picture has (relative to the rest of the pictures in that user's album), the more popular that picture is. You may only vote once per IP address per picture.

How can I view the source for GTPhoto?

Click on the developers link on the sidebar. In the source code section, you can click on the source code viewer link to see the current source code running on the GTPhoto server.

Can I post thumbnails to my pictures in a blog?

If you are a paid user, you can link to a photo from your blog, or any other website. Just copy and paste the code under the "Put this photo in my blog" section of the enlarged photo panel into your web page. Your website or blog will show a thumbnail of your picture. When that thumbnail is clicked on, the user will be taken to the enlarged view of your photo in GTPhoto (in a separate window). This feature is not available for ViewPassword protected albums.