Ride Reports using Google Photos

Hi everyone
Google photos is a great platform as it allows you to have an infinte* amount of photos (*as long as they each under 16mb), it allows numerous easy ways to share and edit as well as self building beautiful videos etc and finally is easy to view from your phone as the videos (using youtube as a backbone) and photos... are optimised for any speed.
BUT.... there have been some issues around sharing these pics into a forum such as wilddogs....
Due to the way the sharing and security is setup on sites like google and facebook, where they usually require you have an account on their platform... there is unfortunately a roundabout way of sharing to people who do not have those accounts or are viewing the images from a different platform (like wd)

This is what ive experienced through trial and error:
I hope this helps some of you....


1) From Google Photos, add pics to an album, then share the whole album and get that link....

• as url - https://goo.gl/photos/VVv3q5dCZ8wL6VCR6 - This method links to your whole album and the ride report itself could be written on notes with maps etc on the google photos album, this is useful if you want comments on your image directly on your google photos or if this is your preferred means to share your trip (maybe you want to share to several forums instead of just one or to friends on facebook etc- GOOD
• or as image -
  
  - this doesnt work as the image is in the content of the website and not an individual image - BAD

2) click image in Google Photos, click share, click get link:

• as url - https://goo.gl/photos/5zH2SvnEAWyhkhbd9 - could post a bunch of links during narrative description.... but it would require clicking on the links to get to each image - BAD
• as img -
  
  - this doesnt work as the image is in the content of the website and not an individual image - BAD

3) Step 2 above.... but then when image is displayed.... right click on image and choose "get image address"
This should give you a direct link to the image which you should be able to share via the /img tag

• as url - https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/yzFOoGgfo1zrqvpa7-xTpcgzpoCAkgcseFBrb4_S4bG9SRilHXBsy83wf9J_Duz_pLeMj5_eR-6xpeYF1vq9lgK9FiRUyUnFURA5fuvMpNj8yBKXXBehgvo8cC5C8nhdfwVDn56DG6YpX7jgYcLbZkkcmCz2xewfY6AV4L4-cvvnPFUCP1WfafOfc-AJQOZdu8uvKGCfEVercBmz61U8A-7Dj_UaPVW376n9nKeIIJloeK2hZvsw1O2OtCQdAK2D41ifa4NFjRQKWhKR41clUUnXAKsBT_ogO6NBLcGDmXKh24FQVff1p8GDQeeTtsz_6dO31fmK4VziqN3I76GOGYsOpm4b_07j_h9bIa5yAdg313OqinbfKA-82BcH0iM1st1svHzNgcxWuuDSwv9Q4bipIX7sOLVeM-AuJfZNBMG8tJqtx8o9cEWu5lHgmPw-pg1-3gYMr0d6w86WaxU9msoe2t3fYhYu5BJ0vl1OnSsHvYROs3JJyTmwvUlDQwb2x6H7BIJEVo6OLBDVq_7lPO9JqaQOmQ-xsteH4PGWt2Nz0kFDLud7nw4MS5LCaYthTfw5y7p6aYaAODyzdKzkfNdnwFLCw1aRpOq4qJ_TcstKtClBkQ=w1373-h952-no - similar to the link above where you would need to click each one to see the image except here it would take you direct the image rather than to the image in the google photos page where you could individually comment, etc - BAD
• as img -
  
  
  as the dogs are used to it.... an image embedded in a story.... BUT.... no control over size and might be too large (unless specifically small images were loaded into google photos),  edit - the size self-adjusts quite nicely in the forum
  this could mean it takes a while for your post to load - GOOD and BAD

That should be a direct link to the image as opposed to the image on a google page


4) I have also noticed that if you do NOT share the image, then on some browsers, the image will not show (will show as a private image), on others it may work. Its inconsistent  - BAD
test


so my advice is as follows for those wanting to use G-Photos as their picture store when wanting to create ride reports is one of the 2 following.

a) The forum way: open G-Photos, click the picture you wish to embed, click share, click get link, open the link in a new tab, right click the image, get image address/location..... paste that into the IMG tag as you would any other image from photobucket or flickr etc.

b) Create the ride report on the g-photo album, add text, videos, pics, whatever you need. Share the album and paste that link into the ride report on the forum. That will allow everyone to view and those with google accounts to join or comment directly on albums and pics.

[edit] - for method a
Slightly quicker way......
You can share the whole album ONCE
Then middle click each image (opens in new tab), or right click and open in new tab.
Then right click the image in it's new tab and copy the the image address.... (its LONG.. btw, 1 image for me is around 745 characters of text and you have a char limit in your post of 20000)
Paste that into the forum link
As long as the album is shared, the pics will be publicly accessibly through that image address.....