On the Care and Feeding of MSF Avatars Vol. 2

[Azathoth]

Welcome again gentle readers! It had come to my attention quite some time ago that my first guide was... woefully out of date. But thanks to the combination sticky locky... I could not fixy it.

But with a chat with almighty Xia... I gained blessing to make a second more current one! This one, sadly, will have less of my almighty wit in it... but hopefully it will suffer not much for it. In case it does... feel free to read the original and be awed!

First and foremost! Why should you be reading this? I will list what this guide shall accomplish... numerically!

1. It will guide you through the steps required to find a picture which has avatar potential. Or even just a picture for a handy TF...
2. It will show you how to resize and crop any image you have, so that you may take a gigantic panoramic shot, cut out the cute girl posing in the middle of it, and size it to fit avatar specifications!
3. Finally I will go through what is needed to take said found and edited pictures and upload them into an avatar!

Much of my previous guide has unnecessary steps... due partly to my ignorance, and also to the fact that the forums have changed in the way they work now.

So... if what you have heard interests you so far... let us begin!

Step One, where the reader is directed to several sights in which they may locate a picture, and a few misconceptions are cleared up about direct links to images.

So... the first step in any avatar creating process is, of course, the picture! Without this, we are left with blank whiteness... oh the sorrow of emptiness!

In my journeys, I have found several places where one might find good pictures... If you know of one I have not listed, I entreat you to tell me so that I may add it to the list, and use it myself.

Google Images
Deviant Art
Photobucket
Gelbooru

Now... when perusing Deviant Art and Gelbooru, one must be cautious. For they have material above the PG-13 rating... Gelbooru especially. So if you do not wish to quickly glance past Hentai in your search for the clean and cute pictures (which they both have plenty of), I suggest you do not even use them.

But regardless of the source... what you wish to do once you finally find your picture is to, of course, right click it and save it. I suggest you make a folder for avatar pictures... it helps. If you wish to use it for linking others to it, any picture can be right clicked, selected with Properties, and then the direct link can be found under Location in the window that pops up.

Step Two... where the reader is shown how to take their prized image and get it to size!

For this... all you need is but one sight. It is truly a wonder, and I have found it invaluable in the avatar creation process.

Find it here.

I really cannot praise this sight enough... but enough of my lauding! I will tell you what needs to be done to use it.

First, you want to always use the "on your own" option... it gives you much better control. First I shall go through the steps of cropping.

For Cropping: Hit the button marked "Browse" and then search for your folder... or whatever location on your computer you deemed worthy of having your picture. Find it and double click it. Then hit the button marked "Okay."

From there, you will be shown your picture in its full size, along with a dotted box. Drag the box where you wish... holding the shift button to enlarge and shrink it. The dotted line marks the edges the cropped picture will have. In any case... position the box as you would, then hit the button marked "Crop It."

From there, you will see the picture cropped. Repeat this step as necessary until you are satisfied with the picture... you may find that shrinking a large picture will remove quite a few details... so try to capture the essence of a picture if you can. Also remember that the size limits are 150x150... so if you can make it as wide as it is tall. Finally right click and save it. I suggest you not overwrite the original... in case you need to crop or resize it again.

For Resizing! Go back to the first page... Hit the button marked "Browse" and then search for your folder... or whatever location on your computer you deemed worthy of having your picture. Find it and double click it.

Now... take whichever is biggest... your height or width, and type 150 in the box provided. Then hit the button marked "Okay."

Behold! The picture... ignore the crop box and right click it, saving it! Now you are ready...

Step Three, the final stretch!

Just in case you do not know how... I will make it plain!

Go to the MSF forums... (which you are on right now if you are reading this, silly.)

Click "User Control Panel" Located in the top left corner of the screen.

Click the tab marked "Profile"

Click "Edit Avatar"

Click the button marked "Browse" and then search for your folder... or whatever location on your computer you deemed worthy of having your properly sized picture! Find it and double click it.

Finally... hit the button marked "Submit" Aaaand.... that should be it!

If you are off by a few... dimensions. Say 150x152... repeat the resizing process, but instead just place 150 in both boxes.

EXTRA NOTE! If you find your picture exceeds the 48.83 KB limit for uploading pictures from your machine, you will need to link off-sight. To do this, take your cropped and resized picture here! Browse, find your 150x150 picture, put in a junk e-mail address... and hit Host It! From that... keep on clicking on your picture until you get the direct link (hint: there will be nothing on the page but your picture in the top left corner of the blank page. From that, copy the URL, go back to the avatar area in the User Control Panel, and paste it in the box labeled "Link Off-Sight." Then hit "Submit!" Then ya got it!

If any questions still remain... feel free to voice them!

[Just some lady]

XD. I was actually thinking about this the other daaay, and how the old one was a lovely guide that would be rather misleading now.
^^
I'm sure Helel or Xia will be along to get rid of that one an' sticky this in its place shortly. Thanks for putting forth the time to make such a helpful guide for those in need~!

[Azathoth]

*bows* Thank you, thank you...

I figure that if people can get their own pictures and avatars easier... everyone benefits! I know I love your avatar Caprice... heh.

[Ninian]

Don't forget that gelbooru has safebooru. It's basically the same pool of images, as it's on gelbooru's server, but automatically filters out content rated as "questionable" or worse and doesn't give you pornographic ads. Despite the name it's not really worksafe, and not all images are MSF appropriate (no pantyshots please), but most MSFers will probably find usage of safebooru to be more well into their comfort zone.