Fotopic is primarily a gallery website, but some users choose to use it as an image hosting service to include images in other webpages such as message boards or weblogs. This method of including images is called direct linking, or sometimes hotlinking.

While this feature is permitted, we recommend that if you are going to use this on a regular basis or rely on it as opposed to using Fotopic's own gallery pages, you use a web hosting service such as Geocities instead.

How To Link Photos

You can now link easily to your photos using our direct-link server.

Within the my.fotopic.net collection editor, click on the photo thumbnail to reveal the photo editor popup window. Within the "Info" tab of this popup, you can find a Direct Link URL for each of your photos with have the following format:

http://images.fotopic.net/hgadu6.jpg

To put an image in another page, use the following snippet of code:

<img src="http://images.fotopic.net/hgadu6.jpg">

Don't forget to replace the URL (src) with your own image link URL!

Fotopic Premium users can link directly to their original images, by adding in /original/ like this:

http://images.fotopic.net/original/hgadu6.jpg

However, all Fotopic users can obtain the image at original dimensions, albeit resampled, by adding in /fullsize/ like this:

http://images.fotopic.net/fullsize/hgadu6.jpg

Some message boards use ['img'] tags. In such cases, you should refer to the documentation for that particular forum software.

You should never link to any image server other than images.fotopic.net - otherwise your photos may stop working unexpectedly!

Usage Restrictions

There are some restrictions on direct linking which are in place to ensure quality of service for other users. We will limit the number of images served to an external (non-Fotopic) website in a 24 hour period - this is normally set at 1,000 hits per site unless we have made a prior arrangement with the website administrator. Counters for restrictions are cleared at midnight UK time.

For most users, the restriction won't be reached, but if the limit is exceeded then the following will be shown in place of the photo:

This has been introduced because we have had instances where a single site has slowed down the rest of Fotopic through direct links. As a by-product it also stops people from attempting to copy the entire image archive.

But My Photo Hasn't Got 1000 Hits!

The limitation is carried out per referring site, not on a per-image basis - so although your image may not have had that many hits, the sum total of views from a particular site (eg. message board, or discussion site) will have exceeded the limit.

How Can I Stop The Restrictions?

The restrictions do not apply in the following circumstances:

• If you are using standard Fotopic features (ie. not doing direct linking).
• If you are a Fotopic Premium subscriber (click here to find out more!).
• If we have made a prior arrangement with the referring website.

As always, if you have any questions you can email help@fotopic.net.