Uploading Your Image to The Internet

To upload a picture for use with online auction sites you first need a secure storage space on the Internet.  Online action sties, like eBay, are not a repository for these files (you don't actually "upload" your files to eBay).  If you do not have a service provider we have list of free Web Hosting Sites in our Ratings and Reviews section.  You will also need the following information before you begin:

Note: The Host Name / IP address of the FTP server is usually NOT the same as your web address / URL.  For instance our FTP server is ftp.ipswitch.com and our web address / URL is www.ipswitch.com.

Note:  We also have an online WS_FTP tutorial for a visual reference that shows each step of the upload process (if necessary)

Step 1: Create a profile for the FTP server that is going to hold your images.

Open WS_FTP.

Click on New.

Profile Name - This can be anything you want. This is how the profile will appear in the list of profiles when you start WS_FTP.

Host Name/IP Address - This is the name of the FTP SERVER, this is NOT your web address.  It should look something like ftp.ipswitch.com or it will be a series of number separated by dots like 199.45.155.227.  If you do not know this please contact the administrator of the server that is going to store your images.

Host Type - Automatic Detect will work in most instances. If it does not, please contact the server administrator to find out the type of FTP Server they are using and select it from the list.

Username and Password - In almost every instance you will NOT be able to use an 'anonymous' login and you will need a unique username and password.  The username and password you enter here are for accessing the FTP server of where you are going to store your images.  They're NOT your eBay username and password and may or may not be the username and password you use to connect to the Internet with.

Account and comments can be left blank.

Make sure that you press Apply after making these changes.

Step 2:  Click OK to connect to the site (You will need a pre-existing connection to the internet).

Step 3:  Once you have connected to the site: On the left (Local System) change to the folder where you saved the picture on your computer. On the right (Remote System) change to the folder where you are going to upload the picture. This is often a folder called public_html or html or www or web. If you are unsure please contact the administrator of the server to find out where publicly accessible files need to placed.

Step 4:  Once you have located the picture in the left (Local) window and have changed to the appropriate folder in the right (Remote) window, single click the picture and click on the -> button in between the two sides. You should then see the picture copied to the right (Remote) side.

Step 5:  To double check to see if the file was placed in correct location. Open your web browser. In the Location (or URL or destination) field enter your URL and the name of the picture. So if we uploaded a picture called picture1.gif to our FTP server called ftp.ipswitch.com and our web site is www.ipswitch.com we would enter http://www.ipswitch.com/picture1.gif (This is called the URL of the picture). Take note of what you entered here as you will need this entire line again.

Step 6:  Go to the eBay page. Fill in all the information. NOTE the username and password here is most likely not the same one we used in step 1.  In the Picture URL enter the line from step 5. So we would enter http://www.ipswitch.com/picture1.gif. Or we can enter the following in the Description field: <img src="http://www.ipswitch.com/picture1.gif">

Step 7:  You are done.

* Determine your URL

Once you have uploaded your image file to a place on the Web, you need to know the file's Web address, also known as a URL (Universal Resource Locator). A URL is the text on your browser which determines a file or page's location on the Web.

An URL is like a postal address. The first part of the URL is established for you by your ISP or photo hosting service. For example, it will look something like this:

http://www.something.com/my_user_id/

The name of the file that you uploaded appears in the second part of the URL. In this example, it would look like this:

my_photo.jpg

Together, all the elements of an URL point to your file on the Web. In this example, it would look like this:

http://www.something.com/my_user_id/my_photo.jpg