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[KCRoadFan]

I love this thread called "Guess the state/province challenge" which is just what it says - someone posts an image - whether from Google Street View or somewhere else on the Internet - that has been stripped of context, and the users have to guess the state or province in which it was taken.

Well, I want to create one of those posts myself, but I've run into a problem: namely, how am I supposed to post a picture of Street View, along with removing the text on top of it, so as to conceal its location data for the purposes of the challenge? One of the earlier threads suggested the {img}{/img} tag structure (Note: braces subbing in for brackets), and when I tried that with a Street View URL, the resulting post was just blank.

I then clicked the quote button to reveal the syntax of a previous Street View post in the current thread, and read it to figure out what I should do. It seemed as though the post uploaded a photo from Imgur, yet when I tried to upload the Street View link to that site, it gave me the error message “Sorry, URL failed to upload”. This kept happening even after I used Tiny URL.

I suppose I could just take a screenshot of the Street View image, but the accompanying text, giving the location of the image, would remain - which, of course, would defeat the purpose of the challenge.

What am I to do in this situation? Any advice? Thanks.

[Scott5114]

The img tag only works if the URL between the tags is an actual image file, like a jpg or a png. Likewise, Imgur will only work if you feed it the URL of an image. A link to Google Street View sends over a bunch of user interface code that a program expecting an image file won't know what to do with. To avoid that, you'll need to take a screenshot and send that through instead.

When posting to that thread, I usually just tilt the camera up somewhat, so that whenever I crop out the road name there's still an acceptable amount of road showing. You could also take the screenshot into a photo-editing program like The Gimp or Krita and pixelate or blur the street name.

[KCRoadFan]

The img tag only works if the URL between the tags is an actual image file, like a jpg or a png. Likewise, Imgur will only work if you feed it the URL of an image. A link to Google Street View sends over a bunch of user interface code that a program expecting an image file won't know what to do with. To avoid that, you'll need to take a screenshot and send that through instead.

When posting to that thread, I usually just tilt the camera up somewhat, so that whenever I crop out the road name there's still an acceptable amount of road showing. You could also take the screenshot into a photo-editing program like The Gimp or Krita and pixelate or blur the street name.

Thanks for the advice. By the way, is there any way I could save a Street View image as a JPG? I tried but couldn’t find any.

[webny99]

What I normally do for the various "Guess the..." challenges is:

1) Take a screenshot
2) Paste it to a Word doc
3) Crop down as needed
4) Save the picture
5) Upload it to imgur and copy the link
6) Paste the link between the img tags on the forum, then add ".jpg" to the end of the link

It's a bit of a process but doable within a minute or two with some experience.

[wanderer2575]

My variation on webny99's method:

1)  Use the Snipping Tool to capture only the part of the screen that you want
2)  Paste it into Paint
3)  Click and drag the lower right corner of the document size box to make it match the image dimensions
4)  Save as a .jpeg
5)  Upload to Imgur; copy the "BBCode" link (which includes the [img] tags and the .jpg extension)
6)  Paste the link in your post

[kirbykart]

My method (on school laptop, haven't yet worked out how to do it on mobile phone):

1) Get to the StreetView page I want to share.
2) Right-click and select Web Capture. Draw a box around the area I want.
3) Click Markup Capture and draw thick black ink over anything I want to hide. Save (the copier-looking thing).
4) In a few seconds it pops up at the top as a download. Open it and click the Save button. Save As to wherever you can find it. Rename it to whatever you want it to be (I usually do something like 'Guess-City-1').
5) Log in to postimages.org. Click to Upload Image.
6) Select the picture I want and upload it.
7) Copy the Hotlink for Forums. Paste it here inside image tags.
8) Done!

[JayhawkCO]

My variation on webny99's method:

1)  Use the Snipping Tool to capture only the part of the screen that you want
2)  Paste it into Paint
3)  Click and drag the lower right corner of the document size box to make it match the image dimensions
4)  Save as a .jpeg
5)  Upload to Imgur; copy the "BBCode" link (which includes the [img] tags and the .jpg extension)
6)  Paste the link in your post

This is what I do, but use postimages.org instead.

[Scott5114]

Save (the copier-looking thing).

I hope the copier-looking thing you're talking about doesn't look like this...

[JayhawkCO]

Save (the copier-looking thing).

I hope the copier-looking thing you're talking about doesn't look like this...

We're old now, aren't we?

[Scott5114]

We're old now, aren't we?

I'm still holding out hope that whatever software he's using tried to come up with a "modern" save icon that looks like a copier, and I can stay in denial about it for a few more years. Otherwise, yeah...

[Bruce]

ShareX is way better than the Snipping Tool, though it does require a bit of setup. I can use a simple blur without having to open up a real image editor, and upload straight to Imgur.

[NE2]

Y'all are making too much work. Take a screenshot, then ctrl-V on the imgur upload page and crop after upload.

[Scott5114]

Y'all are making too much work. Take a screenshot, then ctrl-V on the imgur upload page and crop after upload.

This is an option, but Imgur has two different image editing interfaces, one of which is usable and one of which (called "Picsart") is like trying to cut a steak with your elbows, and I can't find any way to ensure that I consistently get the useful one. If the Picsart interface has a real crop button (as opposed to just stretching the image so that it extends beyond the bounds of the canvas), I haven't found it yet.

At one point (I don't know if this is still the case because I've given up editing on Imgur), Imgur would also keep both the edited and non-edited images available, with the base url used for the original and each edit having ?1, ?2, etc. appended. Theoretically if someone used one of these edited images in the game, they could look up the original and cheat. I would hope nobody here would be lame enough to cheat at a pointless forum game, but...

[JoePCool14]

I never edit my photos on Imgur. Even simple crops I do either on my phone or on my computer's Photos app.

[kirbykart]

Save (the copier-looking thing).

I hope the copier-looking thing you're talking about doesn't look like this...

 Eh, sorta, but it has a rounded corner at the top and different outlines on the icon itself. Looked more like a copier than that floppy disk, at least in my opinion.

 And the software was Microsoft Edge. Maybe they were trying to make a floppy-disk icon but they failed big time.

[jlam]

Here’s what I do, regardless of where I am:

• Locate the required location for the challenge on GSV
• Take a screenshot of the necessary rectangle (Built-in screenshot tool on Chromebook, Snipping Tool on Windows)
• Go to a photo editing app and use my photoshop skills to scribble over the revealing bits
• Save as a PNG (Guess_[Challenge Name].png)
• Use postimages.org to convert the file to a hotlink
• Send the image to the necessary sub forum

Works like a charm.

[rickmastfan67]

You guys do know that Firefox has a built in screenshot tool that saves them as JPGs, right?

Just right-click and select "Take Screenshot".  Crop it as much as you want, and then hit the 'download' button to save it to your computer.

Oh, and to get around not have the 'Right click' menu in StreetView, just click the "See More Dates" text, and then right click in the bar at the bottom that shows all the dates available to get access to the "Take Screenshot" button.

[US 89]

If you're on a Mac, shift+command+4 is your friend. Just hit those keys, drag your mouse over the box you'd like in your image, and bingo! a screen shot is saved to your Desktop.