You can upload your photographs directly to the Megalithic Portal. All contributions of photos or artwork of ancient sites are very welcome. Please ensure they are your copyright, or you have permission from the copyright holder. In they are not your images please attribute the source or photographer in the caption.

For each site, select the photos that best illustrate the features that you consider most significant. How many you should send will depend on what sort of site it is and how big it is, but please don't send photos that are very similar. Photos of sites we don't have images of are particularly welcome, as are new angles on familiar sites.

You will have to register as a member to post photos, this will allow you to begin to compile your personal home page on which most of your contributions are shown. If have film or slide photos, you will need to scan them and save them as files on your computer. Whether you prefer digital or film, your pictures must be sent as .JPG image files of not more than 320Kb file size per image.

Using your preferred photo editing software (Paint.net is very good, and free on the PC), crop and resize each photo to around 750x500 pixels. (See the section "Digital Camera and Photo Resizing Tips" below for more help on resizing photos.) You will need to save each photo as a .JPG file, with a quality setting of approximately 80 to 90, or medium to high.

When you are ready to send your photograph, first see if we have a page that covers the location you have photgraphed. Use the Search page, (which accepts UK and Irish grid references and long / lat locations). From that page you can also try a Google search on the name of the site or a nearby village or town. You can also search by typing a UK postcode, US zip code or German post code in this format DE-1234 into the search box at the top left of any page (just below the logo). Then press Enter on your keyboard to search.

Once you have found our page for the site that you have a photo of, click on the "Submit an Image" link near the top right of the page. These days we have most ancient sites in Europe listed but if we don't list the site you have photographed, we would appreciate it if you would fill in an "Add a New site" form to add full details of the site to our database. This allows the location to be plotted on our maps. Sending photos on their own without a site location isn't very helpful.

If you are sending a more general image that is not of an ancient site, use the "Submit Picture" link, which you can also get to from the top of our eGallery pages.

For either link, please follow the instructions given, be as accurate as you can about the site name and give further information as a descriptive picture caption.

For comments on an existing subject or site simply find the relevent page (use the Search tool) and post your comments. To submit anything else you think our visitors would be interested in click on 'Submit News/Article'.

Now you have your high-res digital image, whether direct from a digital camera, CD-ROM or scanner. You will need a good photo editing package, there are several that are free such as Paint.net for Windows PCs or GIMP for Mac, Linux (and Windows).

The first stage is probably to 'crop' your image to leave just the part you want to submit and cut off excess grass, sky etc (but don't overdo it, cropping is an important 'artistic' decision you have to make as to what looks right). This might still leave the photo too big, so the second stage is to 'resize' the image. You want to aim for between about 750 or 800 pixels along the longest edge and about 500 on the shorter edge (ie 750 x 500 pixels or 800 x 600. The maximum should be about 1000 across unless you have a really wide, thin panorama in which case you should scale as appropriate).

Cropping and resizing should bring the total file size down to below our 320kb file size limit when it is saved. (which is set so as to allow people with slower internet connections to view your photo). The next step is to actually save it as a JPG file (which will have a .jpg at the end). To do this look for a 'Save As' or 'Export to JPG' menu option.

You need to set to a pixel size rather than a percentage for scaling and don't forget to tick the box keep the aspect ratio the same when resizing. Set the 'zoom' on your photo program to 1:1 and check you are happy with the overall size.

When you save your 750x500 (approx) image as a JPG you may find that the file size comes out bigger than 320kb (viewed in your computer's file browser) . If this happens, keep the image open in your paint program and please don't reduce the image size (in pixels). What you need to do is find the JPG quality setting, reduce the quality a little a bit and try saving it again.

Depending on the your photo editing software, it may describe such a reduction in different ways. It may be part of the Save As dialog box, or may be an option hidden away in the File Save Preferences. You probably want a number value of about 80 to 90, or it may be called 'High' or 'Medium' quality. This may need some experimentation to get the right level of JPG compression. This only affects the copy you are saving, you should keep a larger, high quality version of your image as well.

Other things to try before saving your final photo:

For scans from film it can help to sharpen the image slightly. Don't do overboard though, back off if it starts to look too grainy. Digital cameras usually sharpen their images as part of the picture taking process, so don't feel guilty about doing this.

Other things to try are to increase the colour saturation a small amount (don't go mad!), adjust gamma correction, or perhaps the contrast. Don't be tempted to fiddle too much though as sickly green grass won't impress anyone. If you follow these tips, you should amaze yourself with the improvement.

Finally, always save a high-res version of your image, and keep a back-up of it on recordable CD or somewhere. If you have forgotten to do this, do 'Undo' a few times to get back to your larger image and then save this before you close your paint program. You never know, a publisher may want to use your image and you could end up earning a few quid from your hobby. (See our separate FAQ item about selling photographs.)