In order to embed a photo into a forum post, one needs to first have a photo hosting site on which to store the photos that one will use for forums.  The hosting site is one that will need to have the ability to "copy and paste" an address at the hosting site that can then be posted within the body of the text in the message field.

While I am not knowledgeable of all that definitely have that ability, I can say that Smugmug and Photobucket definitely have that ability.  I'm reasonably certain that Picasa and perhaps Webshots may as well.  Since I am not familiar with every format on the various possible sites, I can demonstrate a bit with Photobucket.

When one has a single photo viewing in the photo hosting site of Photobucket, off to the right of the photo is an area that includes various types of links that can be used for posting either a link or a photo.  The area on Photobucket looks like this:

The second "field" with an address in that "box" is entitled "Direct Link."  That url address can be clicked on with the mouse and it copies that address, when is then "pasted" into the message body, and would look like this:

https://i1190.photobucket.com/albums/z458/TerryandJo/Images%20for%20Forum%20Post/ImageLinksatPhotobucket_zpsfb08e122.jpg

That link when clicked on would take a viewer to the photobucket site to view the photo.  (See "Inserting Links into Forum Posts" in the "Forum Tips" category of the to see the proper way to create links.)

The bottom "field" with an address in the above "box" is entitled "IMG Code" and is the url address to click (and thus copy) for embedding the image itself into the message area.

One very important thing is to make sure that the photos that one places on a photo hosting site is not too large.  With today's high megapixel cameras, it is easy to have that happen.  So, one should resize one's images BEFORE posting them to the photo hosting site.

After the url address links are pasted into the body of the message, one should then use the "Show Preview" button located under the "message field" to see if one's image is too large for the forum "page."  If the image is too large, it will force the "page" to be wider and create a "scrolling bar" at the bottom of the browser that can be used to view the entire image.  The "forcing" of the forum page to be wider to accomodate the photo will force everyone viewing any portion of the forum thread to have to "scroll" right and left even to read the text of the messages that do not contain photos.

If the image is too large, one can either delete the photo from the hosting site and then resize if before re-posting it, or one can use the "Direct Link" method and allow the viewer to see the photo at the photo hosting site instead of viewing it in the body of the message itself.

Since it is a policy on the RV Dreams forums to be polite and tasteful, no inappropriate images will be allowed to stay on the forums, either as a link to the hosting site or as an embedded image in the message area.  Also, since we try to refrain from discussing politics and religion, keep that in mind when posting a link to an image or the image itself.

Thanks for adhering to this guideline.