Uploading pictures to Facebook on SmartPhones

I know that at 22 years young I’m not exactly old, but I’ve been on this planet long enough to have seen some pretty cool advances in technology. My first phone was a Nokia brick with a single-color LCD display. I could make calls and play “Snake,” and that was it. Not long after I was tickled silly by a phone that could take pictures. Who’dathunk a phone could take pictures, too? Not I, that’s for darn sure. My current phone is a Motorola running Google’s Android mobile operating system. Actually, it’s not just a phone, it’s a smartphone. It’s got a full keyboard with real buttons and a touch-screen display. (And there’s another thing right there- I never thought I’d have a phone with a touchscreen!) It can take pictures and videos, get email (I currently have three email accounts synced), surf the web, play games, tell me where I am if I’m lost, tell me the weather, tell me where the nearest sushi place is and much, much more. Oh and it makes calls, too.

But I rarely use my phone as a phone. I mainly use to check Facebook and play Angry Birds. I normally use the phone’s web browser for Facebook, but I also have the nifty little Facebook for Android app installed, as well. From there I can do anything I can do on a computer, including upload any photos and videos stored on my phone. If I take a picture with my phone and I want to show it off to all my friends, I can, with a few deft swipes of the finger, send that photo to Facebook. It’s quick and it’s easy. For an Android phone (and, I’m sure, for many others as well), here’s how to get a picture to Facebook. Get your phones ready!

If you don’t have the Facebook app installed on your phone, download it for free from the Android market.

There are many ways to upload a picture. Here’s the easy way, assuming you have an existing picture you want to upload.

1. Open the Facebook app.
2. On your newsfeed, near the top, will be a gray bar with three buttons. The middle one says “Photo”. Tap it.
3. When the upload window pops up, pick “Photo.”
4. If you haven’t taken the picture yet, select “Capture a photo.” This will open your camera so you can take a picture. If you already have a picture you’d like to upload, skip to Step 8.
5. Take a picture, and if you like it, tap “Done.”
6. In the next window, you can, if you want, type in a witty caption, tag friends and tag a place.
7. Finally, tap “Post” to post.
8. If you have an existing photo you’d like to upload, tap “Choose from gallery.”
9. Select your photo. After that, you can tag people, places, and do whatever else you wish to do.
10. Finally, tap “Post” to post it.

You can also upload a photo without first opening the Facebook app. This is more of a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing.

Let’s say you’re walking down the street and you spot Derek Jeter. In a fit of excitement you grab your phone and snap a picture. Now you want to send it to Facebook. How do you do it?

1. After you take Jeter’s picture, tap the little icon in the lower-left corner of the screen, which kind of looks like a little stack of photographs. The “top-most” picture is the one you most recently took. After you tap the stack, your gallery will appear.
2. Tap the picture you want to upload. It will appear on screen, along with some icons.
3. Along the bottom of the picture, look for the share icon, which is a little ball with arrows in a “v” shape on top. Tap it.
4. A list of methods to share the photo will appear. Scroll until you find the option to share with Facebook. Should be at or near the bottom of the list.
5. Select to share with Facebook.
6. On the next screen, you will be able to create a witty caption, tag friends, and tag a location.
7. Then, tap “Post” and presto! Your photo will be uploaded.

Here’s a little bit on “tagging”: It’s the same thing as on the computer version of Facebook. If you want to tag a person with your photo, tap the people-tagging icon and a list of your friends will pop up. Type the name of the friend(s) you want to tag and select them. The little checkbox on the right next to their name should turn green. If you want to tag a place, click the location icon- that little tear-drop icon- and a list of places nearby will appear. It might take a few seconds to accumulate the list. Then just tap the place you want to tag. If it doesn’t show up, you can type it in in the little search bar and select it that way.

So now you’re ready to share!

About the Author Dek Wright:

Dek Wright, the son of DeckerWright Corp's head honcho Marshall Wright, is a third-year engineering student at the University of New Orleans studying Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering. During the summers, Dek works at DeckerWright Corp and has recently begun writing suspenseful, compelling tales for the DWC e-Newsletter and blog.

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