Setting WPs featured image to photo hosted on smugmug?

jemostrom

I continue to play around with Smugmug and I'm currently trying to figure out if I can use photos hosted on smugmug on my WP blog. Using photos in posts are no problem except featured photos. Does anyone know if it's possible to use a "smugmug photo" as a featured photo for a post.

Allen

I would think you can use a simple img tag in html.
<img src="get photo link from Smug using 'Share' > 'Get a Link'" />

If you want it to open the photo in lightbox add this around it.

<a href="gallery link of lightbox photo">above photo link</a>

I add the target in mine so it opens in another window or tab. This way they don't lose my blog.
...-XL.jpg" target="_blank">

example here http://blog.photosbyat.com/2014/05/524-connecticut-warbler.html
All links are from Smug.
What code looks like. Here I just open the photo without linking back to the gallery.

<a href="http://www.photosbyat.com/photos/i-Fbs66mD/1/XL/IMG_2103_7D2-1-XL.jpg" 
     target="_blank">
<img src="http://www.photosbyat.com/photos/i-Fbs66mD/1/Th/IMG_2103_7D2-1-Th.jpg"
     alt="Connecticut Warbler" title="Connecticut Warbler" />
</a>

Make sure you use the alt and title tags if you want web search to find it.

jemostrom

Yes, this works well but I was thinking about the featured image for the post (I want to use some features different themes have)

Allen

Not familiar with WP blogs but is this feature image used on like an index of blog posts?
And WP just grabs a random image from each post?

jemostrom

Yep, something like an index image but it's up to the theme to make use of this (or not). You set this image yourself (or install a plugin/theme that grabs the first image).

colourbox

jemostrom wrote: »

Yes, this works well but I was thinking about the featured image for the post (I want to use some features different themes have)

I have used Wordpress for some time, and while I wouldn't call myself an expert, I cannot find a way to do what you're asking. The problem is that Wordpress image features, as far as I can tell, want very very much to work with images stored in the Wordpress database for your site.

For example, if you try to build a gallery of Smugmug photos using Wordpress gallery features, you'll find that the gallery will only use images uploaded into your Wordpress installation. There is no provision for using remotely hosted images with Wordpress features. You may find that the Media Library lets you add images by URL, but what is going to happen is those images will be copied into the Wordpress site, meaning those copies are now cut off from all Smugmug image management features.

As far as I have been able to tell, it's the same situation with Feature images. I've never seen a way to use an external image as a Feature image, so for Wordpress theme capabilities that only work with Feature images I gave up and imported copies of the Smugmug photos into that Wordpress site.

As Allen said it is certainly possible to display Smugmug images on a Wordpress page using raw HTML and I have done that extensively, because I'd much rather manage images with Smugmug than with Wordpress. But when you manually insert an IMG url into custom HTML, Wordpress will not recognize those images for any Wordpress-specific features as far as I can tell.

As I said I am not a Wordpress expert, so I hope I am wrong. Because if someone can show us how to use externally referenced images for Feature images and other Wordpress-managed image capabilities, I sure would like to know too.

Hikin' Mike

jemostrom wrote: »

I continue to play around with Smugmug and I'm currently trying to figure out if I can use photos hosted on smugmug on my WP blog. Using photos in posts are no problem except featured photos. Does anyone know if it's possible to use a "smugmug photo" as a featured photo for a post.

No you can't. The only way to use the WordPress' Featured Image is to upload that image to your WP database.