on chrome it downloads it, on FF it downloads it, and on IE i get the smiley on the browser.  Now if someone else has different results, then it has to be a local browser setting.  Maybe DB can give it a shot see how it does for him. 

Same results as Dave with FireFox, and IE

P.S. My FireFox settings for PNG files is set to "Always Ask". This is probably default for the browser since I have never changed it.

It depends on the headers that are sent to the browser when requesting the image. Here's another image I have on my site that I manually set the headers for, it will open directly in the browser:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/...84f461d5af0493c9.jpg

I'm mostly wondering if this is an Oxwall thing not correctly sending the info to Amazon S3, or if it's my installation just poopin' up.

Not sure. I did a quick search, and found out pretty quick that FireFox, and probably Chrome as well can't translate png files. They require an external application to view it. There's not a "Preview in FireFox" option for PNG files.
The jpg link opened fine in both FireFox and IE.

Here's a .png example where I manually edited the meta data:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/...5-newsfeed-votes.png

Check this link. I think it mentions some of the things you are talking about.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2265122

That last png opened fine in FireFox for me.

same here FF and on chrome as well :)

The thread I posted mentions something about broken php that may be the issue,and not the browser settings. I didn't read the whole thread, but it seamed to possibly be related.

I don't ever play with meta data on photos, i guess maybe im behind the times or just uninformed on that aspect but early in my career i guess i got the impression it was overkill and always felt that way since.  Of course if it works thats great, im just not that informed on it so i dont mess with it. 

Quote from Darryl B Check this link. I think it mentions some of the things you are talking about.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2265122

Yep, seems they had the content-disposition set as attachment, which make the user save the image instead of view it inline in the browser. The problem with Oxwall uploads is that it doesn't have any default meta data attached at all, so it's automatically opened outside of the browser.

Quote from dave I don't ever play with meta data on photos, i guess maybe im behind the times or just uninformed on that aspect but early in my career i guess i got the impression it was overkill and always felt that way since.  Of course if it works thats great, im just not that informed on it so i dont mess with it. 

Definitely would stay away from it myself, but it's a bit strange for users when they click on "view image" and it pops up a download instead of showing it inside of the browser. I feel this is also not good for SEO, as Google/search engines won't view the images inline via URL, it'll try to make the search engines download the image, thus not rank it or display it in image searches. I seem to be able to manually edit them to display inline, but that method literally means doing so with every image that's uploaded, instead of automatically via Oxwall upload.

is this new with 1.8.3 ?  have you noticed this before or just recently, interesting.. 

Could be something Ross can bring to the attention of the Dev team to work into the roadmap. It's a good find, and may not have been thought of.

And your using the standard photo view right brian, not a third party plugin but the core photo viewer?

i am testing this now with the forum on my test site 

Yep, this has actually been happening all the time, but it's only now become an issue as the site gets more popular. I do believe it has to do with Oxwall not sending the meta data over to Amazon S3, since the meta data is taken from the origin during image upload.

This is standard image view with the forum plugin, when inserting images into a post. As another example, if you right click on the image in my first post in this topic, click on "View Image," it will open up in your browser. Using Amazon S3 as Oxwall storage, it makes you download the image instead of opening it inline.

ok so i inserted an image using the forum tool bar icon, and im looking at my image. How can i view the image other than in the forum post?  Even if i click on the image itself nothing happens

unless i do right click properties and get the url

Quote from dave ok so i inserted an image using the forum tool bar icon, and im looking at my image. How can i view the image other than in the forum post?  Even if i click on the image itself nothing happens

unless i do right click properties and get the url

Right click and "View Image." Or use the "Preview" option instead of full size. But the issue isn't necessarily that the image doesn't display on the forum, it's that the direct link attempts a download instead of a hotlink (which is preferable for SEO reasons and when users want to share an image elsewhere using its direct link, without downloading it).