Cache images locally file limits

[Hexsplosions]

I have local image caching enabled in order to preserve full SSL.

Recently a member tried to post an image that was hosted externally. The member could not get the image to work, no matter how many times he tried. It appeared to load in the editor when the image URL was pasted, however upon submitting the image it failed to load and showed only a broken image icon.

Testing has shown that remote images that exceed the max file size for uploads will fail to be posted, even though they appear to work, at first, in the editor. This is extremely confusing for users as they may not know the remotely linked image needs to conform to file size limits, and nor should they as they are, as far as they're concerned, linking to a remote image... They are not uploading it.

I'd suggest one of three methods for dealing with this;

1. Reduce the image size through compression when it is cached locally, with preferences to be set by the site administrator. The preferences would be extremely important as I may, as an admin, wish to control the compression to preserve quality. (e.g. for a photography forum, this would be critical.)
2. Ignore file upload size limits.
3. Notify users of the limit when it is first loaded into the editor, so they know it will fail.

#3 is my least favoured approach. It would not be user friendly. If the image is hosted remotely, we'd be forcing users to download the image only to re-upload it... That may breach certain laws depending upon the country and the licence for the image.