How To? Prepare images for posting in threads.

[Mr Grumpy]

To post Images in your threads requires a little bit of preparation on your part, in this help guide i am using Windows XP and the PAINT program.

1) When an image that you want to save is on your screen, press the "Print Screen" button (usually on the right of the F12 Key on a standard 102 key keyboard).
2)You then need to open a picture editing program. Windows provides a generic program called PAINT. It is accessed by clicking on your START button and choosing ACCESSORIES at the top of your programs list.

3) Once PAINT has opened to a blank screen, choose the EDIT and then PASTE option.

4) Now you'll need to cut away the unneeded extra parts of the images and only save the part that you wish to display. This is called cropping, but PAINT labels it "cut".
5) Click on the irregular shape box at top corner to create a "cut box" you do this by left clicking on the image and still holding the left mouse button down drag the box out.

6) Now choose CUT from the Edit menu...

..your image will vanish, but the stuff you don't want will remain behind!

7) Simply go to the FILE menu at the top and choose NEW, don't save the old stuff, and EDIT> PASTE your cut image on the new sheet.

8) You can play about with the tools and colour features to place arrows and text etc...to your image.


9) Go to the top menu again and choose FILE and SAVE AS

and a box will open asking you a) where to save it to (in this case My Pictures) b) what you want to name your picture and c) what type of picture format you wish to use.

I always use the .JPG format as they are a)16 million colours and are larger in size but clearer and brighter and b)acceptable by most forums.

10) Now you can continue back to your game and grab another screen shot and repeat the process for each one you take.

** NOTE: you can only take 1 screen shot at a time, taking 2 of them will erase the 1st one, unless you paste it into your picture editing program, prior to taking the next one.**

When you have your pictures and are ready to put them in a thread/post on the forums you will need to "host" them on the web, see Help Guide #2 My Files (in the announcements area) for the next step.