OT: Help with posting screen shots

Hi all,

I was trying to post a question about an error message I'm getting when trying to start RS Emulate 500, but when I paste a screenshot of the dialog box and preview post, it tells me that I have way too many characters in the post.

How do I make my screenshots small enough to fit the post requirements?

Thanks,
Dustin

bmacattack33 said:

Hi all,

I was trying to post a question about an error message I'm getting when trying to start RS Emulate 500, but when I paste a screenshot of the dialog box and preview post, it tells me that I have way too many characters in the post.

How do I make my screenshots small enough to fit the post requirements?

Thanks,
Dustin

Click to expand...

You can use paint to resize your screnshots

I like Paint.net. It is like paint on steroids, but not as complex to use as say photoshop.

Paint.net adds layers and many other tools which can be really handy if you want to be able to overlay comments on a screenshot, and then be able to move them or toggle them off and on without disturbing the original.

I recommend, cropping your drawings as much as possible without destroying readability too. If it is narrow enough to fit in the default typical browser screen width on the forum, then it makes side scrolling unnecessary. When a thread gets long and there is a wide picture in the middle of it, you end up having to side scroll to be able to read all the posts...a bit irritating IMO.

Also, with paint or paint.net, save the file as a png or jpg for use on the forum. Paint.net gives you a preview screen that will let you adjust the quality to reduce filesize right before you do a "Save As...". It also lets you adjust the image size by percent, inches, or pixels and you can choose to keep aspect ratio too, so you can quickly make quality screenshots that fit the forum nicely.

One of these days when I am all caught up and bored (perhaps 2014) I will try to whip out an instruction set or video of some tricks I like to use with paint.net

http://www.getpaint.net/

jara said:

You can use paint to resize your screnshots

Click to expand...

I had tried that. I pasted s.s. in paint, then cropped it down until it was all but unreadable, but the forum still said I was at about 12000 characters. I was just re-copy/pasting, though. I'll try saving the cropped screen shot as a png or jpg like Okie suggested.

Thanks for help, guys

Are you trying to paste your image directly into the text entry box? Some browsers will let you do that but the forum software wont. I just tried it and I could paste a screen shot into the post text box and get the same error message you got.

The right way to attach an image to a post is to first save the image as a jpeg or png file and then go to the advanced posting screen. Scroll down below the text entry box and you'll see a button called Attach files. Click it and a popup will appear that will enable you to browse to the saved image file on your computer and then upload and attach it to your post.

Thanks, Alaric

Yeah I had been trying to paste directly into the text box. I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me to attach the s.s. as a jpg. I've used that feature for zip files several times.

Oh well I learned something new today.

I use this "MWSnap",very simple.

http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html

I am a fan of FastStone Capture for screenshots. The annotation/highlighting editor is also nifty. I have it loaded onto a USB stick for portable screenshot capturing.

And, one additional vote for PNG format. I've found that it gives you the best compromise between file size and readability once things are posted to the Forum. JPG often blurs details when you use it with a screenshot.

This is one of the neat things about the Forum; one question, and a half-dozen answers !

LoL. (sorry couldn't resist)

The issue here ain't the picture, the format or the program used to capture it.
Ever tried opening a picture in notepad?
That's what you're doing when pasting it in the text box.
The site doesn't recognize it as a picture and thus counts it as characters, which results in an error saying you're over the max amount of characters.

Also, never use .bmp as it bloats the file. Don't use .jpg as it creates artifacts. Rather use .png. Smaller filesize and no artifacts.

Here is a test of 2 images created from the same screenshot using paint,
one is a .png and the other is a .gif
Gif is smaller but poor detail compared to Png.
This png is 160KB and the gif is 117KB

Ok 1 image at a time.
here is the gif file

And here is the png:

The maximum filesize for us plebian members is 300KB.
If you want to upload larger files it seems you must pay.

Liam Moran said:

If you want to upload larger files it seems you must pay.

Click to expand...

I prefer the term Donate

Mark

MarkNightingale said:

I prefer the term Donate

Mark

Click to expand...

These servers do consume electricity This one blew my mind!
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Cloud-Comp...er-Consumption-Carbon-Footprint-Stats-874498/