literarydiscussions.myfreeforum.org

Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

GIMP is a free image editing tool.

I have volunteered to capture screen shots of all available skins/styles at myfreeforum.org.

The screen shots are to be saved as JPEG .jpg files.

shift PRINT SCREEN will cut the entire screen image into the past buffer.
Then you open a new file in GIMP and paste that image.
Next, save the image to disk. Finally, you will at some point use the iJPEG optimizer to reduce each image from its approximately 150kb size down to 30kb, which is what myfreeforum.org wants to conserve band width and disk space.

I downloaded everything in haste, and did not save the urls that I used

Here is the main GIMP site

http://www.gimp.org/

Here is one of many tutorials on GIMP

http://www.mozillaquest.com/OpenS...oto-Edit-Tutorial-03_Story01.html

GIMP is free and Photoshop costs $700 so many people prefer to learn and use GIMP.

Here is the link to get the free JPEG optimizer

http://www.fullyregistered.com/jpeg.htm

Here is an FAQ page on GIMP

http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/faq.html

It has a link for download install. The installation is two phase. First, you install some kind of runtime environment (Gnu I think). Next, you install GIMP itself.

After I have installed the runtime, GIMP, and the iJPEG Optimizer (to reduce file sizes), here is how I proceed.

I start GIMP running so it is in my tray. I log in as admin to styles.myfreeforum.org. I go to configuration and pick the first style (Acid) and SAVE/UPDATE. I return to the main forum index, which now has the Acid style. I park my cursor in the lower right of the screen, so I will not be in the way. I press SHIFT Print Screen (at top right of keyboard). This will paste the entire window screen image into the buffer. Then, I click on GIMP in my tray, to restore it. Then, I click on FILE in GIMP, and place my cursor over ACQUIRE. I click on ACQUIRE from paste buffer. This creates a new GIMP file of the screen image. Finally, I do a save as to save it as JPEG (.jpg) in my folder on C: which I called 0gimpstyles (the 0 keeps it at the top of any directory listing).

Then, I minimize GIMP, return to Admin configuration, select the next style (in this case, after acid is actionpoint), and then I repeat all the above steps. Once I have all the images, I will load the iJPEG optimizer one by one with each image, and drag the optimize slide bar until it has been redused to appx. 30Kbytes. Finally, I do a SAVE AS.

It took me a while to figure out iJPEG optimizer, but there are options which you can set to optimize to 32kbyte as default, and you can load an entire batch of images, and then save them to a WORKINGDIR in one fell swoop. So that is a time saver.

It is the odded thing, however, that all the images which GIMP saved, which were supposedly in JPEG format, did not seem to have the proper endings (.jpg) so I had to go to dos window, enter the dir in question, and issue the dos command ren *.* *.jpg to globally rename all files with the proper suffix.

Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

I am learning some new skills with GIMP. I am learning to crop the screen shot to remove the browser. Then, I use the TEXT function to add the file name to the image in the upper right hand corner.

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