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Screen Capture
(Crop an image using Microsoft PAINT)
Screen Capture:
Microsoft's PAINT is not the most sophisticated program to use for image editing, but it is a program everyone with a Windows operating system owns. PAINT does not have fancy filters to improve image quality, but it works fine for simply cropping a photo and is sometimes the only program that will accept a "screen capture" (a "screen capture" is an image of what you see on your monitor screen).
Crop a Photo:
If you want to crop an existing image, open the file in PAINT (FILE / OPEN) after step 2 (reducing the canvas size) and skip steps 3 and 4:
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Open the PAINT program:
START / All Programs / Accessories / Paint.
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Reduce the size of the canvas to postage-stamp size - this ensures that your canvas is not larger than your cropped image in step 8:
DRAG by dragging the lower right handle (hover mouse over lower right corner until you see double-arrow, click and hold your left mouse button and drag the handle up and toward the left to make the white canvas small) It's actually easier in PAINT to use the Image Menu for resizing the canvas:
USE MENU: Click Image / Attributes - in the Attributes window, click pixels as the unit and type 81 in Width and Height boxes (or click inches as the unit of measure and type 1 in Width and Height boxes) for a one-inch square canvas. You only have to do this once (it becomes the default canvas size).
Use the Image menu to resize canvas:
Attributes window:
Open an image on your computer to crop (FILE / OPEN) and skip to step 5
(or continue to step 3 for a screen capture).
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Go to your browser window (example: Internet Explorer) and navigate to the web page where the image you want to copy is located. Scroll if necessary so the entire section of the page you want to capture is visible on your screen. Press the Print Screen button on your keyboard (top row after F12 key).
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Go back to the PAINT window and PASTE your screen capture onto the canvas (EDIT / PASTE or CTRL+V).
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Click the SELECT icon on PAINT’s toolbox (the rectangle with dotted-line border - it's highlighted on the image above) and select the portion of the image you want to crop: click and hold down the left mouse button while you drag diagonally to create your selection. If your first selection is not good, press the ESC key on keyboard to de-select and try again (the escape key [ESC] is on the top row before F1 key).
NOTE: PAINT does not have re-sizing handles to adjust your selection - if you drag the handles on a paint selection you will re-size that portion of the IMAGE, not the selection box.
When you are happy with your selection:
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COPY your selection (EDIT / COPY or CTRL+C)
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Create a new PAINT file (FILE / NEW or CTRL+N). Say NO when PAINT asks if you want to “Save changes to ...?”
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PASTE your selection into the new postage-stamp size canvas that appears (EDIT / PASTE or CTRL+V) - the canvas will automatically adjust to the size of your pasted image.
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SAVE your cropped image (FILE / SAVE or SAVE AS). Save as a JPEG file type for web display (use drop down arrow next to the "Save as type" box under the "File name" box). If you are going to print the image, save as a bitmap file type (bitmap is the default file type setting in PAINT - select 256 colors if it is a photograph - 16-24 colors for clip art or something with very few colors).
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IMPORTANT: Many images published on web pages have copyrights which do not allow use without a license. However there are also a lot of public domain and creative commons images you may copy for use. Always check the website for specific conditions and copyrights.
You can usually just right-click an image and select "Save Image As..."
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Pixel Perfect Websites:
State Symbols USA
Nonprofit educational website - 1 million page views per month
Travel Agency Website
CMS website - Agency now
manages site.
Gift Basket Website
A Yahoo! hosted e-commerce online store. Owner now updates the website.
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