Guide: Posting Screenshots on the forums

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the bazookas
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Guide: Posting Screenshots on the forums

Post by the bazookas »

This is the easiest and quickest way to post your screenshots using the forum's upload attachment option. (note that using imagehosting sites like photobucket can be quicker and results in a better post in general--I briefly describe that process below).

Why post pictures? Because it spices a post up immeasurably, and is particularly useful in the case of selling something (and makes a "selling" post fun to look at, since many of us (like myself) aren't interested in OWNING rares, but I do like to SEE what people have).

If you want to add a picture that is somewhere on the web, you need to navigate to the website with the picture, right click the picture, and select "Copy Image URL" or "Copy Link Location" or whatever the equivalent is for your browser. Then in your forum post, do the following (as an example, I will use a picture I uploaded to photobucket):

Code: Select all

[img]http://i1267.photobucket.com/albums/jj549/theBazookas/IDOCevent/5-1.jpg[/img]
which results in this:
Image
The best way to post screenshots involves uploading the images to an imagehosting site like photobucket.com, and then using those images' link locations like that in order to show them in your post. Furthermore, doing it this way does not limit the file size to 256KB (although you are still limited in the picture size to something like 1300x1300, or something like that).

But, without further ado: how to post using the Forum's built-in attachment system.

Step 1:

Open your UO client / inventory such that on your screen is a nice picture of what you would like to sell. Try to put them all in a relatively small area of the screen if possible (since there is a limit on how big your file size can be when you upload an attachment)

Step 2:

EITHER
Press the Print Screen button (located in the top right corner of the keyboard)
===OR===
Go to the Screen Shots tab in Razor and press the "Take Screen Shot Now" button (BUT be careful not to obscure the region of interest in your UO window with any other window (including razor) as these will end up in the screen shot). If you use this option, skip to Step 4 (the second part)

Step 3:

open mspaint (if you are on windows 7, press the Windows Key and type "paint" <ENTER>. If you are on Windows XP, open the Start Menu, select "Run" and type "mspaint" <ENTER>

Step 4:

go to Edit->Paste in mspaint
===OR===
IF you used Razor to take the screenshot, open Windows Explorer (hold the Windows key on the keyboard and press E), navigate to the C: where you will have C:\Program Files and possibly C:\Program Files (x86). If you see the (x86) option, then open that folder, otherwise open the normal Program Files folder. Open the Razor\ScreenShots folder. This is where your picture will be, right click the one you just took and select "Edit" (this should open paint for you). In paint, press Ctrl A in order to "select all"--this will get you to the exact same point that you would be at if you had followed the Print Screen key steps, so continue to Step 5.

Step 5:

left click and drag the newly pasted (or selected) substance to the upper-left until only what you want to display appears in the image. Then scroll over to the bottom right edge of your "canvas" and left click somewhere outside of the pasted (or selected) substance. You should see a little square "handle" on the bottom right corner of the canvas. click and drag that, incrementally stepping the bounds of your canvas until you have cut out everything except what you want to show the fine people of UOSA.

Step 6:

go to File->Save, and make sure to select .jpg in the "Save as type" window. Save it somewhere where you know where it is.

Step 7:

When you are creating your forum post, scroll down from where you enter the text, and you will see "Upload attachment". Assuming you cropped the image to an acceptable size (<256KB), you should have no trouble first selecting the "choose file" button (and selecting the new file) and then pressing the "Add the file" button. If the picture is too big, you need to make it smaller by following the previous steps.

BONUS FEATURE: using inline attachments
If you want to have the pictures appear at certain places WITHIN your post (rather than all at the end), then use the "Place inline" button after you have Added the file, and it will pop up something like this:

Code: Select all

[attachment=0]3.JPG[/attachment]
Which, would result in the picture...
3.JPG
appearing in the middle of my post like so. (NOTE that this particular picture was edited by me in paint to be several small pictures with black between them, so I can fit more pictures in a single file). As you can see, it is not as nice as the image hosted elsewhere and linked to using the "img" tag, but this approach doesn't require you to make an account on photobucket or anything like that (which is a plus), and it still gets the job done. If you are interested in posting "Tales of Adventure", I would highly recommend using something like photobucket for obvious reasons.

There are almost certainly better programs to crop / edit your screenshots with than paint, but with a little practice, you can do it very quickly in paint.
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Re: Guide: Posting Screenshots on the forums

Post by Hicha »

Excellent post, bazooka!

If you are using Windows Vista/7, you can also use the Snipping Tool to take quick screencaps in just four steps:

1. Open the Snipping Tool (Click Start, type Snip and if its the first item listed, just hit Enter.)
snip_01.jpg
snip_01.jpg (18.5 KiB) Viewed 3328 times
2. As soon as it opens, it will active mode: simply select the section of screen you want to take a screenshot of. If you aren't ready, you can click Cancel and reposition the window(s) then restart by clicking New again.
snip_02.jpg
snip_02.jpg (91.99 KiB) Viewed 3328 times
3. Once you've selected your area, release the mouse selection and it will automatically crop the image and prepare it for you. At this point, simply click File from the Menu Bar, then select Save As and save the picture to a convenient place for you to upload it from. Default format is .png, you can change it to .gif or .jpg as well, depending on file size.
snip_03.jpg
snip_03.jpg (76.6 KiB) Viewed 3328 times
4. Attach the image using the Upload Attachment option when creating your post on the forums. Viola, pictures with your post!
snip_04.jpg
snip_04.jpg (22.39 KiB) Viewed 3328 times
Image
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the bazookas
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Re: Guide: Posting Screenshots on the forums

Post by the bazookas »

Great addition, Hicha! I GMed my mspaint paint skill about 10 years ago, and it's hard to decide to drop that skill in favor of a new one ;), but I'll have to give the snipping tool a try.
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Re: Guide: Posting Screenshots on the forums

Post by Soma »

the bazookas wrote:Great addition, Hicha! I GMed my mspaint paint skill about 10 years ago, and it's hard to decide to drop that skill in favor of a new one ;), but I'll have to give the snipping tool a try.
PrntScreen and MSPaint is era accurate, anything else is heresy.
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Re: Guide: Posting Screenshots on the forums

Post by nightshark »

I have my in game screenshot set to PrtScr because I always forget to paste my crap :P
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Re: Guide: Posting Screenshots on the forums

Post by rouss »

Thanks for your efforts, always a pleasure to read :wink:

But. You see the problem with all these 3rd party services is that they are not as reliable and you're always in danger that your pics can be lost - these services are free and dont guarantee anything to you.

Perhaps we could persuade Derrick to roll out our own image board so that all the history can be preserved? :)
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Re: Guide: Posting Screenshots on the forums

Post by Spatuule »

Bazooka, FYI, this is GM mspaint:
Image

Based on this, I'd say we're about neophyte mspaint users...

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Re: Guide: Posting Screenshots on the forums

Post by the bazookas »

Spatuule wrote:Based on this, I'd say we're about neophyte mspaint users...
Impressive ;). However, just as I would argue a "grandmaster" modern artist has as much skill as a monkey who simply throws paint at a canvas (we're all entitled to our opinion, of course), I believe there are different avenues of "skill" in art; it cannot be lumped into a single definition (unfortunately for those like myself who are more apt to appreciate more "objective" subjects such as mathematics and physics... not that I can't appreciate art, but good art is, by nature, subjective).

And arguably, I think MSPaint is SUCH a nuts and bolts image editor that the best skill you should have with it is to take other images and put them together in a ridiculous way that is obviously "MSPaint" quality, which can be done in a matter of minutes with (generally) comical results (of course, that is subjective ;) ).

For example:
gmpaint.jpg
gmpaint.jpg (169.38 KiB) Viewed 3246 times
Arguably GIMP / photoshop could get the same results (more polished, of course), but you don't want to give up that MSPaint quality; it's part of what makes an MSPaint masterpiece. Just my opinion, of course ;)
Most people like us, or at least they like what we do. Regardless, we appreciate all our victims, and we hope that their encounter with us is a memorable one.
-a machine gun, a bazooka, and a grenade
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Re: Guide: Posting Screenshots on the forums

Post by Spatuule »

Hahahaha, nice one!
I agree with you on the unique/cheesy character of Ms paint, and dont get me wrong, i LOVE paint, wouldnt have made it through university without it!

...but you still ain't GM... :lol:

"MS Paint, turning great pictures into fucking awesome pictures"

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the bazookas
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Re: Guide: Posting Screenshots on the forums

Post by the bazookas »

I'm afraid that we, as MSPaint connoisseur's of differing schools of thought, will never agree upon what makes a Grandmaster! Or perhaps we must define which aspect of MSPaint that you are "Grandmaster"ing...
Regardless, this debate is nothing new... as I mentioned previously, I think what determines who is a Grandmaster is subjective:

Here is my subjective analysis of various works of art / their respective artists:

Herman Nitsch: Grandmaster at scamming people out of buttloads of money in exchange for worthless crap:
Image

C.M. Coolidge: Grandmaster of fine art:
Image

(too lazy to look up artist's name): Grandmaster of using the wrong tool to painstakingly generate fine art (and by default, Grandmaster of fine art):
Image

the bazookas: Grandmaster of using MSPaint in the only reasonable way--i.e. to create comical (often satirical) intentionally low-quality pieces of art from pieces of other pictures in a matter of minutes.
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gmpaint.jpg
gmpaint.jpg (169.38 KiB) Viewed 3242 times
Most people like us, or at least they like what we do. Regardless, we appreciate all our victims, and we hope that their encounter with us is a memorable one.
-a machine gun, a bazooka, and a grenade
... a not-for-profit organization (usually)

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Re: Guide: Posting Screenshots on the forums

Post by Light Shade »

Nice. (+1)
Image
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