Microsoft Paint Tips and Tricks

Microsoft Paint comes with Microsoft Windows, but many people don't bother to use the package, which is

fair enough if you require more complex features.

However if you are a content writer or a website administrator, then you probably don't need Adobe PhotoShop or similar expensive packages.

Sure there is always the Gimp, which is a fantastic free application, plus other great packages, but this article gives you some nifty tips and tricks for Microsoft Paint, you might find useful.

Remove unwanted pixels from an image.

Logos and avatars often get resized when being used on a website, social networking accounts, blog commenting and in forums amongst other places.

Unfortunately sometimes the image is too highly compressed, resulting in unwanted pixels. It is though easy to remove unwanted pixels in many instances, such as around logos.

All you need to do is open the image, then from the 'View' menu option select 'Zoom' followed by 'Custom' followed by a high zoom such as 800%.

Now from the toolbox on the left select the 'Pick Color' tool, select a colour you wish to use, then select the 'Pencil' tool and click on an unwanted pixel.

Convert between Inches, Cm and Pixels.

It is easy enough to remember 2.54 centimetres is an inch, but then in the world of computing you often use pixels. So regardless of whether you are working with an image, else a document or have another need for a conversion, Paint can help out.

From the 'Image' menu select 'Attributes'. Then select inches, cm or pixel and type in your number ready to convert, and then select the type of measurement you will to convert to.

How to send a screenshot to a technical support firm.

Often remote technical support will ask you to email a screenshot.

Often people don't know how, else the technical support firm receive Microsoft Word documents with small awkward screenshots to work with. Again Paint can help.

When you need to take a screenshot press the 'Print Screen / Prnt Scrn' button on your keyboard. Then in Pain select 'Paste' from the 'Edit' menu. You should then save the image as a 'JPEG' image.

Perform a simple image resize.Using the Gimp software is far superior for image resizing,

but often you might want to resize one image for a blog post or page.

Using Paint you can perform a basic image resize, if you are not too bothered about using specific dimensions.

For example to reduce an image size by 50% you can select 'Resize / Skew', from the 'Image' menu, then type in 50 in the Horizontal and Vertical settings.

This is far better than uploading a huge image into a website, then resizing server side, as it will impact website performance in the long run. So best resize and make 'web friendly' before uploading.

Converting between image formats.

Paint makes it easy to convert a single image between bmp, gif, jpg, png and tiff image formats.

You probably shouldn't be using bmp on your websites, and png rarely. When possible use jpg or gif.

All you need to do is open the image with Paint, then select 'Save As...' from the 'File' menu, and then select the different image format from the drop-down menu.

Making sure you are using the correct image could seriously improve your website performance, and shouldn't be overlooked.

ConclusionThese tips though basic, should help a writer or website

administrator quickly perform a handful of basic image manipulation tasks. These tips are especially useful to blog writers, as it means they can help contribute to website performance, without needing to install extra software. If you need more complex design work carried out, please get in tough.

If you want to hire a Hull web designer, please hire Neogain.