Saving Images in Paint

Difficulty:
Requirements: MS Paint
Writer: Kathrin
Importance: A must-know
Special Notes: /

Ever noticed how MS Paint has a habit of messing up your totally fine, lovely images? Luckly, with the right tricks, this can easily be prevented. I didn't cover all styles since some don't even show up in Firefox. These are the three most popular saving formats. Inorder to show you this horrid effect, I am going to use this sample image:


Here it is saved at best possible quality in PSP 8 as a .png.

Saving as a .gif
what happends if I save it as a .gif? Eeek, look:


Not looking very pretty now is it? The colors change and weird dots are added to the image. Especially if its blended -- your image is totally messed up.

Saving as a .jpeg
You might think that a jpeg will create a better result, but that's not the case:


Your color definition is lost, and lines are often scootched and messed up. Large, one-colored areas like the large text on the image are messed up.

Saving as a .png
The only saving style that works properly on paint is a .png


However, sometimes even this style doesn't look "perfect". The problem is that paint is not a top of the line program, and therefor doesn't have all those fancy optimation tools that other programs have. When possible, avoid saving your images on paint and use a different program instead.
~Kathrin