This is a quick tutorial on how to reduce your screenshot down to 800x5XX in size and convert it to a jpg file, a file well under the 125kb file size limit here at AVSIM. This tutorial is with my using Microsoft's PhotoDraw2000 v2, but the same or similar procedure would be used with other programs (such as PhotoShop or other quality photo/paint program)!

Bear!

1. Following your having hit the "Print Screen" key (which stores the screen image into the Windows clipboard), you can then paste the image from the clipboard into MSPaint (for example). The reason I open the image in MSPaint is so that I can trim off the top and bottom menus and such (cropping in other words).

2. After having completed the cropping in MSPaint (I prefer using MSPaint for cropping because it's a much simpler operation there), I then open the bmp in my PhotoDraw2000 v2 program..

After opening the bmp I then click on "file" (see red circle in upper left corner).

3. From the pull down menu click on "Save As"..

4. From the pop up menu I click on "save as type" and notice I've highlighted "JPEG" for file saving.., then I click on "options"..

5. After having clicked on the "options" button, I now have the screen for custom re-sizing the imagine. Note that the file compression type is "JPEG" (circle "1"), the file size is still 1277x953 (circle "2"), and so I then click on the "custom size" button (circle "3")

6. On my "Custom Size" screen, I change the "width" from 1277 px to 800 px manually (circle "1") and because I have the "maintain aspect ratio" active (circle "2") the "height" automatically changes to the correct setting (circle "3") which is 597 px in this case. I then click on "OK".

7. Now that I'm back to my Export Options page, I double check and my image, which has been resized from the original 1277x953 size to a 800x597 size (circle "1"). My only problem is that the JPEG compression % of 8 (circle "2") is probably insufficient to reduce the file kb size down under the 125kb size, so I....

8. ..change the 8 to a 15 and then click "OK"..

9. ..then lastly I save the image under whatever file name I've choosen to a handy folder!

10. When I click on the original bmp file you will note that the file size was 3,841 kbytes, but....

11. ..after being compressed and resized, the jpg file of the same image is only 68kb in size, well under the 125kb maximum AVSIM screenshot forum limit!

12. Here's our finished screenshot posted in the forum, just as we compressed and resized in PhotoDraw2000..!