Paint Shop Pro techno & tips b3

	PSP7 questions 11-16

11 When I open PSP I see "error starting program" The JCMYK.DLL file is linked to missing export MFC42DLL:6880 When I click OK this screen pops up C:\Program Files\PaintShop Pro6\PSP.exe "A drive attached to the system is not functioning"-Click OK.

It means you've overwritten mfc42.dll - here's what JASC says:

"Paint Shop Pro, as well as most Windows programs, uses certain shared system files to run. One of these files is called MFC42.dll. This file is part of the "Microsoft Foundation Classes" (MFC) and is used by many programs. When Paint Shop Pro is installed it looks at the MFC42.dll file on your system to see if it is the correct version. If it is of the correct version (or higher) the installation program leaves it alone. If it is of a lower version than what is required the installation will replace it. However, if there is another program running on your computer that uses the MFC42.dll file during the installation, then Windows will deny access to Paint Shop Pro installation to replace that file. Paint Shop Pro will simply move on with the installation. If this occurs, then when Paint Shop Pro is launched it will report an error about a missing or corrupt ordinal or export file. This is because that file is the wrong version.

Solution
What you need to do is use START>FIND>FILES OR FOLDERS and search your c: drive for mfc42.dll. rename all copies that are found to MFC42.BAK. After all files are renamed, reinstall Paint Shop Pro.

If windows does not allow you to rename all of the MFC42.dll's, rename what you can and do the following. Go to START>SHUTDOWN and select RESTART IN MS-DOS MODE. This will bring your to the c:\WINDOWS prompt. Type in CD SYSTEM and strike enter on the keyboard. Then type RENAME Mfc42.dll Mfc42.OLD and strike enter again. Then type in EXIT. Windows will restart and bring you back to your normal start up screen. It may give you an error that c:\windows\system\mfc42.dll is missing, ignore this message, just click OK. Then reinstall Paint Shop Pro and try to run it again. If this does not work feel free to contact us again."

Now - here's a freebie tip from me. Once you have PSP running again, drop to DOS and copy the working mfc42.dll to your Paintshop Pro directory. Then, if the file is overwritten again, PSP will be OK (a program normally looks in its own directory for a file before searching the path - if it finds what it needs, it stops looking). No more mfc42 errors. -Jackie

11B Help! Why I try to start PSP, I get the following message: Error Starting Program
The MSVCIRT.DLL is linked to missing export MSVCRT.Dll:??_ This (and similar dll errors) is linked to a mismatch between the versions of MSVCRT.dll and other dlls that rely on it. The solution is to download the latest versions of the dlls and install them. Here's a step-by-step:

Download the latest dlls from: http://dll.yaroslavl.ru/index.php3?in_char=M
Rename your existing files to *.old and install the new ones.

If windows does not allow you to rename the dlls, do the following:

Unzip your downloaded .dlls to C: (the root of the C: drive).
Go to START>SHUTDOWN and select RESTART IN MS-DOS MODE.
This will bring your to the c:\WINDOWS prompt.
Type in CD SYSTEM and strike enter on the keyboard.
Then type RENAME msvcirt.dll msvcirt.old and hit enter.
Type RENAME msvcrt.dll msvcrt.old and hit enter again.
Type cd\ and press enter to bring yourself back to the C:\ prompt.
Type Move msvcirt.dll C:\Windows\System and enter again.
Now type Move msvcrt.dll C:\Windows\System and enter one more time.
Then type in EXIT. Press Enter and Windows will restart, bringing you
back to your normal start up screen.

Trust me - this is easier than it sounds. -Jackie


12 "Do you wish to save image__" or "Do you wish to save image????" or "Untitled__" It's a Microsoft problem, not a PSP problem. It is connected to the installation of Microsoft Picture It! 2000, for one. Picture It installs a file called mfc42loc.dll for Japanese formatting which may not be compatible with some programs (including PSP). Go here for the full microsoft explanation. Do a Start> Find>Files or Folders> search on mfc42loc.dll. (That's MFC42 ell-oh-cee.dll, not MFC42 one-oh-cee.dll) It would be in your C:>Windows>System> folder. If you have it, you have to rename the mfc42loc.dll to mfc42loc.old. Start> Shut Down>Restart in MS-DOS Mode> and then type the following line at the command prompt. ren c:\windows\system\mfc42loc.dll mfc42loc.old Shut down and restart Windows .
13 Customizing toolbar buttons Buttons in the AVAILABLE column below are ordered the same as found on your menus. File Menu stuff will be near the top of the list & Windows items will be near the bottom. Highlight some entry in a column to activate that column & then type the first letter of a your button's name to auto-scroll down through nearly 300 buttons to find & install that little guy. Set up your own snack bars your favorite commands text effects buttons/combo possibility Inner Bevel Outer Bevel Cutout Repeat Drop Shadow Yep, version 7 has a repeat button Instantly build-up drop shadows & cutouts by hitting your Repeat last command
14 PSP launches a whole new copy of itself every time I double-click an image? "In Windows Explorer go to View > Options > File Types > and scroll down to your entry for the image type. (Note - it might be separate from the PSP image file type if you added the association with "Open with" - I suspect it will be, because usually this occurs when the association has been added manually where no DDE info is added.). Highlight the entry and click Edit. Highlight Open in the Actions box, and click Edit again. In the Application used to perform action box make sure that behind the psp.exe path you type: /dde Check the "Use DDE" box and under "DDE Message" type [open("%1")] Click OK and back out using the "OK" buttons. Things are a tiny bit different in XP - "In Windows Explorer, go to "Tools", "Folder Options", "File Types" and scroll down to your entry for the image type. (Note - it might be separate from the PSP image file type if you added the association with "Open with" - I suspect it will be, because usually this occurs when the association has been added manually where no DDE info is added.)Highlight the entry and click "Advanced". Highlight "Open" in the Actions box and click "Edit". In the "Application used to perform action" box make sure that after the psp.exe path you type: "/dde" (the quotes are part of it, make sure you type them in). Check the "Use DDE" box and under "DDE Message" type [open("%1")] Click OK and back out using the "OK" buttons." Just for background, a great resource for this sort of question is http://www.whatis.com About DDE, it explains: "DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange) In the Windows, OS/2, and (with third-party development kits) other operating systems, DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange) allows information to be shared or communicated between programs. For example, when you change a form in your database program or a data item in a spreadsheet program, they can be set up to also change these forms or items anywhere they occur in other programs you may use. DDE is interprocess communication (IPC) that uses shared memory as a common exchange area and provides applications with a protocol or set of commands and message formats. DDE uses a client/server model in which the application requesting data is considered the client and the application providing data is considered the server." In the case of PSP, using DDE makes Windows "aware" that the application is running as a client; Windows then will funnel each call to the open app. Without the DDE message, Windows treats each call individually and will open multiple instances of the app (or will choke on the image and refuse to open it at all)." -Jackie Awesome, Jackie!!! Thank you SO much! The only thing I had to do different was where you had said to put /dde after the psp.exe path, I tried to do that, but it told me something like that path didn't exist or was invalid or something. I was probably doing something wrong, but that's ok...I left that part alone, but checked the Use DDE box, and put that code you gave in the DDE message part, and now it works grand! Thanks again, Jackie. You've cured a year old headache for me & hopefully the original poster will see your solution & get rid of his headache, too! -JoFlo

15 **I'm confused by background and transparent as applied with PSP?**
This is a common confusion for those new to computer graphics. Part of the confusion here is around the word background, as we are using the same word to describe two different things. There is the image background, which is usually the bit that we want to make transparent, then there is the webpage background, which is what we want to show through the transparent bits. Let's take it one step at a time. GIF is a form of image compression that depends on a set palette of 256 colours. Those 256 colours can be 256 different colours, or any number of colours less than 256. They can never be any colour other than the 256 contained in the palette. Of those 256 colours, one (and one only) can be set as "transparent". Transparent is not, in and of itself, a colour - it is simply one value in the palette that the gif file tells a web browser (typically) not to display. Thus, when the gif is displayed on a web-page background (be it a colour, a texture or a picture) that background will show through the gif anywhere that the pixel matches the chosen colour in the palette. So if I had a gif whose pixels were palette values 1213141516 and I made colour 1 transparent, the web browser displaying it would show only 2 3 4 5 6. If the web page background was "Z", what you would see would be Z2Z3Z4Z5Z6 - the web page background showing through the transparent pixels in the gif. So, what does the "works best on Web pages with a single color background" mean? Well, one common use of gif transparency is to "cut away" the background of an image (this gets around the limitation of computer graphics to rectangular boxes). If the demarkation between the object and its background is sharp, there is no problem. But if it's fuzzy because of anti-aliasing or blur, then things get problematic. Exactly what are the implications when the background is a textured type of background where adjacent pixels are similar, but different colors? Or where the background is an image? Consider two cases, vastly simplified: black/white - this is a sharp edge, where all the pixels on one side of the edge are of one colour and all those on the other side are another. This is a "perfect" object for transparency. Make white transparent and all the black pixels show.	But real world images (especially anti-aliased text) are more often: black/dark grey/medium grey/light grey/white. This gives us those nice smooth curves on rounded lines and letterforms. But gif only supports one transparent colour. No problem, let's make the white background transparent - now our edge displays: black/dark grey/medium grey/light grey/transparent. Which is fine... unless the background of the web page doesn't match the original background of the image. In the above example, the gif will display perfectly on a white background. But what if the web page background is red? Then those colours shading down to white will look terrible, surrounding the edges with an obvious halo. What we really need is black/dark red/medium red/light red/transparent for that gif to appear to have real transparency. How is it that text appears to be able to be placed over any type of background with precise edges and no mutual interference? It's an illusion. In our above example, we can solve the problem by creating the text on the same colour background as we will be using for our webpage. You can do the same thing with a background tile, if the pattern is small enough. But some backgrounds will have too diverse a colour scheme to make this effective - in that case, the best you can do is to take the background and repeatedly apply a Gaussian blur until you have reduced it to a single colour - the average grey of that particular image. Another work around involves choosing fonts with no curves (there are some) so that you can work without anti-aliasing If I want to create a special piece of text created with special effects such as is commonly seen as page titles, does this have to be a transparent gif? Currently, yes. PNG files support transparency, too, but their implementation in the major web browsers is still problematic. Would the creation of this be different if the background is plain colour from one of the web safe palette colours, than if the background is one of the other plain colours, than if the background is a texture effect? No. You'll get the same problems in any of those situations, but it's worse the more complex the background is. -Jackie

16 Although the images are fine they are quite purple does one just fiddle with the RGB or HUE values till they look good? Something I've had good success with is using a layer as the equivalent of a photographic gel.

Open your image. Look for an area that should be close to white once corrected, and pick up that colour with your eyedropper as your foreground. Double-click on the foreground colour, and from the colour wheel go 180 degrees across - from a purple tinge, this will put you into the yellow-greens. Don't change the saturation or lightness - it's only the Hue that we are concerned with. (Basically, what we are going to do is add in the complimentary colour to neutralize the purple cast).

Add an upper layer and flood fill it with your new colour - this provides your corrective gel. Now you can play with opacity and/or layer blends to correct your hues. I've had good results with Soft Light and opacities in the 20-30% range, depending on the photo. -Jackie