Paint Shop Pro techno & tips b7

	PSP7 questions 37-42

"Please don't make me scroll"
37 I hate going through all those SAVE formats just for the few I use?

We can customize to our very own taste buds just how we save images so we don't have to keep sliding down that darn list.

SAVE AS normally defaults to .psp but it can be assigned to any favorite format (Set your General Program Preferences on the Dialogs & Palettes tab to "Remember last type used in file save-as dialog") .

Say Tiff is your preferred format, root around the list & choose Tiff to save your first TIFF image. From then on SAVE AS automatically remembers Tiff for all future SAVE AS functions until you physically change it.

SAVE COPY AS defaults to .psp (IMO this is a good thing since it gives you immediate access to the format that remembers layers & all the additional advanced features that format offers) This format defaulting as .psp is pretty desirable IMHO.

However SAVE COPY AS does also automatically remember last file format used, so one can assign a different format here & they will continue to SAVE in that format until you physically change that listing.

Your SAVE button always defaults to .psp for all files not previously saved. Any file previously saved of course maintains it's original format.

Putting an EXPORT JPEG button on the Toolbar handles all JPEG saves.

Putting an EXPORT GIF button on the Toolbar handles all GIF saves.

Putting a PNG button on the Toolbar handles all PNG saves.

If you plan to keep using PSP you want to consider keeping your master copy of all images in the .psp format. (for a bunch of good reasons, notes here)

Boy I need more toolbar space for buttons!

Old habits die hard, which is precisely why I pulled every one of my cut, copy & paste buttons completely off my toolbars to force me to relearn righclicking my image title bars & using the space-saving handy rightclick menu that also manages all those features.

As long as the buttons were conveniently waiting up on my toolbar I was a constant prisoner of old habits & just never remembered to use the right click menu.

Okay, the first two days were tough

Every time my mouse raced up there to the toolbar & my brain got a rather annoying jolt of "oh crap, those buttons aren't even there anymore .. get yourself back down on that image's title bar & rightclick you fool" made those first few days tough & tiresome.

But not anymore ... Apparently there's nothing like a little pain to help a lesson stick quicker in the subconscious.

If you're on a smaller monitor or would just kill for little more elbow room & want to take advantage of this nifty feature ... Isn't it time to yank those guys offa there & move in some newer furniture?

By the way, I eventually returned the CUT button to the toolbar because multiple cuts were too time consuming that way, but none of those other guys have ever been missed.

38 Setting up ThumbsPlus to view PSP files
(Does a newer version support them?)
Use the following settings under Options, Preferences, File Types, New button:
Extension: psp
Description: Paint Shop Pro 5 image
Equivalent to type: (none)
Class: Raster
Load file using: OLE, then in the >> box next to that: PSP5.Image
Edit File using: Association
Print File using: Internal
Leave all other boxes blank.

39 I try to customize toolbars & get scrambled oddball buttons?
This may an issue with your video card that you may need to install the most recent video driver for your video card. You can usually find the latest drivers on the support or downloads pages at your manufacturer's website.

The toolbars and menu icons in PSP exist as a long bitmap containing all of the possible icons. Unfortunately, some video cards do not properly handle a bitmap of this size (approximately 5K pixels long). When the video driver fails to load the bitmap, you get a number of different symptoms. Sometimes the bitmaps are just random garbage, sometimes they are blank, sometimes they seem correct but look like they are missing every other row, and so on. Since PSP has a much larger number of icons available than Animation Shop, you see the problem in PSP but not in AS.

In every case, reducing the acceleration on the video driver has cured the problem. Since that of course has undesirable side effects, the more desirable alternative is to see if a newer driver for your video card is available.

Menu icons can be turned off in the preferences, so you can do that if the problem is only affecting the menu icons.
Hope this helps. -Joe

Uh-oh, Updating my Video Card Drivers didn't fix it?

Let's try this.....
Change your Hardware Acceleration settings.
Right Click on your desktop > Properties > Settings tab > Advance >Performance tab
Here's where you can change the Hardware Acceleration for your video card.

If this still fails to fix the problem your Video Card probably needs further updated drivers. Contact the manufacturer and let them know about this problem so they can look into it.

In the meantime remove all customization on your toolbars
Right click on any tool bar that you have customized & select customize.
This opens the customized window
Click RESET

40 Problem (error) when I select the shapes tool?

Shut down your PSP 7. From My Computer or Windows Explorer browse to the folder where you have PSP installed. Open that Cache folder & delete the Shapes.jpc file. When you restart PSP and select your Shapes tool, that cache rebuilds itself from scratch. -Jo

41 How does one capture PSP screens of PSP itself?

I need to capture PSP screens for tutorials but each time I start "Capture" PSP minimizes but it doesn't work?

In order to use PSP's screen capture within PSP itself you must have two instances of PSP open. One to set and activate the screen capture and the other to take the captures from.

Launch PSP from the Start> Programs menu and then repeat that action so you have two versions of PSP open. Make the capture settings in one program and do all the tutorials in the second program. When you want to capture something in your working copy, maximize the first program and click the capture button. All the captures will be kept in the first program and can be labeled there or you can wait until you have made all the captures and then do all the work on the captures in the first program

Uh,just where is that screen capture function?
File > Import > Capture

42 In PSP7 can I take a portion of an image & have it available as a flood fill?
I can't find it in 7, these are generally sections of an image that I don't need to save for future use & don't want to add it to the ones that came with the program if I don't have to.

All of your open images are available in the pattern list - they are listed before the stored patterns. If the image has a selection, only the selection is used as the pattern. -Joe

Hit the fly out on foreground color in Color Palette
(little arrow in the right lower corner)
select the third icon, 9 little dots
that guy's your pattern selection
Now hit the color box &
open your Pattern Dialog Box choose a style and then hit the center of your color swatch area to open that style's dialog box

Hit the down arrow & choose anything from an installed pattern, to any opened image or any active selections in open images for your flood fill material.

You can flood fill from installed patterns or opened images or selections in those images.