Cord

iTrader: (2)

Boy, alot of people have been posting some really cool pics lately. When I grab the pic and save it my computer, I get some "php" file. I'm able to open the file with Kodac imager, but frankly the image looks, well bad. Photoshop doesn't recognize the file. I want to forward a couple of these pics onto some people, so how do I do it?

OldSchool

Cord - I don't know , I can't post any pictures no matter how small I reduce them. I feel like a real mental midget

CigDaze

Here's a neat little trick that may help.

The problem is that sometimes when installing certain software(like Photoshop, kodak imager, photo editor, etc) The last one you install will automatically overwrite file extension associations like (*.jpg, *.gif, *.php) and will also interfere with your browser. Of course, the program makes it so you can only open it with it's own proprietary file format.

Here's the trick:
When you have the picture up on your screen from OSO(or anywhere else) simply press "Alt-Printscreen" The two buttons at the same time! This will take a screen snapshot(whatever is currently displayed on the screen) and put it on the clipboard.

Now open your favorite photo program and under the "edit" menu, click on "Paste as New Image." Voila! Then crop away what you don't want and save the picture as whatever file type you want!!!

CigDaze

Oh By the way,

Have you ever been on a great site and see that perfect picture that you just really need to have. But to your dismay, you right-click and the "save picture as" function is not available for what ever reason(probably site owner doesn't want you to have it).

Well, the above method works for that too!

MikeStar

Cord,

Couple of things you can do... I assume you're running some version of Windows, yes?

First, when you right click a pic and choose "Save Picture As..." you should get a box that asks you to put in a name for the file. Just below that field, there is a "File Type" field. You can open a pull-down menu by clicking the little down arrow icon; then you can save the pic as a JPEG.

If you want to convert a file that is already on your hard drive, see if you have a program called Microsoft Photo Editor. If it's not in your "Start" menu (and for some reason, MS hides this damn program ), then you can use "Search" to find it.

Do a search for "Files or Folders" from the Start menu, and enter "Photo" for the file/folder name. Windows should find an entry for Microsoft Photo Editor (and probably a bunch of other things).

You can open Photo Editor and drag the files you want to view into the PE window, or use the "File/Open" command and select the file(s). PE should be able to open the .php files.

Once you have them open, you can use the "File/Save As" command (upper left corner) to change the file type, just as I detailed above. Just choose to save it as a JPEG. Now you'll have two versions of that file, a php and a jpg.

Hope I'm being clear! Almost 20 years in the IT industry, sometimes I assume folks know what I'm talking about (fair enough, actually, cause lots of folks assume I do know what I'm talking about - too bad for them ) Seriously though, using "Save As" will allow you change not just the name, but the file type.

Good luck!

MikeStar

One other thing - MS Photo Editor is also mighty handy for resizing pics. When you have a pic open, click "Image" from the top bar menu, then "Resize". The default measurement is inches, but you can change it to pixels. Just type in a new value, and the program will automatically scale the width/height (depending on which one you're modifying) to keep the pic in its original proportion. If you choose to "Allow distortion" you can modify each axis separately.

Mighty handy for sizing a pic to meet, say, forum requirements

Cord

iTrader: (2)

Baja's method work very well! I was able to quickly capture the images and save them. Thankyou!

Mike-I tried searching for Microsoft photo, but apparently it's not loaded. When I try the "save image as" the only option I get is a .php file. But Baja's method works well enough that I can deal with it.

The big question, is how I can copy some of the animated files. I can copy the image, but I only get one frame of the animation. In particular I'm after that lucky smurf and the mouse-if you know what I mean.

MikeStar

Hmmm, Photo Editor must be part of the MS Office package I have on all of my machines. The animations are probably animated gifs - you have to view them through a browser for them to work correctly (been a while since I messed with those, so I might be missing something).

CigDaze

Indeed, Photo Editor is part of Office. Not everyone will have installed from the factory with only Windows. Glad to hear it worked Cord!

Animated Gifs will not be recognized by many photo editors. It is a "relatively" new format which has almost exclusively been associated with the internet. When you pull it up using a browser(IE or Netscape) it will work. Just open the file from your harddrive or wherever it's located.

Cord

iTrader: (2)

I havn't been able to capture it yet. Just get a single frame of the animation.