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JASC Paint Shop Pro, The Basics

November 28th, 2008, by Thomas Milligan

This guide will show you the steps involved for basic image editing, using JASC Paint Shop Pro.

1. Open Paint Shop Pro
2. 

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   Click on the ‘File’ menu, then select ‘Open’ and browse for the image file you wish to work on.

Cropping an Image

1. 

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   Using the Crop Tool (Square with diagonal line through, 4th down) in the Tools Palette on the left, draw a box around the area of image you would like to keep.

2. Click on the ‘Image’ menu and select ‘Crop’ to remove the unwanted area from the picture.
3. If you are unhappy with the result you can click on the ‘Edit’ menu and select the ‘Undo’ option to go back a step.

Resizing an Image

1. 

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   With the appropriate image open and cropped (if necessary) you can resize the image by clicking on the ‘Image’ menu and selecting ‘Resize’ to open up the image size window.

2. 

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   Here you can choose the new size for your image, in pixels for use on your website.

3. Again, if you are unhappy with the result you can click on the ‘Edit’ menu and select the ‘Undo’ option to go back a step.

Saving an Image

1. 

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   Once you have prepared your image, to save it click on the ‘File’ menu and select ‘Export’ and then ‘JPEG optimiser’

2. 

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   The preview window will open, where you can select the optimization settings for your image and preview the result. For the majority of photographs, using a compression value of around 20 will be fine.
   As you change the settings, the image in the right hand preview window will change. The higher the quality setting, the larger your file size will be, taking longer to download. Smaller files however, will lead to poor quality, blocky images if too low a quality is chosen.

3. Once you have selected the optimization settings that you are happy with, click ‘OK’ to save your file under a suitable file name. This command is similar to using ‘Save As’ and will not over write your original file as long as a different name or folder is used.
4. 

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   If you are creating product images for your online store, it is always best to resize and save your product image first, then prepare your product thumbnail.

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