Talk:How do I make screenshots?

TMC: I don't know about you, but the reason I use PNG is because it produces far smaller files most of the time, and supports truecolour. Eg just now I reduced a 99kb gif to a 39kb png. It produces files like 0.5kb larger if you compare for example a mostly black image though.

Mike: It depends on the image. Some are bigger, some are smaller. Like, for instance, screenshots of the OHR:

http://ohrdev.com/wander0.gif (GIF, 17489 bytes) http://ohrdev.com/wander0.png (PNG, 21864 bytes)

I made those by opening up an F12 screenshot in Photoshop, saving it as a GIF, and then saving it as a PNG, no doctoring or anything. Take any screenshot, and I'm willing to bet it'll be smaller.

If you want a true-colour image, then of course you don't use GIF, that's not what it's designed for.

Bob: What graphics program are you using to convert into PNG? It is doing a really poor job on compression. I saved the PNG you made, opened it in the Gimp, and re-saved it again, and the result was 16217 bytes. You can also use PNGcrush if you don't want to switch graphics programs. EDIT: You used photoshop! You said so! I didn't need to ask!. Check and see if photoshop has any hidden options for saving at a higer compression level.

Mike: Hmm... If I can make PNGs smaller, I would be beyond happy. My comics are all PNGs, and they're about 60k a strip. x450 comics = a lot of space.

Ah ha! Save for Web is how you get good PNGs:

http://ohrdev.com/wander0.gif (15584 bytes)

I guess the normal save uses a full 256-colour palette, whereas the screen shot only uses about 40 or so, which can fit into a 64-colour palette.