change shapes & compression rate

[y2k1981]

shapes
dear God I'm going mad here, I'm an absolute beginner when it comes to using any applications for creating images, and PSP is the only one I've used!!!! Anyway, I discovered the shapes tool, but the only thing it will let me draw is a circle. That would be fine if I knew how to change the shape, but I don't. I've gone into properties but I can't find anything on how to change it. Can somebody pleeeease help me?

compression rate/colors are speckled
My second problem is that I've a simple image with just some text in two colors, orange and grey. however, the image appears all speckled in the browser, I'm guessing this is something to do witht the compression rate? but I don't know how to change the settings and can somebody also tell me what I should set it to?

Thanks everybody!!!

 

[mThomas]

To select a shape, click on the shapes icon and then open the tool palatte. You will be able to click in the preview pane or the menu button to select from an assortment of shapes.

If your image has a few colors in large blocks then you want to use the gif format. If your image has lots of color changes or gradients, then you might want to use the jpg format when saving your images. What you are describing is either compression artifacts or dithering. It really depends on the file type of the image in question.

hth...

 

[y2k1981]

hi Mike,

Thanks for your reply, and for the tutorial recommendation on my othrer thread. When I said that the colors are speckled, I meant before I save it as a gif/jpeg at all. Even when I view it in PSP they look speckled, and if I use the "preview in browser" function, they also look speckled. Why is this?

 

[mThomas]

Is the image one you got on the net or did you scan it into psp. It sounds like the image was already saved and the dithering/artifacts were already in the image. Not to much you can do. There is a photo enhance feature to remove jpg compression artifacts. You might give that feature a try.

mike

 

[y2k1981]

no, I created it myself, I just inserted a small bit of text using the text box feature. any ideas why it's come out with such bad quality?

 

[mThomas]

Make usre that when you open a new image, that the color depth is 16 mil. Also I suggest that you always save the original image in the .psp format. That way you can always go back and re-save it and mess around with the settings.

mike