Paint (1 Viewer)

Anyone on here have any experience with using Paint for their images? I really don't do enough stuff with my pictures to warrant buying Photoshop and didn't get on with Picassa.

Windows 8 Photo programme and Paint do all I need, if I could only understand what I'm doing. I know it's basic but I can straighten, lighten, crop which is all I used to do.

This year I started adding text to my pictures... just where, when and species, and a little border.

It's the text size that is confusing me though. I have it set to 48 and bold, but sometimes it's so small I can hardly see it, other times it's too big.

Two recent examples... the first one I like, the second one the text is too big and the year got lost!

Can someone help me get a bit more consistency please. Is it something to do with the amount of crop I've done?

yes the text will vary depending on your image size, as programs like paint tend to default to a 100% view of the image ( which in real terms may be the image shrunk to 15% or 75% for example depending on size of original image.
what you need to do is decide on a standard pixel size for your images first when you process them. doing this in paint isnt the easiest thing in the world but you could try one of the other free editing software packages out there.
have a look at Gimp or PAINT.net or the rather excellent Irfanview

can you tell me what you use to take the pics with its then easier to work out a suitable preset based on that for image size.
if you are just using the images purely for web display then you can easily create a template of a standard size ( one for portrait one for landscape ) that you drop teh images into and it auto resizes them to fit the template. or just create a preset 4:3 and 3:4 crop of a certain pixel size.

link below to gimp, paint.net and irfanview all on one page
http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2...hoto-editing-software-download-image-editors/

Thanks Dean.

Sooo.... I need to re-size before doing the text... interesting. It is easy to do in Paint though. I'll give that a try and see how I get on. I always do 900 px on the longest side.

This laptop seems to struggle if I have too much open, so would prefer to work with the supplied programmes if I can.

i would suggest looking at PAINT.net then. its basically PAINT thats been given an overhaul and boost with some extra very useful easy to use features and no real extra strain on your pc. ad of course is free too!

http://www.getpaint.net/index.html
and being familar with Paint already you'll know your way around it pretty much straight away.
but yes resize images first and add the text last should sort it. With the above paint you can also add layers so youc an create text only layers to make things easier. for instance if you add your siganture to images you can create this as a saved layer that you just open and add to your image rather than having to redo it each time.

direct download page here
http://www.dotpdn.com/downloads/pdn.html

Thanks for your advice Dean. I'll explore that programme and see how I get on with it.

can you tell me what you use to take the pics with its then easier to work out a suitable preset based on that for image size.
if you are just using the images purely for web display then you can easily create a template of a standard size ( one for portrait one for landscape ) that you drop teh images into and it auto resizes them to fit the template. or just create a preset 4:3 and 3:4 crop of a certain pixel size.

link below to gimp, paint.net and irfanview all on one page
http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/20...image-editors/

Click to expand...

Sorry I've just seen this bit in your original post.

It's a Fuji HS50. I'm not a photographer... I just like taking pictures when I get the chance. Anything technical to do with the computer, camera or post-processing goes way over my head. LOL

The 3:4, 4:3 thing you talk about means nothing to me I'm afraid. I crop by eye. And yes, I only post pictures in the Gallery and threads on here.

Ms paint is a perfectly reasonable program (I use it for all sorts of artwork and small piecemeal stuff) but not for photographs of great resolution. You get much better control on paint.net or photoshop anyway.

Personally I don't know why you would want to stamp this stuff on a photo anyway as it will ruin it if you want it as a poster or used in a book or anything. It is not the same as having a copyright mark which can be a good idea to use if your photos are flying over the internet. I just label my photos as "species,location,country". The date is automatically applied when I take the photos.