Bitmap vs.Vector
Image Formats

Picture Publisher Tutorial

The first step in making Wallpaper is to determine what resolution your screen is set to. Most people run their screen in 640 X 480 or 800 X 600 mode.

Determining Screen Resolution in Windows 95/98

To see what your screen is set to, open the Control Panel and double-click the Display icon. Click on the Settings tab. Under Desktop Area your screen resolution will be listed. You should also check under Color Palette to make sure that your screen is set at least to 16-bit High Color mode because scanned images will not look good at 256 or 16 color mode. Once you have determined your screen resolution, you can create a Wallpaper of the same dimensions. For this tutorial we will assume the resolution is set to 640 X 480.

Determining Screen Resolution in Windows 3.1x

From the Program Manager, open the Main program group. Double-click the Windows Setup icon. The next screen will say what resolution your display is set to.

Steps For Making A Wallpaper

The steps for making Wallpaper are the same in Picture Publisher for Windows 3.1x and Windows 95/98, though the Windows 3.1x screens may look slightly different than the ones shown here.

1. Select a 3-1/2" X 5" or 4" X 6" picture to use as your Wallpaper.
2. Start Picture Publisher and Acquire the scanner.
3. Set the Scan Mode to Color, Resolution to 150 DPI and click the Color Matching icon (the one with a red, a green & a blue dot) above the Preview Image window.
4. Prescan the image then set the Crop Frame to the full size of your picture.
5. Scan the image. After scanning, click the cancel button to close the TWAIN driver and return to Picture Publisher with your image.
6. Click on the Image Menu and select Size.
7. The dialog box next to the width box to probably says Inches. Change it to say pixels as shown below.

8. The Width and Height of your image in pixels is now displayed.
9. Notice in the example that my image is 887 X 594 pixels. This is too large to fit on a 640 X 480 screen so I will either have to scale down the image or crop it in order to make it fit my screen. I choose to scale it down.
10. A 3-1/2" X 5" or 4" X 6" photo is too wide to use all of the image as Wallpaper. It will need to be cropped later to get the proper width. For now, I am only concerned about getting the Height down to 480 pixels. To do this, manually type in 480 in the Height box as shown below. Notice that for my sample image this is a scaling factor of 81%.

11. Make sure the Use Smartsizing button is checked (smartsizing will usually result in a smoother image), then click the Size button.
12. My sample picture is now 717 X 480, still too wide for a 640 X 480 screen.
13. We will use Picture Publisher’s powerful masking features to crop the image to exactly 640 X 480. Refer to the picture below for the next steps.

14. On the Toolbar at left, click the Mask tool and select first mask tool on the left (one with square, circle and knife).
15. Under the shape dialog box, make sure the square is selected.
16. Under the method dialog box, choose Constrain Size.
17. Under the Units dialog box, select pixels.
18. Set the Width to 640 and the Height to 480.
19. Click the mask tool on your picture and keep the mouse button held down. This will draw a box exactly 640 X 480 pixels. You can move it back and forth to crop the image where you want to. Once you let the mouse button up, a mask will be drawn.
20. Click on the Mask Menu and choose Crop To Mask. You now have a picture exactly 640 X 480 pixels which can be used as a Windows Wallpaper.
21. Click on the file Menu and choose Save.

22. Under the Save In dialog box, choose the Windows folder.
23. Under the Save As Type dialog box, choose Windows Bitmap (*.bmp).
24. In the File Name dialog box, type in a name for your new Wallpaper then click the Save button.

Selecting Your New Wallpaper in Windows 95/98.

To select your new Wallpaper, open the Control Panel and double-click the Display icon. Click on the Background tab. In the Wallpaper dialog box, select the filename you saved your picture as. If you do not see the right name on the list of Wallpaper files, you did not save your file in the Windows folder or you did not save it as a *.bmp file.

Selecting Your New Wallpaper in Windows 3.1x

To select your new Wallpaper, open the Main program group and double-click the Control Panel. Double-click the Desktop icon. In the Wallpaper dialog box, select the filename you saved your picture as. If you do not see the right name on the list of Wallpaper files, you did not save your file in the Windows folder or you did not save it as a *.bmp file.