Wyrdysm Games

Since there is apparently some confusion as to how you take a screenshot and upload it to the forums, I've made this simple step-by-step guide to show you how. A ship thread is always made better by a picture of the ship itself, so you should always include a picture of your ship or ships in your thread.

1. Make a ship!

2. When you believe your ship is done, press the F9 key.

3. Look in your Battleships Forever folder. You should see a new Bitmap, or .bmp, file there. If this is the first time you have taken a screenshot, this image will be called "screenshot100." Following images will be called "screenshot101," "screenshot102," and so on.

4. Upload your image to an image-hosting website. There are numerous image hosting websites on the Internet, with various size and format requirements, but two common choices are Imageshack and Photobucket.

5. Follow the links on your respective image hosting website until you come to your image. If there are other pictures or text on the page aside from the screenshot of your ship, this isn't what you're looking for; if you are having trouble, try right-clicking the screenshot of your ship and choosing the "View Image" option.

6. Copy and paste the URL for your screenshot into your forum post. The URL, of course, can be found in the address bar; if you don't know what this means, it's the "http://".

7. Place "[img]"%20in%20front%20of%20the%20URL%20for%20your%20screenshot,%20and%20"[/img]" after the URL for your screenshot, both without the quotations. This will show the image on the forum itself.

8. Enjoy your pretty new post!

3a. Convert your image to jpg or png using a reliable and decent-quality image converter such as Irfanview. Do NOT use MSPaint, as it saves all images at poor quality by default. Photoshop/GIMP/etc. will also suffice, so long as they can take the .bmp and save it as a high quality jpg/png, which is the ideal format. Smaller than ugly .bmp files by a mile (though I believe imageshack automatically converts bmp to jpg or png now) and so they cut down on load times.

3b. When saving your screenshot, it's a good idea to name it something relevant. For example, if it's of a new ship - let's use a fictional "Tyrant" class Cruiser here - you might save it as tyrantclasscruiser.jpg. That way you can easily find it on your computer again if you save it somewhere.

3a* Actually, Paint does .png images well but makes horrible .jpg artifacts.

You can use GIF files too, though Paint isn't so good at saving in that file type.

Paint is indeed terrible for saving to the GIF. and JPG. formats so avoid those two if you can. Or else your image might look like crap.

.PNG is a superior image format in almost every respect anyway.

Lizzie wrote:Paint is indeed terrible for saving to the GIF. and JPG. formats so avoid those two if you can. Or else your image might look like crap.

Just MS Paint. As I say time and time and time again; save it with Irfanview or anything EXCEPT MS Paint, and they'll come out fine.

Seriously - JPG itself does not suck, which is the vibe I'm getting from people here. MS Paint sucks at saving JPGs. All my shots are saved as jpg in Irfanview. I've also compared PNG and JPG filesizes - one 1024x768 screenshot, saved to jpg at 100% quality was 287kb. The same screenshot in png saved at max quality? 324kb. Admittedly, it would be smaller at the default level, but then, so would the jpg.

Same screenshots, axed down to 60%/6. JPG is... ooo, 32.7kb. PNG? 345kb. Bigger. Quite how I don't know, given that I told it to save at a lower quality.

I've seen and had this argument before with someone. I recall PNG being on the losing end in that scenario.

Most image hosting sites try to auto convert if you try to upload .bmps don't they?

I have no doubt that .jpg has benefits over .png in many respects and in different situations. Screenshots for BSF is not one of them, though. Here are two pictures of the exact same .bmp. One was converted into .png by MSPaint. One was converted into .jpg using IrfanView, in the best quality.

Here's the .png. If I put it side by side with the original .bmp, I'd be hard pressed to spot any significant differences between the two. It's only 169kb:


Here's the .jpg. Keep in mind, this was saved in IrfanView, using the best quality. Note how the edges are blurred and faded in comparison to the .png, which looks nigh on identical to the original .bmp. Filesize is 327kb.


There's a reason why neither .jpg or .png files are obsolete. Jpg files are good for things that .png files are sometimes not good for. The reverse is true too. And from what I've seen, .png files make clearer, crisper BSF screenshots than .jpg files do.

.jpg is sort of useless for BSF pictures. They're designed for photos, which do not need the Sharpest of Sharpness quality of colors, just crispness of colors. That's why the glow effects become over-pronounced (in my opinion).

That leaves .gif and .png. Honestly, I prefer .png since it's a smaller file size and converts fine in MSPaint (which loads much faster than traditional converter programs), but .gif is the way to go if you have a good converter.

*shakes fist*

You win this time, .png users!



I have to concede that, yes, in this scenario, .png makes for a better screenshot format.

GAHHHHHH!!!!!!! WEOIJTIODSMFIOXCUIOU!

Please put this rule into screenshot guide:

Crop screenshots. We do not all have 1280 x other number resolutions.

Or you can be awesome like I am if I feel like it and make thumbnails of 500x300 that are hyperlinks to the full 1600x1200 image.

Not that I use 1600 x 1200.

>_>

This is why I play BSF in a 1024x768 window, rather than 1280x1024 fullscreen.

Should be noted that Imageshack generate their own teeny tiny thumbnails and even provide the linking code for you.

But the code links to the imageshack page, not the direct image itself. Which fails.