DDwiki:Image capturing techniques

Capturing images is easy, cropping them and posting them, is slightly harder, doing the whole shebang with great accuracy can become a little harder, for that reason I decided to write a little guide that helps people contribute images faster and better than they would usually do.

This guide assumes that you are going to grab and upload not just one, but a bunch of images at once, it works just as well for one image, but a couple of passages might be unnecessary for a simple one-time job.

It is also directed to windows users, but it should be easily adaptable to other OS users.

1. The setup

The best way to prepare to upload a bunch of images, is to have a page that links to the missing names, in that way, you won't have to type the filenames when it comes to it. You can either use a preexisting page (like the TODO list, that should have images that await capture) or use the Sandbox, or your user page, to create a working list of stuff you are about to capture.

Make sure that you use the #REDIRECT[[File:TheOtherImageFile.png]] in case of duplicates, to weed out any waste of web space and spare some unnecessary work.

Prepare a very accessible empty folder (maybe on the desktop) which will host your extracted picture.

In order to automate things better we need an image editor that support:

• Layers
• Multiple images open at the same time

A good, free program that is also somewhat easy to use on a windows platform is paint.net. Make sure you have one installed.

2. The grab

Make sure that the window holding the game doesn't get moved in between captures, it makes the job easier if your content to grab is always in the same place.

Take a screenshot using the PrtScr key of your keyboard.

3. The cutting

In your image editing program you will need to have 2 images constantly open, one to drop the screenshots in, the other to do the final retouching of the image and save it for uploading.

Do NOT close any of those 2 images unless you're completely DONE with your batch.

3a First one of the bunch

• Paste your screen on the first new image, let the canvas expand to contain it all, we don't want the image to wander around every time because our grab is weird.
• Create a new empty layer on top of the screenshot
• Select carefully and with extreme precision down to the last pixel the part of the image you want to copy
• Turn off the screenshot layer
• While having the empty layer selected (and visible, even tho it's transparent), fill the selection with a solid color, make it a weird color for more visibility, like lime green for instance.
• Turn off the layer with the green shape, and turn on the screenshot layer.
• Copy the selection, (make sure the screenshot layer is not just visible, but it's also selected).

3b The rest of the heap

• Paste the screenshot on your screenshot holder (make sure the screenshot layer is selected, so you overwrite the old one)
• Select the green shape layer
• If the green shape is not overlaying your destination image, move it around until it is, perfectly aligned, if absolutely necessary, delete and redraw the shape.
• Click with the wand tool on the green shape (thus selecting the whole shape in one go)
• Make sure the screenshot layer is selected and the green shape layer is hidden
• Copy

4. The pasting

4a First one of the bunch

• Switch to the other new, empty image (not layer, image), make sure it's very small, if you want you can reduce the canvas to 1×1
• Paste, and tell the canvas to expand, accomodating the content you pasted
• Ideally your image now should be perfect, but if necessary, fix any mistake before going further
• Save your image in the prepared folder, the name doesn't matter, make sure it's a high quality version, with an extension and format that match the expected filename

4b The rest of the heap

• Switch to the other image
• Paste onto it
• Fix eventual mistakes (there should be none for simple images, resize the canvas IF necessary)
• Save, overwriting if the software asks.

5. The uploading

• Click on the red link that awaits the image you just prepared in the wiki page
• Click on "choose file" in the arriving page, ideally, you should be already in the folder that contains your prepared image, if not, navigate there, and double click on the image, selecting it for upload.
• Click on upload.
• Once you're done, navigate back to the page with the other red links and restart the cycle from point 2. The grab.