Ah-ha!
You couldn't believe it last week when you made some comment about how "sex sells" and your best friend... refuted it? He demanded you show him one tiny piece of evidence that suggests any advertiser out there buys into your fanciful notion. And now, at long last, you have it.
First, you did what any good investigative journalist would do and starting researching the topic in depth. You went to the library and spent days reading about the history of advertising, looking for clues. Yes, occasionally you'd see a pretty girl in an ad, but so, too, were there handsome men and cute babies.
In desperation you turned to the World Wide Web. Again, you occasionally saw some pretty girl modeling a t-shirt, but that doesn't prove anything more than advertising agencies are willing to hire female models. And that doesn't even prove that 'gender sells', much less that sex sells — as you so wildly claim.
But then you hit paydirt.
Suddenly, you came across a 1962 Chevrolet Caprice ad with a pretty girl in a bikini standing in front of it. That 'investigative reporter gene' you carry in your DNA started setting off alarm bells and you were struck with a deep and profound insight:
That bikini has nothing, whatsoever, to do with the mechanical and handling characteristics of the car!
A sense of exhilaration sweeps through your body as you realize you'll finally be able to prove to your buddy that you were right!
But there's a terrible problem.
The right mouse button won't save the picture because the page is locked by some Java code. What, oh what, to do!? Without this picture as proof, you're going to have to admit to your friend for the rest of eternity that you were totally wrong!
Or...
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Over to the right along the top of the keyboard is a "Print Scrn" key. Go ahead and hit it once.
Now go to the Start Menu, Programs, Accessories, and select the 'Paint' program.
After it starts up, open it to full-screen size.
Hit Ctrl-V or select 'Paste' from the View Menu.
Voillà!
Make sure the little square tool on the upper-right of the Tool Bar is selected, then grab the mouse and highlight the area you want to crop out. In this case, because of the seriousness of the issue, you'd want to grab both the revealing ad and part of the web site as proof that it actually existed. That at least once in history a major manufacturer actually subscribed to your wild theory that 'sex sells'.
Tip: If you have a small box open you want to screen-grab, hold down the Alt key while hitting the Print Scrn key.
To save the cropped piece is a two-step process:
- Highlight the area you want to save, Edit Menu, 'Copy To...'. Save the pic in the default 24-bit BMP format. Paint's problem is that it won't save a cropped piece in JPG format, so we'll convert the BMP pic in the next step.
- File Menu, 'New'. If you want to save the original pic, go ahead and do it. Load the BMP pic, then File Menu, 'Save As...'. Select 'JPEG' from the drop-down menu at the bottom of the requester and then save the pic.
To resize a pic, go to the Image Menu, 'Stretch/Skew'. Put the same percentage in the top two boxes to keep the aspect ratio correct. You might play with the 'Skew' settings while you're there, just for fun.
If you know the pixel size you want to resize it to, that's the 'Attributes' menu selection, but note that it won't automatically maintain the aspect ratio.
It should be noted that Paint is just a freebie that Microsoft threw in with Windows and while it can do a few basic functions, you'll want a real image editing program like Paint Shop Pro if you're serious at all about graphics work.
Personal note: I told Buddy in the comments a few days ago that the next 'Tips' post would feature a "giggling baby" — and I didn't want to disappoint!
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