For best results, you should use coated paper which holds the ink better than standard printer paper. Coated matte paper costs about 10 cents/sheet and can be purchased at any office supply store. Of course, for superior results, you can use photo quality paper, but that tends to be expensive if you plan to print many cards. You may also use card stock paper if your printer is able to handle thicker stock.
We have no affiliation with any printer manufacturers, but have found that the HP printers with PhotoRetII technology (or better) print cards with very vibrant colors. Of course, however, Picture This... will work with any printer that you have attached to your system.
If your cards are going to be used frequently or carried around, we recommend that you laminate them for durability. Of course, if one of them is destroyed, you can always print off another copy!
When you install Picture This..., only the formatting program is written to your hard drive. The photos remain on the CD. This saves you lots of space. To use the photos that ship with Picture This..., you must have the CD in your CD-ROM drive and you must select the appropriate CD-ROM drive letter. The drive will be selected automatically for you if the CD is in the drive when you start Picture This...If you prefer to use photos that you have made yourself and have stored on your hard drive, just choose the appropriate drive letter. Picture This... can be used with any photos in GIF, JPG or BMP format.
How do I select a photo?
You may select a photo from the Pictures tab or the Search tab. To select a photo from the Pictures tab, you must first choose the category that you would like to use. In the example above, the user has selected the category toys. After double clicking (single click on a Mac) on the subdirectory that you would like to use, you will see a list of all the photos available in the subdirectory. To select one of these photos, single click on it to see it displayed in the page layout window. In this example, the user has selected ball.jpg.
With Picture This... Pro, can also select photos from the search tab. On the search page, you can look for photos by typing in a word, or part or a word. You can also search by phonetic symbols in initial, medial and final positions.
I don't want to use the photo that I selected. How do I deselect it?
To deselect a photo in V3.0, single click on the word (for example ball.jpg), and it will be removed from the page layout window. If you want to deselect all photos from the page layout window, click the clear button.
With Picture This... Pro you can edit or delete a photo by clicking on it in the page layout window. Once it is selected, you can copy it, delete it or drag it to a different cell.
How do I make LOTTO cards?
In V3.0, select the lotto card option from the card type box. After selecting lotto card, you can select a color for the lotto card by choosing lotto from the main menu bar. You can now select the photos that you would like to appear on the card.
In the Pro version, select lotto card from the layout menu. You can also select the lotto color from the layout menu.
How do I make custom-sized cards?
With Picture This... Pro, you can create custom-sized cards by selecting layout from the top menu bar, and then selecting user-defined size. Type in the card size that you would like, and a grid will be created for you.
What are cutting lines?
Cutting lines are light dashed lines to assist you when you cut out your cards. If you prefer to have no cutting lines, make sure that there is no check mark in the cutting lines box. In the pro version, the cutting lines option is listed on the layout menu.
What are border lines?
Border lines are colored lines that appear around a photo. This option is only available with Picture This... Pro. With V3.0 you can only have colored borders on the lotto boards.
How do I print labels?
In V3.0, click the Print Labels box. In Picture This... Pro, select Print labels from the label menu.
Select your label options from the Labels pulldown menu. You have the option of printing labels on the front, back or without a photo. You can also select which case to use. With Picture This... Pro you can also select the language that you would like to use (English, French, German, Italian or Spanish) and the color or the label. Picture This... Pro also gives you the option of printing the label above or below the photo.
Starting with Version 3.0, you can easily create your own labels by double clicking on a photo on the page layout screen. A box will appear into which you can enter your own words or sentences.
How can I save my layouts?
Starting with Version 3.0, you can save your layouts by selecting SAVE LAYOUT from the FILE menu.
How can I improve the quality of my prints?
There are two ways that you can improve your print quality:
#1
Make sure that your screen is set to high-color (not 256 colors). If you are in 256 colors the pictures will look bad on the screen and will also look bad on the prints. Change to high-color by clicking start, settings, control panel, display, settings. Then choose high color and reboot your system. You will get much better results this way.
#2
Set your printer to the highest setting by selecting PRINTER SETUP from the file menu and selecting properties. Select the best setting.
Now when you print from Picture This... the quality should be much better. You can also improve the print quality by printing on coated paper.
If you have Board Maker, you can use it to format your photos. Please note that Mayer-Johnson now carries an addendum library which contains all of the Picture This... photos. This version is available directly from Mayer-Johnson. We do not recommend the addendum library, however, if you need to print photos larger than 3X3, however, because the resolution of the photos is reduced on the addendum library.
Here are the instructions for using Adobe Photo Deluxe to import photos into Boardmaker:
If you have Picture This... Pro you can simply choose copy from with the Picture This... program and paste directly into Boardmaker or any other application.
For more information, send a note to info@silverliningmm.com
or call toll free 888-777-0876
(C) 2004 Silver Lining Multimedia, Inc.