Making a Background Image

[Robert J Tiess]

Dear Nancy,

I hope you have a PC-compatible.  If you do, at your earliest
convenience you should locate and download Paint Shop Pro
(try www.shareware.com) and use the following technique
(which should on any comparable paint program).

	Start the program.

	Open the graphic.

	Convert the graphic to 16.7 million colors.

	Resample the graphic to the size you want it to be.
	(Resize if resampling's not available.)

	Convert the graphic to Grey Scale.
	(Do this only if you want the bg graphic to be gray.)

	Go to the "effects" options and select Blur.
	(Other programs may call this effect something
	else, such as Soften.)

	Envision text over the image.  If the image is too
	interfering with the hypothetical text, try the
	Blur More or Soften options (Paint Shop Pro-
	specific options).  If the image still seems too
	overpowering, trying lightening the image by
	increasing its Brightness (try increments of 10%).

	Convert the graphic to 256 or 16 colors (try
	16 colors first--it will load much faster).  If
	256 colors looks better, go with that if the
	graphic isn't too large.

	When ready, save the graphic under a new name
	(using a GIF format with no transparency info.).

	In the .htm[l] file that references the image,
	change the background="" statement to reflect
	the new graphic's filename, save the HTML,
	then load up the page locally using Netscape (or
	whatever browser you use).

	Be sure your text is set to black (text=#000000)
	for maximum contrast.  Also try increasing the
	text size, using either the <H1></H1> tags or
	the <basefont size=[font_size]> tag.  You might
	also try using <b>bold</b> tags to increase the
	visibility of your text.

Hope some of this helps.  Good luck!

			Robert J. Tiess
			Middletown Thrall Library
			www.thrall.org