So. It seems you are interested in learning a new...skill. Well, I don't know if I'd call it a skill, per se. More like "ability." Except it's not that either. Hm. *stops to ponder*

*Katami's sister, Bobo, appears and waves* Hi! I'm here to make sure she doesn't keep you from learning how to make screenies. *She chucks a bucket of hot at Katami*

*splutters* Gah! Not nice! Anyway, as I said at some point, I'm going to teach you how to make screenies. There are a few things you need in order to make screenies. These include:

1. A computer

2. Some kind of picture editing program (Microsoft Paint works very nicely, and comes with most computers).

3. A basic knowledge of HTML (TNT made a very useful guide which can be found here.)

4. Something to screenie

5. A sense of humor

All right. Did you copy that down? What do you mean "no?!" Why do you think I'm telling you these things?! Erg... Are you ready now? Good. Now, I'm going to tell you step by step what to do, so don't get lost.

Step 1

As the pretty sign says, this is step one. Now, step one is fairly simple. All you have to do is find something to screenie. A general rule of thumb when finding something to screenie is this:
Are you laughing at all? Then it's funny.
Um, yeah. Follow that and you'll be fine. Don't base your screenies on what other people think is funny. If you try to do that, your screenies will be negative stinky bad, double plus ungood. So, find your funny thing. Does everyone have their funny thing? I have mine! See!



Wait...it's not particularly funny is it? Well, good thing for the next step.

Step 2

If you have a little sibling, this is where you have them earn the fact that you haven't bossed them around in a while. If you are the little sibling, then...um...erm...I feel sorry for you. I really do. You're going to have to do this step by yourself. It's pretty easy, though, I swear. All you is press a button on your keyboard. Which button, you say? Well, I'll tell you. It's a magic button. It does everything, everything, EVERYTHING! MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!
*Bobo appears again and hits Katami with an anvil, then whooshes off again*
Ha. Anyway, the button you need to press is right here:



See the button I'm talking about? Cool, huh? Oh, you don't know what button I'm talking about? All right, do me this favor. Look at your keyboard and find the button that says "PrtScrn-SysRq". That's the uber cool magic button I'm talking about. If you press that, you take a picture of everything that's on your computer screen. So, you press that button. Notice that when you push the button, it seems like nothing has happened. WRONG! HOW COULD YOU THINK THAT THE BUTTON DOES NOTHING?! The picture is there, you just can't see it. How do you see the picture? How convienent that that very matter is discussed in...

Step 3

This may seem weird, but I have no idea what kind of computer you're using. *gasps* I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that it's way cooler than my computer, so you probably have some kind of program that makes screenies perfect automatically. But I don't know about it, so I'm going to tell you how to make a screenie without using the program that doesn't exist. As far as I know, every computer has a start button. Click it. Trust me, I do it all the time. Your computer will not explode. Move your mouse over to "Programs." That will open a whole long list. Then, move it to "Accessories," and then "Paint." The whole thing should look like this:



It won't look exactly the same though, since we're using different computers. But you get the idea, right? You'd better. *pounds fist into her open hand* Now that you know where Paint is, click on it and open it... ... WELCOME TO PAINT! Nice to see that you made it! So, now that you've made it this far, click "Edit" then "Paste." Your funny thing should now have appeared, looking kind of like this:



It should have your funny image instead of mine, though. If we have the same funny thing, there is a definite problem, and my ninjas will be around to deal with you shortly. *watches as the ninjas leave to take care of that person in Vermont who had the same funny thing she did* All right, now that that's out of the way, we shall return to Paint. Your funny thing doesn't look too great, does it? This is where something screenie-ers call "cropping" comes in. Webster's Dictionary defines cropping as "the process of plowing and harvesting crops," but I call cropping "cutty-snippy." It's all the same thing. You'll notice there are buttons on the toolbar on the left side of the screen. Right now, we're going to be using the box button.



Click the box button and drag it around the funny part of your funny thing. Make sure you leave out things like your toolbar, your sidebar, a large white space, etc.



Once you have gotten rid of everything except your funny thing, you are ready to progress to...

Step 4

So now you have a beautifully cropped funny thing. It's time to add comments or screenie art. I'll start with comments, since I actually know how to add those. Go back to Paint and look at your toolbar. See the big A? Now you get to click that. It'll give you a little arrow thing. Drag that around to create a text box, then type your comment in.



So now you've got your beautiful screenie. How do you share it with your buddies on Neopets? Well, first you have to save your screenie. To do this, click "File," then "Save." A box will pop up, asking you to name your screenie. Give it a name ("Bob" is always nice), then make sure you're saving it as either a .jpg or a .pdf. If you don't, it will shrink down to an itty bitty size when you upload it.



Now you're beautiful screenie will be saved for all eternity, or until your hard drive crashes. But now you need to show it to your friends. For that, you will need to find an image hosting site. Imageshack and Photobucket (both of them have .com after their names) are both fairly commonly used sites, but I use Photobucket, mostly because it's not blocked by the Wayne County Public School System. So, just make your account, then upload your screenie! Once you've uploaded your screenie, you need to post it onto a petpage in order to share it with people. In order to do that, you'll need to go to "My Account." Click the button that says "Edit Pet's Page" near the bottom of the page.



Pick a pet, and start coding. Remember, if you need help with the coding, you can always refer to TNT's HTML guide.When you're copying a code from Photobucket, make sure you take the top code in the list of three codes beneath the screenie, and make sure you put it in the "img src= . . ." code.



You also need to make sure that you center your screenies. It's very annoying when people don't, and then I'm forced to release the ninjas. Or the rabid dogs. Whichever is available.

Before I go, I have a few bits of advice about your screenies.
- Go to as many screenie rating boards as you can. It'll make your ego feel good.
- Put some variety in your screenies. Don't have an entire page of pound screenies.
- Don't make staged screenies. Staged screenies are boards where you say "Who wants to be in a screenie?" They're ridiculous and people hate them. Don't make them, or I'll say I never taught you anything.
- Boards are fine. Taking screenie after screenie after screenie of spam boards is not. There's too many of them as it is. People don't want to see "THERE'S A LIGHTBULB IN MY BUT!1!" more often then they have to. If you want to take a board screenie, make sure you have something constructive you want to say about it.
- Your screenies are your's. Don't make a certain kind *coughs*pound screenies *cough* just because everyone else has them. If you don't like it, don't make it.
- You don't always get 10/10 on a screenie rating board. Don't get mad about it. Ask what you can do to improve. You can get good advice.
- Add a background to jazz up your page. They're pretty.
- Don't make screenies like my sister's.

So, that's my guide on how to become a screenie-master. I hope it helped you in some arcane way. I can't for the life of me see how it helped you make screenies...
*Bobo runs up, knocks her out, waves, then runs away*





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