Often you may find it useful to take a snapshot of your whole screen or of an individual window,

for use in a post on the forums, or in a wiki article, for example.  Fortunately, Ksnapshot, a very

handy utility designed for that very purpose, is pre-installed in all versions of Klikit-Linux.  You will

find it on the Launch menu under the Graphics category, as shown below.

Note: in the text below, colored text is used to indicate the frame color around the corresponding item

in the following screenshot.

The KSnapshot window will open, automatically taking a snapshot of your screen in the process, but

chances are the automatic capture will not be exactly the shot you want, so ignore it.  Before taking

your snapshot, first set the Capture Mode, (you can choose to take a snapshot of the whole screen

or just the window under the cursor, as well as other options), and Snapshot Delay settings.  Hint: 

A delay setting of five seconds or so, gives you time to open a menu, and position your cursor so as to

highlight the menu entry you are illustrating, for example.  Once you have these settings adjusted to

your liking, click the New Snapshot button, and position the cursor where you would like it to appear

in the screenshot, then wait for the beep, signifying that the snapshot has beeen taken.

Once your snapshot has been taken, look over the preview image on the left side of the KSnapshot window,

and if you are happy with it, click the Save As button, and type in an appropriate name for your file, then

click Save.  If you are taking a series of snapshots on the same topic, end your filename with a "1".  KSnapshot

will automatically update the name of the next snapshot to the name you selected for the first one, but with the

"1" replaced by a "2", then a "3", and so on.  This can save a lot of typing.  Before you can use your snapshot in

the forums or wiki article, etc., you first may need to edit it, to call attention to certain features, or crop it or resize

it to a size which will work in the intended venue.  Unfortunately, KSnapshot only captures the images at your

current screen resolution.  There is no option to capture an image of your 1024 X 768 pixel screen and save it as,

say, a 600 X 800 pixel image, which would be a better fit in the forums.  Therefore, it will be necessary to load your

snapshot into a separate photo editor, and crop it or resize it to the apropriate size.  KolourPaint is an easy-to-use,

yet surprisingly powerful paint program which is included with Klikit, and is available from the Launch menu, under

the Graphics category.  It works quite well for editing your screenshots, and is much simpler than The Gimp.

Launch KolourPaint, and from the File menu, choose Open, and browse to the folder where you

saved your screenshot, select it, and open it.

Once it is loaded, you can use the Crop tool to crop off extraneous parts of your image, to reduce distractions

and draw the viewers eyes to the parts you want them to see.  Simply select the Crop tool, then use your mouse

to draw a rectangular selection around the part of the image you wish to keep, then from the Selection menu,

choose, Set as Image (Crop).  You can also use the Eraser tool to erase parts of the image which you could not

remove by cropping, and use the Rectangle and Oval tools to draw an outline around features you wish to

emphasize.  Choose the desired color for these outlines from the Color Pallette at the bottom of the KolorPaint

window.  Use the Text tool to add captions or other text to your images.  Many other edits are possible as well. 

A bit of experimenting will familiarize you with the many powerful tools KolorPaint has to offer.  If you goof, simply

select Undo from the Edit menu, and try again until you get exactly the look you want.

To resize an image, click the Image (or Selection) menu, and select Resize/Scale.  In the resize window, select Smooth Scale.  In the New:  Width: field, type in the width you would like your image to be resized to.  Make sure the Keep Aspect Ratio box is checked.  The Height: field will be changed automatically to maintain the correct aspect ratio at the new width you have set.  Be careful when resizing.  The more you shrink your image, the more loss of quality it will suffer.  If resized too much, it can become illegible.  If your image is a lot wider than the final width you need, it is best to crop as much off the image as you can, then if it still needs to be smaller, scale it to acheive the additional reduction.  If you are unhappy with the resizing operation, simply click the Cancel button, and start over.  If your adjustments look good, click OK to close the resize window.

Once your image has been edited to your satisfaction, click the floppy disk icon in the toolbar to save your changes.  You can choose to save your modified image under a new name, or to over-write the original image.  That's it!  Your image is now ready to upload to the wiki, or to your on-line file server for use in the forums.   papabearak