Fatal flaw with DIY layout creator?

[rockgardenlove]

When I export the PNP, and try and print with Paint, it gets all messed up.  It stretches the picture out all oddly, like x2 larger on the X axis...I figure this must be a problem with the resolution or something.

What do I do?

[Papa_lazerous]

more than likely your print settings my friend.

Possible srtetching to fit page or something like that

[rockgardenlove]

Nope, it works fine printing from other programs and printing other GIF images from within paint.

[pyrop]

Maybe try saving as a bmp first (thats a bitmap not a big muff pi) close paint then re-open the bmp file in paint and try that...

pyrop

[rockgardenlove]

Not a bad idea.

Will try.

[ubersam]

No matter what I tried, MS Paint alway enlarged the image. And if I try to shrink the image, MS Paint distorts it. A free app that worked really well was GIMP, you can download it here - http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html. Once you have it installed, open your .jpg or .gif file, click on "Image" (on the toolbar), click on "Print Size", change your X & Y resolution to 200x200 = the correct PnP size.

[rockgardenlove]

It works fine if I save it to .png (prefer this to bmp).  Thanks for the suggestion, I'm surprised I didn't think of that one.

I'll give the Gimp a shot too.  I used to have it on my Mac, but then I got Photoshop.  I still don't have PS on my PC though.

Thanks!

[Ge_Whiz]

Cynical experience tells me to look for problems in the "MS" part. 

[d95err]

MS is to blame for sure. With almost every image format, Windows tries to interpret it as a photo, and all available printing options incude stretching to fit or other distortions. It's really difficult to e.g. print a PCB transfer image (unless it's in PDF-format).

The last time I tried, I had to convert to a TIFF image, manually set the resolution using Paint Shop Pro, then use MS Paint to print it (because my PSP version crashes on Print...).