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» » » » Post: Re: Am I the only one who can't import a background? (MacBook Pro, OS X 10.9.3)

Print at Dec 19, 2025, 2:27:47 PM

Posted by okh at Jun 14, 2014, 1:21:52 PM

Re: Am I the only one who can't import a background? (MacBook Pro, OS X 10.9.3)
These days, few pay attention to file sizes. But doing so still makes a lot of sense. And most images can be cleaned and scaled to work better as textures or background images. There are many ways of doing this, but as a general rule for simple plans with few colours, an indexed .png or .gif will give a smaller (and clearer) background image than a .jpg. Here is my approach when I need a background image - using the GIMP (but other image software can be used too):

Import image - often using Screenshot and Edit > Paste as > New Image - to the GIMP.
Select part of image you need and use Image > Crop to Selection.
Image > Scale Image to a size where it is still usable (usually well below 1000x1000 for a background image - depending on the size of the plan, of course).
Colours > Posterise to a point where the colours I want are clear, usually below 16 colours, depending on the original. (To get a B/W image, try Colours > Threshold instead of Posterise.
Image > Mode > Indexed reduces the size significantly.
File > Export using .png extension.

At the same time, I use the opportunity to remove unwanted information, maybe my own text, ensure the correct rotation etc. etc. When this image has been imported as a background, I end up with a .sh3d file where the (each) background image usually is less than 50 KB.
ok

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Dec 19, 2025, 2:27:47 PM