Web cam techical -------------------- There are basically three ways to use the web cam that I am aware of, and I have tried each, in my search for the perfect system. The three methods are shown below, in increasing level of technical difficulty. Method 1: Use the page itself --------------------------------- The web cam site comes with a 'snap picture' button to capture an image from the web cam. This is by far the easiest method to use, but it has certain drawbacks that make it frustrating to use. The main drawback is that there is a lag time between when you click the button and when the image is captured. Since the cam switches views rapidly, it is very common to have the cam switch the view before the image is captured, and you end up with a picture of empty water, or the object from a different, less desirable view. Method 2: Use the 'Print Screen' button on your keyboard. ------------------------------------------------------------- All PC style keyboards (not sure about Macs) come with a print screen button. Using this button will save the current image of your entire computer screen to the clipboard as a .bmp file. ('clipboard' is just a small memory area used for cutting and pasting things, and '.bmp' is a bitmap image file that is the format used for things like your wallpaper and stuff). What is even better, you can use alt-print screen (hold down the alt key and press the print screen) and you get JUST the current active on top window, not the entire screen. The disadvantage is that to get a fast shot off, you'll have to sit there holding down the alt key indefinitely. Now you must open some kind of graphics program. Windows comes with one, it's called 'Paint'. Hit ctl-V 'hold down the ctrl key and press v' otherwise known as pasting, and your image will appear in Paint. Now you can 'crop' your image. This is the process of outlining the area in the picture you want to keep, ie, the web cam picture only. Why would you want to do this? Well, it dramatically cuts down on file size. BMP files are notoriously 'bloated', or overly big in file size. So, use the outline tool (it looks like a cross or a plus sign) and outline the part of the image you want to save. Hit ctrl-c, otherwise known as copy, and select 'file-new' from the menu. Now paste again, and you have your new smaller image. The problem is, you still have a .bmp file. This is not a good format for the Internet. Not only is it very big (or 'uncompressed' if you want to impress your friends with techno-speak) it is not a common or widely supported format for viewing images on the Internet, if say, you wanted to post it to a club photo section or stick it on a personal web page or what have you. The second problem is, doing all the stuff above is time consuming and basically limits you to one or two if your really fast pictures at most, so you have to make that shot count, and wait for the 'perfect' shot. Trust me, it never comes. Method 3: Purchase a Graphics Program or Print Screen Utility ----------------------------------------------------------------- The third method is virtually flawless, but has the disadvantage of requiring money. I have listed the URLs of three screen capture products below and one graphics package, which is the one I use and the only one I can talk to on a technical basis. http://www.screencapture.com/ http://www.americansys.com/psd.htm http://www.creativesoftworx.com/ http://www.jasc.com/ The first three are specialized at capturing the screen only, and will run you about $50 or so dollars. The fourth is Paint Shop Pro, a full graphics program that has all the functionality of a screen capture program, and allows you to do fancy stuff like stick lime-green circles around your object and talk about it, ect... Unfortunately, Paint Shop Pro will run you over 100 dollars. Let me explain the power of using it, though. Paint Shop Pro comes with a capture utility with it's own menu. The options are shown in this cropped print screen below: I can specify multiple captures, use the F11 key, just take a shot of the current window, and leave out the mouse cursor. Now I choose ok and then 'start' from the capture menu, and Paint Shop Pro will minimize itself and sit in the background waiting for me to jam that F11 key. Each time that I do, as fast as I can hit that key but subject to available memory (I've taken 26 in a row without problems so far) it will create a new image in Paint Shop. When I am done, I maximize Paint Shop, and there are my images, a seperate one for each time I hit that F11 key. This means I can do all the 'mucking around' stuff like cropping AFTER the object has left the web cam. This is by far the best solution. Paint Shop now allows me to add text to my image and to add circles and arrows and what have you to bring attention to the object in the screen and talk about it. When you have your image ready, you can then SAVE AS and change the FILE TYPE to something other than '.bmp'. I reccommend .jpg (pronounced 'Jay-Peg') This is a compressed image format that has a very small size but retains the same level of quality as the .bmp. You will find that if you zip the bmp, you will get almost exactly the same file size as a jpg. So really, all a jpg is is a 'self-zipped' bmp. Now you can upload the file to your website, or stick it on a club's photo section, or what ever.