Windows XP MS Paint creates messy 'auras' around what I draw

[jw343]

I'm using Microsoft Paint version 5.1 with Windows XP, and whenever I save my work and re-open it my previously clearly defined drawings are surrounded by pixels of various similar colours to the objects, which I did not create. The objects themselves also change from being uniform in colour to being composed of pixels of slightly varying colour. I have lost two hours of work time cleaning up an image which is vital to the paper I am writing, and am reluctant to save it in case the same thing happens again. Does anyone know of a solution to this infuriating problem?

An example of what I am referring to is attached to this post. The diagonal cross should be scarlet on a white background, and there should be no blue-grey pixels around the text.

 

[Me__2001]

I've noticed this myself, you wouldn't happen to be saving the images as .jpeg or .jpg would you? I've found that saving them as .bmp you don't get the annoying pixels appear

give it a try and let me know

 

[jw343]

I did save it as a JPEG (without meaning to, I thought it was set on BMP), so will give that a go now...

 

[jw343]

Yes! It worked! Thanks very much for your help, Me2001 - wish I'd known about that on Saturday!

 

[Ian]

Yep, when you save as a JPG it is a compressed file format - so the image has a fuzzy look about it.

BMP's don't have this problem, but they are much larger in size (it wouldn't surprise me if it was over 1MB for a small drawing). If you have Vista, you can save as PNG files which are small and look good - I don't know if it's available in the XP version of paint but give it a go if it is