# Paint won't open .JPG file...sort of



## BaffledIdiot (Jan 30, 2012)

So, I am in a state of desperation and have finally sunk to the level of directly asking a tech support forum for help. I throw myself on your mercy, internet citizens.

I have been working on a huge project in MS Paint. Yes, I'm aware that everyone but me hates MS Paint, but please don't tell me to use a different program. I'm using this one for a reason. My problem is that after editing and saving the file, paint now refuses to open it. I have spent months on this project and am about two hours from finishing, so this is quite aggravating.

This has happened before, but I managed to fix it. The file I am working with was originally a .PNG that I had created in paint. After editing and saving it, I received the message "Paint cannot read this file. This is not a valid bitmap file, or its format is not currently supported." I could still preview the file fine with Windows photo viewer or whatever the devil it's called, but I couldn't edit it. I managed to remedy this the first time by opening it in Fireworks and resaving it as a JPEG (choosing from the options, not manually). JPEG seems an inferior file type to use for this particular project, but that is a sacrifice I was willing to make to be able to edit it in paint. It worked fine after this for a while.

Now I am again receiving the same paint error message. It will still open fine in other programs, but resaving it as a new file (with any file type) no longer fixes the issue.

Admittedly, the file is quite large (approximately 7.2 MB), but my computer has ample processing power to handle this, so this shouldn't be the cause of the problem. I'm looking at the file right now and it does have the extension .jpg (as opposed to .jpeg), which the Internet tells me could be relevant. I'm using Windows 7. I would be eternally grateful if someone could help me out with this.


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

Have you tried it in a bmp format ??


----------



## BaffledIdiot (Jan 30, 2012)

I tried it the first time I had this problem and it worked (just as did JPEG), but it screwed up the colours, so that wasn't ok.


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

I'd like to see if I have the same problem .. Want to Email it to me ??
And Welcome to the TSG forum


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

Works OK for me in paint .. and converting back to png ... Using my XP computer right now.
Converting back to png made it 17.9MB
Are these the right colors ??

Is it OK if I host these files here for others to See ??


----------



## BaffledIdiot (Jan 30, 2012)

I would be ok with you hosting the file here, sure. Those colours look right for that section, but I can't tell without closer inspection. Mostly I remember that BMP turned the orange colour (used in the Aves section) to brown (used in the Arthropod section) and that wasn't good.

Also, wow 18 MB??? That's pretty big.


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

Can't host it .. It said the file had problems ???
Irfanview said it had problems .. ???
Working in Photoshop right now ...
This orange ???


----------



## BaffledIdiot (Jan 30, 2012)

That looks fine to me. Problems?


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

YES ... Here's a clue ..
Photoshop will only save it in a Large doc format ???

Still working on it


----------



## BaffledIdiot (Jan 30, 2012)

Oh my, that's...odd. I don't really know anything about large doc formats.


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

It's too Wide .. I'm trying to find a way to Save it


----------



## BaffledIdiot (Jan 30, 2012)

I know. It's supposed to be that wide. Is there a limit for width for certain file sizes? Actually, that would explain a lot, because one of the things I've had to do periodically is add more space to make room for more information, so it might have passed the width limit for PNG and then making it a JPEG gave it a wider limit but now it passed that. Does that make sense or is that a dumb theory?


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

BaffledIdiot said:


> ..Is there a limit for width for certain file sizes?


Don't know .. That's a good question ???
I can split it in 3 pieces ?? ... and save as a bmp ??


----------



## BaffledIdiot (Jan 30, 2012)

No, I need it all in one piece, sadly. I'd thought of that before. Compositing parts together is the last step of the process (what I'm working on now). Hmm...maybe if I save it as one of those large doc formats, it'll be able to recognize it? Like I said, I don't know much about those. Is there one that's editable in Paint and won't mess up the colours with compression?


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

Here's a zip folder @ 24MB of the jpg you sent and the png I converted.
Anybody else have any ideas ????
If you can open the png or the jpg in Paint .. Can you save it as a gif file ???

If I do any resizing .. It'll loose the resolution and it doesn't have that much to start with


----------



## BaffledIdiot (Jan 30, 2012)

That won't open either. Damn!

Thanks for trying, though. I really appreciate it.


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

Stay close .. I'm trying something


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

Try opening your Email attachment in Paint ..
I've split it into 3 rows.

You sorta destroyed the original by converting to a jeg that compressed it.
For a smaller file size .. I'd suggest using a gif format.
A gif format will not add noise around the sharp edges (like the text or lines ) ... But it only has 256 colors


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

BaffledIdiot said:


> That's genius! It opens in Paint fine. I can work on it now in this format and then re-composite it into the one long ribbon once I'm done. Thank you so much!


But .. If you make it wider again .. You may have the same problem again ???


----------



## wowzer (Dec 28, 2009)

Confirming ...I can open Noybs' zip just fine and edit in either Paint or PS4


----------



## BaffledIdiot (Jan 30, 2012)

Haha, right exactly. That's why I said I'd work on it in that format. Once I'm done with it, I won't need to reopen it in paint, so as long as I can see the image it'll be fine. Right now, though, I need to edit it. So, thanks to you, I can edit it like this, and then I'll make it longer again once I'm completely done with it so that even if it messes up again, it won't matter.

Also, I noticed that the JPEG conversion made it worse. I didn't mean to. It was just that the only way I could get it to open after the first time this happened was changing the file type, and BMP was even worse. I guess I have no one to blame for _that_ but myself.

Hmm...Wowzer, that seems to suggest it's a problem with my computer. The issue persists across multiple computers for me, though. That's very odd.

At any rate, if you could just fix the overlap of the top two rows like I asked, Noyb, I think I'll be all set. I cannot thank you enough.


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

BaffledIdiot said:


> Also, I noticed that the JPEG conversion made it worse.


That's what the jpg compression does .. it's not your fault.
I'm thinking it may not be your Computer .. But the width of the file ??
But I didn't try it in Windows 7 ... I avoid that software as much as possible


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

BaffledIdiot said:


> .. please don't tell me to use a different program...


But with as much work as you've put into this .. You should have been using a better Image editing program.
You would probably still have run into the width problem .. So maybe a better format is needed .... 
This looks almost like genealogy family tree.

And NEVER save you working progress in a compressed jpg format.
Each time you open a jpg > edit it > save it .. etc .. It turns into a RUMOR of the original.


----------



## BaffledIdiot (Jan 30, 2012)

Noyb said:


> This looks almost like genealogy family tree.


_Almost?_ It should completely, because that's what it is. It's a genealogical/taxonomic family tree of all directly human-relevant life on Earth.

And I know I should be using a better program, but the reason I chose paint was because Paint is basically a doodle program. That's what it is. It's a sort of digital sketchpad, which is why it's not recommended for serious photo-editing. But that's exactly what I needed here because I did most of this work on a tablet, and I needed something where I could just draw and write without inhibition or overly-complicated distractions. It worked well for that.

I do regret choosing JPEG as the format that I changed it to in order to fix the first issue, but I didn't know what I know now about GIFs being better. I actually thought they were worse, in part because of the whole "animated GIF = 4chan" internet stigma. That's my bad, but at least it worked out ok.


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

I had to use gif because my working bmp files were in the hundreds of MBs .. (To contain the 16 million colors)
A gif does not introduce a noisy halo around Sharp (high contrast) edges like text or lines ... but it limits the colors.
It's still not a good format to save your work in ... bmp or tiff should be better than a png.
A png is only needed when the original contains transparency.

I was just trying to save all your work as best as possible.
I feel left out ... I didn't see my ancestors in that tree


----------



## BaffledIdiot (Jan 30, 2012)

So, I finished this project thanks to Noyb's help, but I just wanted to pop back in and say:

01. Thank you so much!
02. If anyone is interested in taxonomy, biology, or just animals in general and wants to see the final version or the followup (I did another one about dinosaurs), feel free to email me ([email protected]) or hit me up on Twitter (@booleanearth) and I'll share them with you.


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

It's not a good idea to put your Email address here ..
The spammers are watching.
You might want to edit your post


----------



## BaffledIdiot (Jan 30, 2012)

That's not bad advice, I guess, but I'm not really afraid of spammers. Gmail does a pretty great job of filtering out that crap, and I've been pretty satisfied with it.


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

Maybe the spammers don't have your address ... YET 
One of my Email address is for TSG only .. (the one you have) .. And I can change it in a heartbeat.


----------

