Colors in Word Clip Art pixelated when copied to Photoshop

[jmt356]

Why are the colors in my Word Word Clip Art pixelated when copied to Photoshop? See attached: the Word document is how the image should look. The jpg is how it looks in Photoshop.

[jmt356]

Here is the jpg.

[StuartR]

Can you explain the exact steps you are using to copy this picture.

I right-clicked the picture in Word 2010 and used "Save as Picture..." to create a jpg file. I then opened the jpg file in Photoshop CS5 and it looks perfect.

[HansV]

It looks like a problem with the color palette more than pixelation. The Photoshop image has a very limited color palette: the subtle light effect in the upper right corner uses only three colors in this version, causing it to look very ugly.

I don't know anything about Photoshop, but does it have a setting for color depth?

[StuartR]

...I don't know anything about Photoshop, but does it have a setting for color depth?

When I create a New... image it offers a choice of Bitmap, Grayscale, RGB Color, CMYK Color and Lab Color. If I choose RGB color then it offers a choice of 8 bit, 16 bit or 32 bit.

[HansV]

Thanks - perhaps JMT's image use 8-bit color (in fact, it looks like 4-bit color to me but I might be mistaken). For best result with color gradations, 32-bit should be used.

[jmt356]

I am doing the same thing I previously when copying clip art to photoshop. After inserting the image into the Word document, I select the image, press ctrl + C, then go into photoship and press ctrl + N, which opens up a window with the exact dimension of the clip art, which is on my computer’s clip board memory. I then press ctrl v, which drops the image into Photoshop’s window.

When I right click the image in Word, there is no option to save as JPG, at least not in MS Office 2003.

When I press ctrl + N in Photoship 6.0 to create a new image, I get the following options:
- Bitmap: creates a black and white image when dropping in the copied image;
- Grayscale: gives me the poor quality image in grayscale;
- RGB: gives me the poor quality image in color;
- CMYK: gives me the poor quality image in color;
- Lab Color: gives me the poor quality image in color.

None of these give me an option to choose 8, 16, or 32 bit. Under Image | Mode, “8 bits/Channel” has a check mark next to it; “16 bits/Channel” is grayed out.

[jscher2000]

When I encounter this problem, I grab a screen capture and crop it down to what I want. That might not be the only solution, but it's a fast one.

Edit: One other solution I recall from the old days was to Save As HTML and grab the image from the sub-folder accompanying the document.

[IanWilson]

I can't afford Photoshop, so I use GIMP, but similar considerations apply. (1) If I use Jefferson's method (save as a web page and then grab the JPG out of the subfolder that creates), I find there are two JPGs in the folder. The larger one is sized 428x600, and the smaller one is sized 274x384. Eitehr looks OK if opened in GIMP (or some other program). (2) If I follow your method (right click the image in the Word document, choose Copy, paste as a new image in GIMP) I end up with an image that is 275 x 385. This also looks of quite good quality (though the larger image from method 1 would be best).

But I note that the image posted in your post above says its full size is 1189 x 1667. You can't upscale a JPG and get away with it!

Ian

[StuartR]

I have "snipped" a set of replies about Capturing menus with snippy from this post, and moved them to the Graphics Software forum

[Sundog]

Excellent idea. (Did you use Snippy?)

[StuartR]

Excellent idea. (Did you use Snippy?)

I used the god-like powers of a lounge administrator