Cannot paste from Greenshot into 3.5

[mwexler]

I have been a big fan of the combination of the Greenshot open source Screen Capture program (http://sourceforge.net/projects/greenshot/) and Paint.net. However, I just upgraded to v3.5 and now can no longer paste large images from Greenshot. Instead, I get the "The image in the clipboard could not be recognized. Try re-copying it with the original application that was used to acquire it" popup.

In testing, it appears that small clips do copy fine, but a full screen copy and paste no longer works. So, I can get pastes in of about 1050 or so by 650 pixels with standard 32-bit color. Bigger than that, however, in either dimension, and I get the "not be recognized" message. These larger images were handled fine by 3.3 and other versions.

Did something change in the handling of pasting in this new version? Any suggestions beyond "buy snagit" and "make smaller shots and manually stitch them together"?

Windows XP SP2, 2gb ram, brand new HP laptop.

[BoltBait]

Interesting if the size of the image is the issue.

I'm having the same lockup problem if I try to paste a PrtSc (screenshot) into Paint.NET 3.5.

My screen size is 1680 x 1050 with 32bpp.

Interesting thing, though...

EDIT: If I press PrtSc and go into MSPaint and paste, select all, copy, then go to Paint.NET, the paste works fine. So, I don't think it is related to size at all.

[mwexler]

But the MSPaint test is not quite the same thing. By pasting into MSPaint and copying from there, you've actually changed the image. Follow with me, and I'll show you what I mean.

On XP; should be in Vista and Win 7 too.... From the Windows menu, Run. Type clipbrd (this is the Windows Clipboard Viewer, around for ages, but not really given an icon these days on the Programs menu; check it on Google or Yahoo search before running if you are scared (correctly) of just running stuff from forum posts)). It may complain that the "clipbook" service is not running, which is fine.

Now, copy your first image. I copied a 1200x850 pixel image from Greenshot and alt-tabbed to Clipboard Viewer. Under the View menu dropdown, you can see, at the bottom, the different formats Greenshot has made available on the clipboard. In my case, DIB Bitmap and Bitmap.

Now, let's do what you did: past into MSPaint, and then select all, copy. Now go back to Clipboard Viewer. You'll see new options at the bottom of the View menu. Besides DIB Bitmap and Bitmap, you should also see Picture and Enhanced Metafile.

So, when you are pasting in, Paint.net can choose which format it wants to use. Some programs offer Paste Special which lets you choose the format; MS Office has this.

The fact that the large image is handled well out of MSPaint implies that Paint.net is using either the Enh Metafile or the Picture format, instead of the Bitmap format, which is all that Greenshot is setting. And it's good to know that it can handle the larger image in that format.

Still, I think there is something wrong with the Bitmap image handling from the clipboard. It's related to size of the image, and it's a new bug in 3.5 that I didn't experience in 3.3. Simply by forcing Paint.net to have only Bitmap and DIB Bitmap on the clipboard (try using any non-MS graphics program, like FreeSerif's Photoplus at http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/), it's easy to replicate this error.

BTW, when you copy from Paint.net, it also supplies only DIB Bitmap and Bitmap. Clearly, that's the format of choice for most graphics on clipboards, and so I think this bug still applies.

[BoltBait]

Yeah, I'm familiar with the clipboard viewer. And, I did confirm what you are saying about the format change when pasting and copying from MS Paint.

mwexler, that's some good information to think about. Hopefully Rick can get some hints from this and finally crush this bug!