Revealing all

Herhimnbryn has commented on my computer skills in producing a banner for my other blog, and I am going to answer her here, as one can never be sure if someone is going to come back again to pick up a comment on a comment.

My impulse to crow about my success with the header was principally powered by astonishment at having any success at all, and it's a bit of a makeshift really. What I really wanted is a picture which fits the banner without being distorted, but I don't know how to do that. Having gone this far, I may as well reveal all, in case it is of any use to anyone.

I Googled on Images for a picture of pouring tea - the title originates in the familiar exchange: "How do you like your tea?" - "Oh, just as it comes, thanks". It has the implication that I have taken my life just as it comes, too. I saved it then put it into the Paint programme. There I could stretch it sideways, and it was pure chance/luck that stretching it to the full width of the Paint page just fitted the template banner - it doesn't fit my Not Dead Yet banner for instance. Also in Paint I was able to add the text, then I saved it as a Jpg so my photo editing programme would accept it, and there I trimmed off the blank page that was left on it from the Paint Programme. I could, alternatively, have added the text in my photo edit programme, but there is only a small choice of fonts there.
I can't tell you how many experimental moves, false starts and repetitions there were in the process. And there is probably a much simpler way of doing it, if I did but know. But I reckon it was as good a mental exercise as crosswords or sudoku, so there you go.