High color splash screen using the "Splash Screen Component" in VS

Introduction

The default bitmap provided by the “splash screen component” included with Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 is a 16 color bitmap. Although the Visual C++ resource editor is capable of displaying images with up to 256 colors, any new bitmap created with Visual C++ 6.0 defaults to 16 colors.

To display a high-color splash screen follow these steps

1. Insert a splash screen component to the project using “Components and Controls Gallery”.
2. Open the bitmap associated with the splash screen in resource editor, and note the image file name.
3. Using an image editor like MS Paint edit the image file and save it with the required color depth.
4. Now the splash screen will display your image with a color depth of more than 16 colors.
5. As the bitmap editor included with Visual C++ versions 6.0 and earlier, is not capable of displaying images with more than 256 colors, you will need to use external image editor for all further editing of this bitmap