Why do the colors in my picture or on my form look so bad?

If the picture you're displaying was created on a computer that has more colors than the computer that you're displaying the picture on, Microsoft Windows substitutes colors to match the original colors. This process is known as dithering. For example, you may be trying to display a picture that was created with 256 colors on a computer that only displays 16 colors (standard VGA). If your computer can display more colors, you can use a form or report's PaletteSource property to specify that Microsoft Access use the color palette that was used to create the picture.

If you're using background pictures with forms that have popup forms, it's a good idea to set the PaletteSource property of both forms to the same value. This is true if the form has a background picture and the popup form doesn't, if the popup form has a background picture and the form doesn't, or if both have background pictures. Windows can use only one palette at a time, so if you set the PaletteSource property to the same value, then you ensure that the colors you need to paint each form are available when the focus moves to the popup form or back to the form.

For more information on the PaletteSource property, click .