Creating Great Screenshots Terry Smith STC Carolina Tri-Doc 2005 April 8 & 9

April Graphic Element Clarity  Fonts are best for all formats  Vector art is next  Bitmap art like all screenshots is least flexible

April What is the best tool to use?  It really doesn’t matter for simple screenshots  Most tools can capture portions of the screen  The real difference is in post-processing

April Which graphics format is best?  Where will the graphic be used?  Can you sacrifice quality for reduced size?  How important is dependable color reproduction?

April What can I do before taking the screenshot?  Use standard appearance settings so your screenshots have a consistent look.  Use appearance settings that do not moirés.

April It’s a moiré  Moirés are checkerboard patterns that show up in print and sometimes online.  The appearance of the moiré depends on the resolution of the printer, how the screenshot was resized, and so on.  Moirés look unprofessional.

April How do screenshots get ruined?  Lossy format  Changing size  Changing size by dragging instead of by adjusting DPI (FrameMaker)  Settings in print driver  Settings in Acrobat Distiller  Pasting from Microsoft Word

April What is the worst graphic format?  JPEG (with one exception)  Lossy format  Compression algorithm is meant for smooth images like photographs, not abrupt transitions  Can cause bloating in PDFs

April Good online formats  GIF if you need only 256 colors  PNG if your users all have a browser that supports PNG (PNG is the native format for SnagIt)

April Good print formats  TIFF and EPS are best if you need top- quality color reproduction or cross- platform compatibility  PNGs are small and lossless if your desktop publishing program supports them  BMPs are big, but often useful for Windows programs

April What do users like to see?  Clear screenshots  Screenshots with callouts  Screenshots that highlight the important parts in some way  When appropriate, screenshots that are layered and labeled to show relationships

April SnagIt  The most recommended screenshot tool  Easy to capture the portion of the screen you want  Easy to process the screenshots for professional, user-friendly effects

April SnagIt Drawing

April Resources  Creating Perfect Screenshots Input\LS2-ScrnCap.htm Input\LS2-ScrnCap.htm  Dov Isaac’s recommended driver and Acrobat Distiller settings Input\Dov Isaacs PDF Presentation\Isaacs PDF Conf West 2002.pdf Input\Dov Isaacs PDF Presentation\Isaacs PDF Conf West 2002.pdf

April Q & A

April Tri-Doc 2005 Terry Smith Per-Se Technologies, Inc. (919)