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Subject:RE: How do you handle screenshots? From:"Humbird, LenX" <lenx -dot- humbird -at- intel -dot- com> To:"'Molly Bowling'" <mbowling -at- statsoft -dot- com>, "'TECHWR-L'" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 6 Jun 2000 15:04:27 -0700
Those instructions are pretty much exactly what I would do. You can do all
this with $99 Paint Shop Pro. If it's going into an online format (help,
html, etc.) then you need to resize the file. If it's going into a printed
document (word, frame, etc), then you resize in your page layout program
instead of your photo editing program.
I often resize to 60% if text readability is not an issue (e.g., if the
narration explains it, or if the concept you're getting across is
high-level.) At 75%, I crop the picture to whatever is essential to the
narration. Or I may highlight an area of the screen, such as a single field
or checkbox, using a thick red oval. Either way, get the reader's attention
to the detail they need to know about. It's also to subtly remind them why
there is a screen shot taking up all that space.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Molly Bowling [mailto:mbowling -at- statsoft -dot- com]
> Subject: How do you handle screenshots?
>
> When I started, I was told to take a screenshot at 256
> colors, copy it into
> Paint Shop Pro, increase the color depth, decrease the size
> to 75%, then
> increase the color depth. This seems reasonable enough to
> me, and results
> in a slightly fuzzy but readable screenshot. Full-size
> screenshots are too
> large and overwhelm the text, and the color reduction is necessary to
> preserve the colors during reduction.
