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>>1) Do you create your own "fake" screen-caps with
a vector-drawing tool?
>>3) Would I be wrong in assuming that cosmetic aspects
of windows and dialog boxes are not that important,
I fake stuff all the time, but I'm in a hardware setting using digital images. My rule of thumb is that if it looks fake to you, you're not going to get away with it and you're going to need new digital pictures.
Why would I fake images? To save time and money.
For instance, I was given a prototype product and was told to document the product installation. Well the prototype was in a raw aluminum case. The finished product was supposed to be in a black anodized aluminum case with a big sticker on the front of it.
So, we got a can of black spray paint and got one of the engineers to print a color sticker on a bubblejet. After letting everything dry for a day, we installed the product, photographed and documented everything over two or three days, then gave the prototype back to the engineers.
Well, about 4 weeks later in some project management meeting, someone decides that we really don't need the big sticker on the front of the product and decides all the documentation needs to be changed to match.
Did I spend three days trying to get my hands on the prototype again and reshoot all of my pictures? No, I spent 4 hours in Photoshop removing the stickers. No one was the wiser and everyone went home happy.
It works and it can be done, but if it looks faked, someone is going to point it out to you sooner or later. I have no intra-personal conflict about it and sleep quite well at night.
Now let me tell you about the time I bolted an antenna to the side of a filing cabinet and made it look like it was bolted to the side of a semi-truck...
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