H E L P screenshots look like crap?

[Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>]

Dan Gallagher reports: <<Can you give me some tips on improving the 
quality of screenshots?>>

Have a look at the archives; there's tons of information there. 
Concerning your specific problem:

<<I'm working with pictures out of a word file, then putting them into 
QuarkXPress... The boss gives me a word file, it has pictures in it. I 
copy the pictures to the hard disk.>>

In my experience, using Word's version of an embedded graphic is the 
source of the "crap". Always work with the original graphics, not 
whatever corrupted form Word produces. Get your boss to send you the 
screenshots, not a Word file containing them.

<<I think my problem is that I sized the .jpg or .gif from within 
Quark.>>

If you resize graphics in DTP software, most modern software usually 
does a pretty good job of preserving image quality and resampling the 
file to suit the output resolution if necessary. That's much less true 
with bitmaps, for which you need to adjust the image resolution of the 
source file to suit the resolution of the output. However:

<<Proposed solution: I should import the .jpg or .gif into a photo 
program (not adjusting size) then export those files as .eps. Then I 
can size them all I want in Quark right?>>

It's generally better to scale a graphic to final size and do any other 
manipulations (e.g., adjusting contrast) _before_ importing it into the 
DTP software, provided you know what that final size is going to be. 
The photo software generally has more powerful and effective 
algorithms, and the resized graphic will occupy less space and print 
faster if the DTP software doesn't have to preserve all of the original 
image data while performing all the mathematical legerdemain required 
to resize and resample the graphic. This is less of a problem than it 
used to be (computers are faster and have more RAM), but it's still 
less efficient to work in the DTP software*.

* Can't speak to InDesign, since I don't know how it integrates with 
PhotoShop. But Quark is older software and doesn't integrate this way.

Keep a copy of the original file, and work on a duplicate of the file. 
If you know you'll be playing with that version (e.g., resizing to suit 
the layout), _link_ to it from within the DTP software rather than 
embedding it. That approach displays the most recent copy of the 
graphic each time you open the DTP file.

--Geoff Hart   ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca
(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)


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