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I never said I don't use screen captures, I said I don't like" high school
gimmicks" and I was referring to a former writer who used marching ants and
other special effects to cover up pitiful writing. He used heavy borders
and other "techniques" for his images that tended to make the entire
document look like it was done by a high school student.
My screen shots use no border and sometimes show the entire screen, and
sometimes show the area; however, many (most) of my images are hardware
oriented. I document capital equipment used in the microelectronics
industry for the manufacture of MEMS, Opto-electronics, and
Nano-technologies. These systems may use software control, but they include
robotics, pneumatics and precision electromechanical alignment systems. I
follow the KISS rule as it make updating by other writers as easy as
possible (I am in the US, the rest of the writers are in Germany).
Al Geist
Technical Communicator, Help, Web Design, Video, Photography
Office/Msg: 802-872-9190
Cell: 802-578-3964
E-mail: al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com
Website: www.geistassociates.com
See Also
Fine Art Photography
"We can't solve problems using the same kind of thinking we used to create
them." (Albert Einstein)
-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Stone [mailto:rstone75 -at- kc -dot- rr -dot- com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2011 10:40 AM
To: Al Geist
Cc: 'Di'; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Edge effect on cropped screenshots?
Hi Al
Interesting - I never considered an edge effect to be along the lines of a
"high school gimmick". As with anything, they can be overused as well as
inappropriately used. But I find them invaluable when you are trying to coax
the user to view only a section of an area. They provide the immediate
feedback that there is much more involved with the screen or dialog in
question but we are only concerned with this area.
One thing that drives me crazy as an end user is when authors choose to only
capture the button or toolbar in question and present that. I find that this
technique fails (at least it fails for *ME* as a reader) because I'm not
oriented to *WHERE* the object is on the Screen or Dialog.
My question would be to ask you what (if anything) you elected to replace
the screen captures with?
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