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Anthonymcp
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Resolution of screenshots in PDF

Feb 17, 2012 12:07 PM

Tags: #cs5 #export #interactive

Hi,

 

I am creating an 8.5x11 PDF document that contains a screenshot. My workflow is take screen caputure > paste in Photoshop (resize/sharpen/trialerror) > save .png > drag .png into InDesign and set it to 100%. I cannot get the screen shot to not look blurry or pixelated no matter what I try. I understand when you zoom in on the PDF the screenshot will become blurry since it is not vector. However, I have the PDF set to 100% zoom and the screenshot is still blurry.

 

I have tried resizing in Photoshop, changing the resolution, etc. I can't get it to a point where the screenshot looks decent. Can anyone offer some advice? I am using Photoshop CS5 and InDesign CS5. I also have Illustrator CS5.

 

Thanks in advance,

Anthony

1920 Views   8 Replies   Latest reply: Peter Spier, Jul 21, 2012 8:57 AM
 
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  • Rik Ramsay
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    1. Rik Ramsay,
    Feb 17, 2012 12:14 PM   in reply to Anthonymcp
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    Have you tried going to View > Display Performance > High Quality Display?

     
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  • Anthonymcp
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    2. Anthonymcp,
    Feb 17, 2012 12:19 PM   in reply to Rik Ramsay
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    Yes, it looks fine on the pasteboard/canvas. The issue is with the exported PDF.

     
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  • Rik Ramsay
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    3. Rik Ramsay,
    Feb 17, 2012 12:27 PM   in reply to Anthonymcp
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    I suppose it would depend on your export PDF settings. Are you exporting as lowest quality, highest quality etc? Also, within each setting, it shows the image resolution. make sure these are where you would like them to be.

     

    Edit:// I noticed your tag in there for 'interactive'. Same applies for the Interactive PDF setting as you will need to change the jpeg quality and ppi setting at the bottom of that dialogue.

     
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  • Peter Spier
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    4. Peter Spier,
    Feb 17, 2012 12:26 PM   in reply to Anthonymcp
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    What are you doing to the screen cap in Photoshop? The correct answer should be NOTHING but saving in your format of choice. You cannot improve the quality of a screen shot by manipulation. Place as-is in ID, then scale if you must, and set your downsample threshold in the export dialog sufficiently hight that the screen caps are not resampled. YOu might want to swith to Zip compression, or none at all, too.

     
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  • Anthonymcp
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    5. Anthonymcp,
    Feb 17, 2012 12:52 PM   in reply to Rik Ramsay
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    I am indeed using the Interactive settings since this isn't going to print.

     

    I think I just got it to work. I have been manipulating the file in Photoshop but this time I dragged the untouched png into InDesign. It was huge so I scaled it down to fit. When I exported, it was still blurry so I tried 96 PPI and it was still blurry. If I set it to 144 it's not blurry anymore. Thank you Peter and RikRamsay14. (300 PPI isn't blurry either but I think it's safe to assume 144 is good enough. 300dpi is for press, right?)

     

    Should I export for Print or Interactive? I can only see those downsampling and zip compression options when exporting for print. It seems like exporting for Interactive at 144PPI and only scaling it in InDesign works fine.

     

    Thank you!

     
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  • Rob Day
    2,329 posts
    Oct 16, 2007
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    6. Rob Day,
    Feb 17, 2012 4:49 PM   in reply to Anthonymcp
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    Any resampling (up or down), sharpening, or compression will degrade a screen capture.

     

    So if you export for print, do as Peter suggests: set sampling to Do Not Downsample and Compression to None.

     

    If you have to export for interactive, make sure the capture's Effective Res (see Info panel) doesn't exceed 300ppi and set Compression to JPEG 2000 Lossless with Resolution at 300ppi. There's no point to setting resolution to 144 because you never want a downsample to occur.

     
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  • amgallop
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    7. amgallop,
    Jul 21, 2012 5:17 AM   in reply to Rob Day
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    This has been really helpful for when using Png's etc within indeign. How about pdf settings when I have a PSD placed within the indesign file?

     

    I am getting really poor quality still when using the above settings for files with PSD's in. The PSD files have bitmaps in but have layer styles applied such as a drop shadow, is this where the problem lies?

     

    Thanks in advance

     

    Ali

     
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  • Peter Spier
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    8. Peter Spier,
    Jul 21, 2012 8:57 AM   in reply to amgallop
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    There shouldn't be any difference based on the file format. Can you give us some more details about what your images are? Are they being scaled? Perhaps some screen shots would help...

     
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