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1. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
marcusstringer Sep 8, 2010 5:50 PM (in response to Kitti-girl's Mom)Firstly.
Make sure you have View>Display Performance>High Quality Display checked.
Secondly.
There IS no "good way" to produce screen shots.
They are 72-96 dpi in resolution and as soon as you adjust them are go to hell in a handbasket.
If you are simply producing something for yourself then just keep them at whatever resolution they are...
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2. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
Kitti-girl's Mom Sep 8, 2010 5:59 PM (in response to Kitti-girl's Mom)I guess I will just have to do the project in Word or Publisher. They shots seems to work better in those programs. I'll then have to save as a PDF to get the instructions onto our website.
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3. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
marcusstringer Sep 8, 2010 6:11 PM (in response to Kitti-girl's Mom) -
4. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
Eugene Tyson Sep 8, 2010 11:03 PM (in response to Kitti-girl's Mom)That's not true, they are actually worse in those programs.
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5. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
Scott Falkner Sep 8, 2010 11:41 PM (in response to Eugene Tyson)Since you said you are pasting the screen shots into other programs, I assume you are using Windows. Best practice is to use an image editor like Photoshop and save to a lossless format, such as TIF, PNG, or PSD; never JPG. Do not change the resolution of the images. Leave them at the default resolution. I don’t use Windows, but I guess it’s 72 ppi. Now just place the images in InDesign. If you are unhappy with the appearance on screen in InDesign, turn of High Quality Display in the View menu.
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6. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
Eugene Tyson Sep 9, 2010 1:31 AM (in response to Scott Falkner)Saving a screen shot to TIFF or PSD is unnessecary. Just save it as a JPG using Maximum.
JPG artifacts won't be introduced unless you alter the image in some way. If you do alter the screenshot then perhaps it would be best to save as a tiff or psd. Interesting post here http://qualityinprint.blogspot.com/2010/05/jpeg-images-for-print-production-facts.html
Screenshots are low-res to begin with.
Saving to TIFF or other file will increase the file size, but not the quality.
Increasing the resolution to 300 ppi and reducing the overall size of the image will not get you a better screen shot - as it's low res to start with.
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7. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
BobLevine Sep 9, 2010 5:43 AM (in response to Scott Falkner)Since you said you are pasting the screen shots into other programs, I assume you are using Windows.
If that's the case I'd simply use the snipping tool to get those screenshots and save as PNG. Place that in ID.
Bob
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8. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
rob day Sep 9, 2010 8:12 AM (in response to marcusstringer)They are 72-96 dpi in resolution and as soon as you adjust them are go to hell in a handbasket.
The ppi resolution of a screen capture is the same as any other image—it changes relative to its scale. If I capture my entire monitor when it is running at 1920 x 1200, the OSX screen capture utility arbitrarily sets the the ppi at 72 with the capture's output size measurement at 26.6" x 16.6". The utility could just as easily set the ppi res to 300 with the output dimensions at 6.4" x 4" and not remove or add a pixel.
To get good screen capture output it's important to always resize and never resample when changing its output dimensions. So besides not resampling in an image editing application up front, you also have to make sure it doesn't get resampled during export to PDF or output to a printer.
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9. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
Eugene Tyson Sep 9, 2010 8:17 AM (in response to rob day)Yeh you determine the screen resolution with this formula (at least I do)
sqrt(horizRes^2+vertRes^2)/screensize
So my screen is set to 1920 x 1200 and it’s 24inches
sqrt(1920^2+1200^2) =
2,264 divided by 24
Which gives me 94 ppi on my monitor (well 93.6)
(the good thing is you can type the whole thing into google and it comes up with the answer)
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10. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
rob day Sep 9, 2010 8:56 AM (in response to Eugene Tyson)But in the end it's the pixel dimension of the capture that matters not the originating monitor res. If for some reason you wanted to print the screen as you see it on your particular monitor at 100%, you would have to resize the 1920x1200 pixel capture to 94 ppi at 20.4" x 12.8" and always leave it at 100% in page layout.
Practically speaking there's nothing wrong with reducing the scale which increases the effective res. The text in the capture will get smaller but the res drawing the text will increase.
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11. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
Eugene Tyson Sep 9, 2010 9:16 AM (in response to rob day)Yeh that's true.
But just thinking. If you do a print screen or screen capture/dump and make your way to photoshop and make a new document, it makes it the size of the monitor resolution but it puts it at the 72 ppi.
Well I usually change that to 94 ppi and then paste my screen dump.
From there I resize the image to 300 ppi in photoshop so that I can place it at 100% in Indesign.
Not sure if that's the best way - but it seems to work fairly well when I need to do it?
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12. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
rob day Sep 9, 2010 10:46 AM (in response to Eugene Tyson)I don't think you have to do any Photoshop work because resizing in PS is the same as scaling in ID—in both cases the effective res is changing and no pixels are being added or subtracted. I could see bringing it into PS if you wanted some special CMYK conversion (heavy black generation to cut down on the CMY behind black text). I'm guessing most screen capture problems originate with the idea there is something magic happening at 300 ppi and someone in the workflow starts resampling.
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13. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
Eugene Tyson Sep 9, 2010 11:24 AM (in response to rob day)Well I only do it if I want to place all my images at 100%, instead of resizing in InDesign to 24%.
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14. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
Kitti-girl's Mom Sep 9, 2010 5:07 PM (in response to BobLevine)I have an old version of windows (2003) does that have snipping? Thank you.
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15. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
Kitti-girl's Mom Sep 9, 2010 5:10 PM (in response to rob day)The message I am getting here is there if you use a Window application vs.
an Adobe application it works better. Now I have to figure out this snipping
thing...
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16. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
BobLevine Sep 9, 2010 5:41 PM (in response to Kitti-girl's Mom)The snipping tool is in Vista and Win 7.
Bob
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17. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
Kitti-girl's Mom Sep 9, 2010 5:57 PM (in response to BobLevine)I'm outta luck....
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18. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
[Jongware] Sep 10, 2010 1:25 AM (in response to Kitti-girl's Mom)Hi Mom,
No, the Snipping Tool is new for Windows 7. For older Windowses, hit the plain old PrtScr key (to make a copy of the entire screen) or Alt+PtrScr (captures only "the active window", that is, if Windows can determine what it is). This places a copy onto the clipboard, so all you have to do next is go to any application and choose "paste".
You can paste straight into InDesign (but read the 10 good reasons why not to above ), for Photoshop you need to create a new image 'based on clipboard' first. If you don't need the awesome power of Photoshop, just start up MS Paint! Paste, save as TIFF (*), done.
(*) Why not as JPEG? MSPaint doesn't have any JPEG compression options, and I'd trust Microsoft to automatically select the *worst* possible compression options.
The TIFF you save is RGB, by the way.
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19. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
Eugene Tyson Sep 10, 2010 1:50 AM (in response to [Jongware])Interesting Jongware.
When I open MS Paint saved as tiff or jpeg they open up with 96 ppi.
Below is a comparison from MS Paint Jpeg and tiff (top) and straight dump to photoshop (the photoshop file is at 72 ppi)
I didn't include this in the screenshotl; but if I screendump to photoshop at 96ppi then I get similar results to MS Paint.
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20. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
peter at knowhowpro Sep 10, 2010 2:20 AM (in response to Kitti-girl's Mom)Kitti-girl's Mom wrote:
This is essentially what I am trying to do as well...Is there a correct answer that was given? How do know which answer is the one correct answer that is noted in the forum? My question is identical to the one below. My screen shots are off a website.
I am working on a guide in InDesign to distribute to our customers that shows step by step instructions on how to use our software. I am taking screenshots of the software and placing them into InDesign. I have tried this many different ways now and I can't get the images to look clear. I have taken the screenshot and pasted it into Illustrator, Photoshop, even Paint and then saved it as many different file types, jpeg, gif, tif, etc. It looks great in Illustrator or Photoshop but after I place the image into InDesign it looks awful. It looks blurry on the screen and after I print.
If I paste the image into Illustrator and then copy from there and simply paste into InDesign the image looks much better. Almost perfect. But I know this isn't the right way to do this and the images aren't saved/linked this way.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
This old post from Dov Isaacs
http://forums.adobe.com/message/2938256#2938256
may be helpful. Also the whole discussion in the thread that begins with
http://forums.adobe.com/message/2936631#2936631
is worth at least skimming.
HTH
Regards,
Peter
_______________________
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices
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21. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
Eugene Tyson Sep 10, 2010 2:31 AM (in response to peter at knowhowpro)Interesting on point number 5
We get enough complaints about the complexity of InDesign as is. Trying to integrate a full Phoshop-like image editor into InDesign would be way over the edge. Furthermore, in most publication workflows, raster images and similar artwork are typically not embedded in any publication file itself, but referenced by links by all publications that use such raster images and artwork.
Could have done with small photo editing capabilites more than the introduction of Flash in InDesign
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22. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
[Jongware] Sep 10, 2010 2:46 AM (in response to Eugene Tyson) -
23. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
Eugene Tyson Sep 10, 2010 3:46 AM (in response to [Jongware])Ah yes you are correct, sir.
My mistake.
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24. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
BobLevine Sep 10, 2010 5:28 AM (in response to [Jongware])The snipping tool is in Vista, as well.
Bob
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25. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
Kitti-girl's Mom Sep 11, 2010 2:41 AM (in response to [Jongware])Alt Print Screen Doesn't work. Hence, the problem. Grainy.
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26. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
marcusstringer Sep 11, 2010 2:45 AM (in response to Kitti-girl's Mom)If Alt button doesn't work for me, I then try pressing all of the buttons.
Alt+printscreen =no then
control+printscreen = if no then Alt+control+printscreen, you know, process of elimination and all that jazz...
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27. Re: How can I place good screenshots into InDesign?
Kitti-girl's Mom Sep 11, 2010 2:59 AM (in response to marcusstringer)Thanks. Will do.






