RE: Screen Capture Software

Subject: RE: Screen Capture Software
From: Sean Brierley <seanb_us -at- yahoo -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 05:57:54 -0700 (PDT)


Windows doesn't have a 96 dpi resolution and Adobe
doesn't have a 72 dpi one.

Windows sets a resolution hint of 96 dpi, which is not
based on your screen dimensions (inaccurately called
"resolution" in the GUI, say 1024 x 768 pixels) and
which is not based on your monitor or graphics card
settings. The Windows resolution hint is based on
whether you selected large fonts or not and is an
attempt to resolve font sizes in terms or points.

Adobe Photoshop, and many other image-editing
packages, ignore the resolution hint and default to 72
ppi. After all, for graphics software, resolution is
meaningless--there are pixels and there is color: x
pixels across, y pixels down, and a certain color
depth.

Microsoft Word and Adobe FrameMaker do use the
resolution hint, to size the graphic in a text column
for print layout.

This is one benefit of tools like Techsmith SnagIT,
they override the default resolution hint, so you can
pre-size your screen captures for your particular text
column. The other benefit is a savings in time if you
regularly capture screens, or have a lot of screens to
capture.

And, yes, Word's screen rendering is superior to
Acrobat's (up through version 5, anyway, I have not
played with 6). The trick for Acrobat is that the
clarity of the image is dependent on the settings of
the user's Acrobat Reader, so you as an author cannot
control clarity--so don't bother trying, create for
print, which you can control.

For more info, see: "Screen Captures 102"
<http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/magazine/technical/screencapgraphicshomepage.html>
and please, offer me feedback if you like.

Cheers,

Sean


Subject: RE: Screen Capture Software

Most of my captures are done with the basic ALT-Print
Screen, CTRL-V
sequence. Pasting directly into Word gives me the
correct ratio, but
pasting into Photoshop (for annotation), exporting,
then importing into
Word
changes the ratio. This is predictable enough:
Windows works at 96
dpi;
Adobe uses 72 dpi. <snip>
Bear in mind that my deliverables are in PDF, which I
set to open at
100%.
Unfortunately, Acrobat doesn't have the nice screen
rendering for
graphics
that Word does--even Adobe's screen caps suffer from
the same foibles.

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