Re: H E L P screenshots look like crap

Subject: Re: H E L P screenshots look like crap
From: Dick Margulis <margulisd -at- comcast -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 04:53:52 -0400




Laurel Hickey wrote:

For images that you don't have the space to see everything
of, you can do two or more screen captures and then reassemble in
Photoshop.


No! Not necessary! Stop the presses!

You do not have to take multiple screenshots and reassemble them. Do this instead (cleaner, easier, faster):

1. Convert whatever kind of document you're looking at to a PDF, using lossless compression settings in your Distiller job options (turn off JPEG compression, in other words). I have a custom settings file that I use for everything, so I don't have to think about this part.

2. Open the PDF so you can see the whole page in the Acrobat window.

3. Use the Area selection tool (looks like a pie chart and something-or-other, next to the solid black capital T text selection tool) to drag a tight box around the image you want.

4. With the image selected, switch to the zoom tool (magnifying glass) or use the zoom dropdown to increase the zoom to something that gives you the resolution you want (150%, 200%, 300%?). Understand that you are going to capture pixels, so the higher the percentage, the longer the copy operation is going to take. However, the point of this exercise is that the image can be larger than the screen you are looking at, but you still get the whole image.

5. Press Ctrl+C. Wait for it; this could take more than a few seconds, depending on your machine's horsepower.

6. In Photoshop, press Ctrl+N, then Enter, then Ctrl+V. This gives you a new image the same size as the image on the clipboard. After pressing Ctrl+N, you might need to verify import settings, but you'll only have to check this once per session.

Now you're ready to do whatever you need to do in Photoshop--cropping, color conversion, sizing, etc.


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References:
RE: H E L P screenshots look like crap: From: Laurel Hickey

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