Scales Screenshots

[Karl_Cartwright@adobeforums.com]

[Gabriel_Ayala@adobeforums.com]

What is the question?

[Karl_Cartwright@adobeforums.com]

Sorry:
Can someone explain this to me please?

Indesign CS, Windows 2000, Snagit 6.

I use Snagit 6 to capture a section of the screen, then I paste it into my ID document. The image is scaled down, making the screen capture look real bad. I also tried using the save function of Snag it to save the capture as a BMP. When placing the capture, the same results.

So, I used the standard windows screen capture and placed it in Photoshop. Then cropped it and copied it then pasted it into ID. Came out right (I tried pasting the original entire screen grab, but ID crashes). I saved it as a BMP from Photoshop. Placed it, it came out right.

Whats going on here?

[Gabriel_Ayala@adobeforums.com]

You want to know why Snag it 6 isn't working the way you want it to, why ID crashed or why Photoshop made a better screenshot on your ID doc?

I still don't know what your question is.

[Robert_Levine@adobeforums.com]

> Whats going on here?

Placing is the correct way and pasting is the incorrect way. Your
excercise seems to be further proof.

Bob

[Jim_Oblak@adobeforums.com]

What you describe is too funky and seems like a system or application installation should be refreshed.

I would stick to placing, not pasting.

Even though the snagit image is scaled down, can you enlarge it with InDesign? Keep in mind that the BMP format does not give InDesign any physical dimensions so it could paste or place into InDesign at any size. The pixel dimensions are probably true to the original capture.

Are you viewing the placed image in high resolution preview?

[Karl_Cartwright@adobeforums.com]

Gabriel,

Good point. I will start over, but forget SnagIt...

Windows 2000, Indesign CS, MS Paint.

Take a screen shot using "Print Screen".
Paste into MS Paint.
Crop as needed.
Select all and Copy.
Paste into Indesign.

The resulting pasted images is scaled down and the quality is not good. The sames results are achieved when saving from Paint to a file and placing. Why is this happening and is there a way to fix this given the same programs listed?

-kaz

[JohnO@adobeforums.com]

> I use Snagit 6 to capture a section of the screen, then I paste it into my

ID document.

I'm not sure either, but here's my first thought: don't paste anything but
text into ID.

>I also tried using the save function of Snag it to save the capture as a

BMP. When placing the capture, the same results.

Use TIF, and select the LZW compression option and save to a file. That
makes nifty little ~75k screen cap files, and they look excellent. Place
those in ID, and scale in ID by dragging corners to you heart's content.

---Since the screen caps are by definition low-res, ID does a fine job of
adjusting size without the need for Photoshop...IMHO. OK, just don't go
overboard with the scaling and it will be fine. :-) This should work, I do
it all the time.

-John O

[Karl_Cartwright@adobeforums.com]

Thanks for helping me out with this.

John,
I changed my settings to match yours, but no luck. Placing gives me the same results as pasting.

Some points:
• Display perpermance is set to high quality
• Printing gives the same poor results
• The saved files being used for placing look fine in an image editor
• Rescaling in ID does not improve the image (The pixels are not there)
• Installed on more than ome computer, the same results...

-kaz

[Jim_Oblak@adobeforums.com]

This thread is so wrong on so many levels. BMP should not be used in InDesign layouts. It is a funky image format intended for screen display, not print.

When you say 'screen capture look real bad', how bad is it? How is it bad? What are you comparing it to? What kind of screen display are you grabbing? ...mostly text? ...photo images? ...line art? Can you describe how it came out right when you tweaked the image in Photoshop?

[Karl_Cartwright@adobeforums.com]

Thanks Jim,

The screen grab could be anything really. And what I expect is for it to come out exactly as you see it on the screen. Could be text, images, a combination, desktop items... And by bad, I mean it is not exactly like you see on the screen. Text is close to not readable, and the general quality is poor. It's as if the image was resampled without any antialiasing.

If you were to follow the same steps described above using MS Paint, perhaps you will see the same? Maybe not...

The only thing I did in Photoshop was crop it and save it as BMP. In that case, it came out exactly like you see on the screen, placed or pasted.

For me, this is not an issue cause I use Photoshop, and have been copying and pasting fine for months now. But some of my users do not have PS. They have MS Paint and SnagIt. I need to find a solution for them...

[Jim_Oblak@adobeforums.com]

It's as if the image was resampled without any antialiasing.




I would check to see what kind of copying you are doing, whether it is 8-bit or 24-bit BMP files. This could affect the appearance (or lack of appearance) of antialiasing.

I don't know if it helps but you could check your video driver to see what color depth (8, 24-bit, etc) you are working with. Changing this and then screengrabbing may produce different results.

[Gabriel_Ayala@adobeforums.com]

Correct me if I'm wrong but... Change the resolution of your display properties to at least 1024X768, do a screen capture then try it again.
I'm guessing these other people you are talking about are working on a machine not intended for editing graphics from what you've described. This causes me to suspect that they may be using a smaller monitor like at 15 or 17 inch set to 800X600.

I know I'm shooting in the dark here but this is all I could think of that might help.

[Karl_Cartwright@adobeforums.com]

Thanks, I will try those things.

However, I am using 1280x1024. You are right, the other stations are not graphics stations like mine.

I suspected the bit depth issue, but have not tested it enough yet.

More testing:
Did an Alt+Print Screen to grab just an active window and pasted it just fine into ID. If I paste it into Paint, do nothing else and copy and paste into ID, it's messed up.

So, something in the way copy works within a particular program?

Is no one else seeing this?

-kaz

[JohnO@adobeforums.com]

> Is no one else seeing this?

I just tried your procedure through Paint with a bmp, and it's fine. The
image on the monitor looks a bit goofy, but it prints perfectly. I did the
Photoshop method, and generated a tif from CapturEze, and they *all* look
great on paper. (No pasting into ID, I just won't go there. :-)) BTW, I
resized much larger than normal to emphasize any oddities, but there weren't
any, other than moire patterns in the scroll bars within the capture.

-John O

[Gabriel_Ayala@adobeforums.com]

Karl, was the issue resolved?

[Karl_Cartwright@adobeforums.com]

Thanks John,

What OS? I'm trying to narrow it down. So far I have tried this on 3 different computers with 3 different hardware setups (different video cards), including my laptop. The results are the same. All on Windows 2000.

What I find interesting is that I can copy from Photoshop and it looks fine, but when I copy from Paint, it does not.

Gabriel, not yet.

-kaz

[JohnO@adobeforums.com]

>All on Windows 2000.

Same here.

[John Mensinger]

What I find interesting is that I can copy from Photoshop and it >looks
fine, but when I copy from Paint, it does not.




Interesting maybe...surprising, no...

[Ingo_Kniest@adobeforums.com]

using screenshots via copy (ALT+PrintScreen)/paste:

- only use scaling factors which are multiples of 2 or fractions of 2 like
100% 200% 50% 25% etc.
- zoom factor is important, too for viewing (factors, see above)