Give your photos a professional finish with sharpening in Photoshop. Learn to enhance details, create contrast, and prepare your images for print, web, and social media.
DPI only plays a role when scanning or printing. Otherwise there are simply no inches. You don’t know how large my screen is, or what number of pixels I have, so you can send me an image, but you have no control over it’s size on my screen. (no offence intended).
When you send it to a printer (device or shop) it DOES matter because DPI means an instruction as how close the pixels should be printed together.
Parka: the screen shot is in ppi, for most people ppi and dpi are interchangeable. As Rob pointed out DPI is for printers (not necessarily for scanners), dpi is ultimately ruled by LPI where PPI is not. Think of it this way DPI is a print term and PPI is a screen term for essentially the same thing, the difference being the first is a round dot and the second is a square pixel.
Yup, no PPI (which is the correct term BTW – DPI is for output devices only). Digital images (including a screen) is measured in pixels – not pixels per inch, but the total pixel dimensions. (Hence 1024 x 768, etc). The only time you need to worry about how many pixels are being printed in an inch is when you are printing. (PPI is an abstract of sorts; a 1500px X 1500px image is 300ppi when printed at 5" x 5", 150ppi when printed at 10" x 10" – nothing changes about the actual resolution of the image regardless of the print size).
To answer your question about screen caps, here’s what I do for CMYK print output:
1.) Convert to CMYK using the Maximum GCR setting, 10% UCA. This will keep all the black text on the black channel only, a must to prevent muddy blacks in your screen shots. The 10% UCA will provide enough of a color bridge to trap the black text to the surrounding colors.
2.) Upsample to 300ppi, but using the Nearest Neighbor algorithm. This is for a couple of reasons:
a. If you use bicubic the image will be anti-aliased, which will make your screenshots appears blurry or fuzzy. No good… don’t worry about screenshots appearing a bit jaggy, they are supposed to (since your screen is a bit "jagy" when you think about it).
b. You could just leave it at 72ppi, but if you are having this image printed commercially many RIPs will resample the image to 300ppi for output, and possibly introduce anti-aliasing which you don’t want (see a). By resampling yourself you prevent the RIP from doing so.
3.) Save the image as a TIFF for placement into your layout program.
Ha. Thanks, I always use these 2 terms interchangably out of bad habit. So is it possible to get a clear screen capture?
I read in a book on something called Snapz Pro X. Has anyone used this before?
I use SnagIt 7 from www.techsmith.com and find it very good – lots of options for settings. You can try it free for 30 days and see if it does what you need
You can get a demo of SnapzPro from Ambrosia’s website (www.ambrosiasw.com, I think).
Brian’s advice is excellent, and I’d like to add just a bit more. Once your image has been converted to CMYK, look for black against colour, like Windows menus or text and icons in toolbars. This black should be changed to whatever the surounding background colour is, plus 100 K.
If there are any parts of the screen capture that you want to look better than screen resolution, like a photograph or a logo, then add those after resampling. For the logo, you can add it as a vector layer, maintaning maximum resolution at any size. I do this all the time.
And Bart (ID Awe), Screen shots are not in dpi or ppi. Brian is correct that they are only pixels. existing as a file, and displayed on any arbitrary monitor, which has it’s own arbitrary resolution, there can be no such thing as an inch. Yes, there is a tag within most raster images identifying the image as having a certain ppi value, but that almost never has any effect on the display.
1.) Convert to CMYK using the Maximum GCR setting, 10% UCA. This will keep all the black text on the black channel only, a must to prevent muddy blacks in your screen shots. The 10% UCA will provide enough of a color bridge to trap the black text to the surrounding colors.
Is this part of convert to profile>custom cmyk? I’ve always used image>mode>cmyk but would like to know how to keep better blacks. Will this add an ICC profile to the file? (I need to keep ICCs off for the press facility to apply when imaging plates.) I’m using PS CS.
And in ref to screenshots, I’ve always used Corel’s Capture utility (one of the only worthwhile parts of the program IMO) because you can specify resolution, percentage and file type… and it’s free.
Is this part of convert to profile>custom cmyk? I’ve always used image>mode>cmyk but would like to know how to keep better blacks. Will this add an ICC profile to the file? (I need to keep ICCs off for the press facility to apply when imaging plates.) I’m using PS CS.
That is how I always convert to CMYK (Image > Mode > Convert to Profile) so I can customize the GCR for the specific image I’m working on (there is no single CMYK setup or profile that works equally well for all images). Using IMage > Mode > CMYK you have to change your CMYK setup before doing the mode change, which not only is cumbersome but you also have to remember to change it back when you’re through (doing a custom CMYK in a Convert to Profile is one-time-only).
When I’m dealing with images that are primarily "natural color" (think a nature scene, few or no man-made or artificial blacks) I like to use a light GCR (so the black ink is only being applied in the darkest of shadow areas); conversely when dealing with images that utlize heavy black coverage, or large amounts of artificial black (digital renders are notorious for this, as well as night scenes) then I use a Heavy GCR to allow for proper black coverage.
None of this will force you to add the profile to the file, as long as you uncheck that option when you save.
Thanks for the tip and the link. Always wanting to learn better ways of accomplishing tasks. Will have to experiment today and compare the straight cmyk mode conversion with the custom GCR convert and compare the channels.
When I’m dealing with images that are primarily "natural color" (think a nature scene, few or no man-made or artificial blacks) I like to use a light GCR (so the black ink is only being applied in the darkest of shadow areas); conversely when dealing with images that utlize heavy black coverage, or large amounts of artificial black (digital renders are notorious for this, as well as night scenes) then I use a Heavy GCR to allow for proper black coverage.
FYI, all my images go computer-to-plate to a web (magazine) publisher on coated stock. Because there is no film, the dot gain is less than the 20% SWOP. Photoshop CS.
Let me see if I understand this. For images with black text that I want to keep heavy on the black channel: Image>Mode>Convert to Profile… Destination: Custom CMYK. Leave defaults for Engine: Adobe ACE and Intent: Relative. Black point comp and dither both checked. Default is SWOP (Coated), 20%, GCR, Medium. Change dot gain to 15%, Black generation to maximum, UCA to 10%.
Now for images that have an artificial black background (like a CAD drawing) I should change the Black generation to heavy? I see this brings the cmy channels lower in the higher end and the k channel higher in the low end (compared to the default "medium"). Should there be a UCA value?
And finally, can I save these settings or should I create an action? I really appreciate you taking the time to help. If I can ever return the favor, I’m usually on the Pagemaker forum.
Because there is no film, the dot gain is less than the 20% SWOP.
Probably *far* less. Ours is about 13% on a bad day.
Let me see if I understand this. For images with black text…
For sceen shots, yes those settings should work great. Of course for regular layout text you’re using a proper layout app, right? 8^)
Should there be a UCA value?
I don’t use one, because a heavy GCR will give you a black of approx. c37 m27 y26 k100, which is already rich enough without adding anymore undercolor to the black.
And finally, can I save these settings or should I create an action?
Whichever works for you. I like changing them manually rather than automating the procedure at all because it forces me to think about what I’m doing to *that* image – as I mentioned in an earlier post there is no magic RGB-to-CMYK method or profile that works equally well on all images, so getting that extra "reminder" to think before you act often helps you decide the best course of action for the image at hand.
And that’s what breaks the page layout in web view with long URL’s……. or any line_without_spaces that is wider than the standard message space, not just url’s
I’m guessing here, but I would suggest that Len might feel that making such a change within a message leads to the feeling of the messages being edited by the hosts. Making a separate message clearly indicates that he made changes, and what they were.
And that’s what breaks the page layout in web view with long URL’s…
Now you’ve confused me, Len. The originally included long URL breaks the page layout view, but the one created by TINYURL doesn’t; does it? It was posted via OE Newreader and is only 24 characters total.
Doesn’t seem quicker to me. If I’m at a site with long URL’s (like Amazon.com links) and I have all I have to do is click on the TinyURL in my toolbar and I have an "instant" TinyURL. Very fast.
I’m guessing here, but I would suggest that Len might feel that making such a change within a message leads to the feeling of the messages being edited by the hosts. Making a separate message clearly indicates that he made changes, and what they were.
Well, my message *was* edited by the host so it really didn’t matter either way… 8^)
I didn’t realize that the forums didn’t autowrap long URLs (since I don’t access them via the web), so I’ll be carefull in the future to use either the above method (if it works) or TinyURL (if it doesn’t).
Somehow, I think TinyURL only exists as a way to gather data.
Well, that could be true, I suppose.
Another reason I hate using them, or seeing the TinyURL links is that they
don’t display the REAL URL in my browser window’s status bar.
You mean browser address bar?
When the TinyURL is clicked from email, newsreader, web forum and invokes the users default browser the real URL appears fully intact in the browser address bar.
No, Shecky…what I mean is that when I mouse over your TinyURL link, in the status bar, at the bottom of my browser window, I see "http://tinyurl.com/yrytq", and not the actual destination.
Another reason I hate using them, or seeing the TinyURL links is that they don’t display the REAL URL in my browser window’s status bar.
‘zactly. Too many people try to misdirect you by hiding the real url to something nefarious behind somthing that obscures it. If I don’t know where it’s going I don’t click it. Too bad more people didn’t practice safe computing like that, we’d have less "Win32.MyDoom"-like attacks!
How can I get a clear screen capture of a website?
Whenever I zoom up, the picture will get pixelated (of course it’s at 72dpi)
Set your video card’s monitor resolution as high as it will go (in my case it’s 2048×1536). Hit the ‘Print Screen’ button, open Photoshop -> File -> New and then ‘Paste’. This will paste as high a resolution capture as your video card/monitor is capable of displaying. With larger monitors it’s possible to capture more of the whole image. I find this technique useful for capturing images that clients insist on embedding in Word documents. If the result falls within your resolution needs it’s a quickly and easily solution.
late to the party (which ran OT) but I felt I should mention that if you resample screen caps with nearest neighbor interpolation you should do so as an exact multiple of the starting resolution (ie 72 to 288). Otherwise you will get rogue columns/rows of pixels distorting your images.
Also, when doing this, realize it does not improve the printed appearance of the caps at all, depending on the type of rip being used.
