{"id":6202,"date":"2020-04-15T11:01:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T16:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/?p=6202"},"modified":"2024-03-09T13:35:48","modified_gmt":"2024-03-09T19:35:48","slug":"how-to-capture-a-screenshot-for-print","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/how-to-capture-a-screenshot-for-print\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Prepare a Screenshot for Print"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"How<\/a><\/p>\n

In my previous life as a technical writer, I worked with screenshots a lot. As a genealogist, I still rely on screenshots for various things, especially when writing instructional materials. As an editor for a national genealogy publication, I use screenshots all the time.<\/p>\n

Screenshots, or screen captures, can serve a variety of purposes, but are especially useful for genealogists who write or present instructional materials. While the typical, standard screenshot is usually enough for presentations or web-based writing, it is not entirely suitable for print publications.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

When you view something on your computer screen, it\u2019s at a lower resolution than what you would see on a printed page. Likewise, when you create a screen capture, it\u2019s produced at this low resolution. This means that these screen captures will print pixilated or blurry.<\/p>\n

There are two solutions that I know of to produce screenshots suitable for print, one working slightly better than the other. But before I get into the details, I want to show you a side-by-side comparison. Take a moment to open this PDF<\/a>. When you enlarge it to 100%, you should start to notice the pixilation in the \u201cOkay\u201d and \u201cBetter\u201d versions. If you keep enlarging the PDF, you\u2019ll see a huge difference between the three versions. While the \u201cBest\u201d version does start to pixilate around 200%, it\u2019s not nearly as bad as the other versions. Since many publications are also available digitally, you\u2019ll want to have the smoothest image possible. You can also see the difference when you print the PDF\u2014it\u2019s slight, but it\u2019s there. The \u201cBest\u201d version is the crispest of the three. The \u201cOkay\u201d version is just that\u2014okay. But if you have the ability to use one of the two options below, it will certainly make the screenshot more attractive.<\/p>\n

Option #1 (a.k.a. Better)<\/h4>\n

If you use a screen capture tool that doesn\u2019t allow for a change in resolution or scaling, such as the Windows Snipping Tool, you can create the screenshot and make a quick change in Photoshop (PS) or Photoshop Elements (PSE) with these steps:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Open the image in PS or PSE.<\/li>\n
  2. Open the Image Size<\/em> dialog box:\n