Screen shot image quality - do you have a view?

[PlanBee]

Hi all,

I've been over every thread relating to the quality of displayed screen shot images. Like many I use SnagIT to capture screen images. Often cutting straight from this into PowerPoint (IE not saving as a lossy JPG), yet screenshots still seem "fuzzy".

I tend to use TIF if I'm saving from say Visio as TIF is a lossless format...

Does anyone else have any views, opinions, tips or best practise.


Yours

Gary

[GerryWaz]

Hi!

This has been discussed many times. For best quality, most people either use PNGs (which you can produce with SnagIT) or SWFs (which you can also produce with SnagIT.

Best.

[PlanBee]

Thanks for the prompt response, you are very right, it has been covered many times... I read most of them I think :-)

Anyway, are you saying that the best option is to:-

Capture - Save as PNG/SWF - Insert ?

I tend to Capture - Cut - Paste...

If I have to save from say Visio I'll use PNG or TIFF as they are lossless, I don't understand why I need to save in these formats first...

I'm intrested in the SWF file format, I've not used that. I did a quick capture and PowerPoint 2007 could not see it as a valid picture format... how do you insert in this format, allowing you to build composite slides?


I just did a quick test, have a look at this:
http://xpertise.elearningserver.com/2273759978


On the slide with all for images, the quality is "fuzzy" but similar,,,


So the question stands... what is best practise for capturing and adding images ...:-)


Gary

[GerryWaz]

Hi,

Insert the PNG (and most graphic types -- GIFs, TIFFs, BMP, etc.) directly in PowerPoint using PowerPoint's Insert > Picture command.

Insert the SWF using Articulate Presenter using the Insert Flash movie command.

Help?

[PlanBee]

Thanks again... I've been capturing with SnagIT, and Control V'ing straight into PowerPoint. I hadn't realised that quality was compromised if you don't save the image first... shame as its slows the process down...

Tried the Insert as SWF Movie option... I don't see any advantage re quality...:-(

Thanks for the input...

[jessica]

If you have Captivate I recommend using that for screenshots that have a lot of text. Insert your picture into captivate...if it needs to be resized let Captivate re-size it. Publish the Captivate movie, then insert into Articulate.

[PlanBee]

Hi Jessica,

Its mainly for one off screen shots - or a series of annotated screens. Where I insert videos of procedures, it looks great. One trick I often use in PowerPoint is to overlay screenshots for example... all tips apperciated.

Gary

[jessica]

I have used captivate for series of one-off screenshots very often, and it works well. Most of my content is screens with lots of little text, and doing the entire project in Captivate produces excellent clear quality.

Build your course in Captivate instead of Powerpoint, then import into Articulate.

[PlanBee]

I'll be downloading the eval version...:-)

[nzchris]

Most authors would prefer to use PowerPoint as the foundation as its easier to work with text and layout ect than to build directly in Captivate.

When does the loss of quality occur? I would presume it is when a PowerPoint is converted to Flash as thats when the .jpegs are compressed.
If that's so, then build in PowerPoint (for ease of use)- Import slides into Captivate (add cool flash animations as you like)- then embed in Articulate is the way to go to retain best image quality?

Thoughts?