More on screen captures (long)

[Thomas Neuburger <thomasn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

Many recent posters to these lists have asked about screen captures. Some 
replies addressed the color issues, but fewer have dealt with the questions 
about best-technique and best-tools.

Since I haven't seen these questions answered as fully, I'm resending the 
following from earlier this year. It includes the method I used to capture 
and print screenshots for our Frame 6 book, plus two relevant earlier 
messages from Dov Isaacs. That method underwent a lot of fine-tuning, with 
help from Adobe and from the print house we used.

Hope this helps,

Tom Neuburger

The Masters Series: FrameMaker 6
ISBN 1-930597-01-0
On sale at www.bn.com


-------------------------------

Hi all,

I said I would document the method I used in creating the screen art in The 
Masters Series-FrameMaker 6.

Note: We printed PDF-to-plate on a 2400dpi Heidelberg in one color (black).


The procedure:

1. Capture screen in SnagIt.

2. Save image as 8-bit tiff.

3. Open the tiff in PhotoShop 6, discarding color information when prompted.

4. Change to grayscale (select Image / Mode / Grayscale).

5. Change resolution to 150dpi with interpolation turned off (select Image 
/ Image Size). With interpolation off here, the images size automatically 
changes to about half as large.

6. Save as PhotoShop EPS with:
      binary encoding
      interpolation on
      8-bit tiff preview

     Here's where interpolation matters, as Dov Isaacs
     has pointed out many times.

7. Import EPS as is into FrameMaker (no resizing).

This process produced a slightly better (or an imagined slightly better) 
image when PDF'ed and test-printed to Docutech than resizing in step 5 to 
300 dpi with bicubic interpolation on, then resizing to 50% in FrameMaker. 
In either case, the test output was very good, but we thought we saw a 
difference.

For reference, I've included two memos from Dov to the lists on the same 
subject.

Best,

Tom Neuburger
www.twelfthnight.com


=================
Dov recently wrote:

The only consistent and way to get screen prints into FrameMaker (or any 
other GDI-type Windows application such as Microsoft Office applications) 
such that resultant print output and PDF viewing and printing is of high 
quality is via the EPS format from Photoshop with the "interpolation" 
option enabled when doing the EPS export. (Use the "binary" option; do NOT 
use the JPEG compression option!!) All other formats are subject to strange 
resampling by FrameMaker or the drivers and possibly failure to compress 
and/or downsample properly in Distiller.


-----------------
Dov's recommended method from a different message:

Our recommendation is to NOT resample or interpolate the screen shots at 
all prior to print or display.

Take screen shots into Photoshop 6, save as EPS with the binary and image 
interpolation options selected, but don't doing any image scaling or 
resampling in Photoshop.

If you want a grayscale version of the screen shot, do that conversion in 
Photoshop prior to saving.

Import the EPS into FrameMaker. You can scale (make sure you uniformly 
scale horizontal and vertical) in FrameMaker.

Note that the EPS preview will look like crud, but this is only a "preview" 
of the high quality image. Create PDF from the resultant FrameMaker 
document. That "image interpolation" option from the EPS export will result 
in the highest quality rescaling when displaying in Acrobat or Acrobat 
Reader or printing to a PostScript printer either from FrameMaker directly 
or from the resultant PDF file.

I have checked other imaging editing programs and I have not found any 
other that is cognizant of the "image interpolation" flag for PostScript, 
EPS, and PDF. (Note that we are NOT talking about doing a static 
interpolation inside the editing program, but rather, providing a flag to 
trigger high quality image interpolation in Acrobat and in Adobe PostScript 
printers.)

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