Re: Editing screenshots that use the Windows XP look

Subject: Re: Editing screenshots that use the Windows XP look
From: "Mike Starr" <mike -at- writestarr -dot- com>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2006 02:13:32 -0600

You can remove the gradients... right-click on the desktop and choose Properties on the context menu displayed. Go to the Appearance tab. Click the Advanced button. Click on an area that has gradient coloring. Note that it has a control for Color 1 and Color 2. Set one of them to be the same as the other. Voila... no more gradients.

I normally change these settings on any machine I need to use for screen captures. Once I've done that, I capture the screen using {Alt-Print Scrn}, paste into Paint Shop Pro, reduce the colors to the Windows 16-color and save as a .GIF file. No special screen-capture software required. Total time to capture and save a dialog box?? About five seconds.

This methodology has served me well for probably ten years.

Best regards

Mike
--
Mike Starr WriteStarr Information Services
Technical Writer - Online Help Developer - Technical Illustrator
Graphic Designer - Desktop Publisher - MS Office Expert
(262) 694-1028 - mike -at- writestarr -dot- com - http://www.writestarr.com
----- Original Message -----

Message: 35
Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 08:29:36 -0800 (PST)
From: andrea frazier <alf_hatt -at- yahoo -dot- com>
Subject: Editing screenshots that use the Windows XP look
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Message-ID: <20060106162936 -dot- 27538 -dot- qmail -at- web35906 -dot- mail -dot- mud -dot- yahoo -dot- com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Hello,

My department is in the process of changing the
screenshots in our printed documentation from the
Windows Classic look to the Windows XP look. However,
doing so produces screenshots with shading or
gradients and pixelated text, numbers, and screen
backgrounds. Because of the pixelation, it takes much
more time to manually edit screenshots (for example,
to mock up data, or add/remove features that aren't
yet complete) than it did with Windows Classic.

The tools we have to work with are Paint Shop Pro
[[version 7 and a trial version of Corel PSP (ver
10)]] and MS Paint, and none of them offers a
straightforward way to quickly edit image files.
Purchasing a more robust tool like Photoshop is
prohibitively expensive because we have 18 writers in
our department, and we all need access to our own copy
of whatever graphics tool we're using. Is there any
other reasonably-priced tool that lets you easily edit
screenshots manually to address the issues described
above? Also, I am curious how others who are using the
Windows XP look in their printed documents are
handling the gradients and increased file size needed
to make the screenshots look OK.

If it matters -- I am using MS Word 2003 to create
hardcopy docs and then converting to PDF. Also, if
anyone knows of a list dedicated to working with
graphics that would be more appropriate for my
questions, please let me know. Thanks!

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