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Subject:RE: Consistency with screenshots From:"David Artman" <david -at- davidartman -dot- com> To:soniaferns2004 -at- gmail -dot- com, techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Thu, 14 Jun 2018 12:25:52 -0700
There are A LOT of things you need to do to be consistent with screen
shots, especially across multiple writers in the same deliverables. A
quick-and-dirty list:
* Set all desktop OSes to a default color scheme with minimal or no
gradients. This can mean turning off things like Aero (Windows) or
themes. If not "Windows Classic" then one based off of it using
corporate colors (a nice touch, I find).
* Set your screen (on which you take all shots, if more than one) to a
consistent display resolution and percentage of scaling. Ideally, it is
a high resolution that allows you to consistently capture the
application with high detail.
* Set the application to a default theme or colors, if that's an
option.
* Capture everything with app maximized UNLESS it's a web or mobile
app, in which case capture with a recommended viewport size (often
derived from fullscreen browser minus its minimal controls, toolbars,
status bar, and window chrome) or default device screen resolution. You
can always crop and (assuming no gradients) re-scale excessive
whitespace in an image editor; but you might not always be able to go
back and get what you didn't see by not being maximized.
* Speaking of web apps, ensure that your browser zoom is 100%.
* Use Alt+Print Screen to capture active pop-ups and dialogs (saves you
cropping out what's behind).
* If you need to resize/re-scale for some reason (usually a critical,
orienting, fullscreen shot) then determine the best scaling percentage,
with fixed aspect ratio, and publish that in your style rules.
Typically, I need no more than three scaling factors, for any
application: 100%, small enough for fullscreen to fit a portrait page
margins (~65%ish, often), and MAYBE a tinier size for doing blowups
(tiny size screen is maybe a quarter of the page margins, so that
another, 100% scale 'blowup' of the area[s] in question can be layered
over it--this is sort of a dying technique, though).
* Only apply callouts--using enforced 'templates' of drawing objects in
your editor or using defined callout types in tools like
SnagIt--**AFTER** scaling, else callouts will grow and shrink between
images that scale or do not scale.
* Speaking of callout templates, every app is different; but in
general, maximum contrast with a white or black, knock-out, 'centered'
shadow is best. The callouts should leap off the image.
* Unless you do side callouts instead of overlay callouts. In THAT
case, EVERY image must be centered on the page OR your left-side
callout whitespace must be 'baked into' every image, even those with no
callouts... else they will appear to stagger right and left as
left-side callouts appear and disappear.
And that is literally just the general stuff. If you go all-in on
corporate branding, your callout colors can be impacted. If you're
printing in collor, you might want to use spot color instead of
CMYK/RGB for callouts and any other 'art' you do for screen shots, so
you can minimize the number of colors you have to pay for. Though
screen shots, iin such case, must be greyscaled... which means you have
to think A LOT more about the luminance values of the colors in the
desktop OS color scheme and the application's theme.
But heck, who does web-press printing anymore? ;)
Hope this gets you started;
David
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Consistency with screenshots
From: [1]soniaferns2004 -at- gmail -dot- com
Date: Wed, June 13, 2018 10:16 pm
To: [2]techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Can people share the sizes of the screenshots they stick with ?
IaEUR(TM)m just looking for an idea to spruce a style guide which
includes some details like this. We are using greenshot.
Sent from my iPhone
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