how do you make screenshots look good?!

[pagetta]

I have been tasked with making an email flyer, and my manager wants screenshots of the software we're promoting on them. I personally think screen shots look a bit naff as they never have enough resolution to see what they are actually of (particularly on a 72 dpi screen) so in my view they are fairly un-aesthetically pleasing images that are of no use at all!

So my question is... does anyone have any ideas how to make screenshots look good, or can anyone point me to any examples of 'sexy' looking screen shots? any ideas at all would be most welcome!

thanks everyone!

[N30]

Why not have the small image linked to javascript pop up windows or new browser windows showing a larger view, just like you'd do with a normal product shot?

That's what I've done in the past & it seems to work well ;-)

[Scott Adie]

One thing that may help, and I use for how-to in-house training manuals is to use a screenshot of the entire screen you want to show then zoom in and make 'detail' screenshots of your discussion points or topics. If you have image editing software, you can vignette these images into an appealing visual reference.

[Chris]

agreed w/N30. use the thumbnail, click-here-for-larger-image approach. that's what i always do at work, anyway.

[relisoft]

one thing that i have found is that screem images resize better in some programs and also at basic increments. My preference is to use either Fireworks or Paintshop pro for this, the former being preferred. If you shrink an image like suggested above, shrink it to 75% or 50% or original size.

[tshesse]

i could show you but then i'd have to take you out ...

anyhow, what we did is chop and blow up. left side navigation ... pointless chop it out. menu on top ... chop it out. crop in the meat and blow it up to highlight it. Make 3 of these bubbles placed aestically (sp?) on page with opposite text and it should look good.

[backslash]

I develop software (Mozzle Domain Name Pro and Complete Time Tracking) and recently came across a site that had some great looking screenshots that were clear and stood out so I asked them how they did them with a view to update mine.

The site with the nice screenshots is:
http://www.araxis.com/merge/

Here is their response:
"The small thumbnail screenshots are first captured with Alt-PrintScreen, then pasted into Adobe Photoshop. For something like the two-way file comparison thumbnail, the context menu and the main window are captured separately and pasted into Photoshop on separate layers. The combined image is then scaled to about 26% of the original size (we use an 80% scaling for the "normal" size screenshots on our site), using the Image Size operation with bicubic resampling. I think I might then have applied a little sharpening, just to remove a little of the perceived blurriness that bicubic resampling usually gives. Finally, still in Photoshop, a "Drop Shadow" layer style was added to both layers, giving the shadow effect (3px distance, 5px spread, 120 degree angle, 62% opacity).

If you don't have Photoshop, I expect that you'd be able to achieve pretty similar results in an alternative graphics manipulation program such as Paint Shop Pro."

I plan to use a similar effect on my screen shots.

[marbant]

add. if you scale them down, use photoshop's built-in or NIK pro sharpening filter. makes edges look much better.

here is a sample:
http://www.celumimagine.com/screenshots/en

[rockyday]

If you can increase the screen size, having a large monitor is essential, then capture the screen shot and change the res from 72 dpi to 144 or whatever then the screen shot will get proportionally better.

[UCSI]

Hello - the best screenshot (amongst other features) software that I have found and use almost every day is SnagIt from TechSmith, http://www.techsmith.com/products/snagit/default.asp
Hope that helped!
Best - Sabine