Capture 7 bug?

[dorcutt]

So, I'm getting odd behavior with Capture 7. This is especially unfortunate because it's with the exact thing that I want to use the most.

I'm a big fan of using Profiles to create images with different Print DPIs to control image size in my PDF and Word outputs. I'd love to do roughly the same thing for my online output, and it looks like Capture 7 might enable that, but the fields that I want are vanishing:



I think this might be related to the fact that the "Medium Source" box is empty, grayed out, and read-only? Has anyone else seen this sort of thing, or had any luck with setting "web DPI" using Capture 7?

[atomdocs]

Hi Dan

I don't think it is because of the Medium Source field being empty. From the Capture manuals:

Medium Source: This field displays the location of the stylesheet associated with the custom medium selected in the Medium field.

I think it is because those missing fields are considered by Capture to be image-specific. When you edit an image in the normal way, those fields are populated by the dimensions of the image. But because you are setting up a profile, there is no image yet to provide that info. I presume you want to use the profile to set a specific size? I can't help much at the moment... not had breakfast yet, sorry.

[dorcutt]

Looking at it further, yes, it looks like you're right atomdocs. Image size settings can only be set up for individual images. That's absolutely infuriatingly disappointing. (I'm also not sure why my Medium source is not being picked up, but it does look like that's a separate issue).

Further looking at it for a particular image, even with the Web (Default) medium selected, changing the scale (and only by set multiples of 2 or .5) changes the display size for both Web AND Print output. At the very least, it changes the preview for both.

Capture is a single-source image handling program, and it has profiles to set how images are captured. All I want to do is to set a series of profiles to control how my large my images display in Print and Web, while maintaining a standard DPI and image quality. In unrelated news, I hate how it still seems to require a black belt in Capture to use it without mangling your image quality.

Anyway, back on topic, I want to create a profile called, say, "XLarge Screenshot." For Print outputs, it would set the image to display at 200 DPI (or better yet, to truly resample it so it displays at a reduced (roughly half) size without losing image quality. Then, for Web Output, where space and dynamic rescaling are a little more forgiving, I might have it set to display at roughly 75% size without losing image quality (150 "Web DPI" or so).

It just boggles my mind that there still seems to be no simple way to easily control how large an image appears in PDF and Web output separately on the profile level without losing image quality. Am I missing something here?

P.S. - It also kills me that the profiles and the images aren't truly linked. I would love to be able to alter an image capture profile and have Capture automatically apply my changes to all images that had that profile attached to it, like changing the CSS style for a class. I'm not sure if that one is possible or not with the way they have things set up, but I smell some feature requests coming.

[Nita Beck]

P.S. - It also kills me that the profiles and the images aren't truly linked. I would love to be able to alter an image capture profile and have Capture automatically apply my changes to all images that had that profile attached to it, like changing the CSS style for a class. I'm not sure if that one is possible or not with the way they have things set up, but I smell some feature requests coming.

Could you use the batch approach, as discussed here: http://webhelp.madcapsoftware.com/captu ... Images.htm? It may not be the automatic process you wish for, but it'll let you apply the updated profile to a batch of images rather than doing so one at a time.

[dorcutt]

Wow, thanks Nita, I didn't know about batch jobs. That definitely reduces my annoyance levels significantly. At least now I know that if I finally do get the solution that I want implemented, I don't have to reprocess every stupid image individually.

For now, I'll settle for the Print and Web images always being the same size. I can live with that. What I actually do need is the following:

The ability to use a profile (or CSS, some other Capture-friendly third party batch process) to reduce the size of images for both Web and Print without sacrificing image quality. Standard DPIs for a consistent visual look (and consistent capture object sizes) would be a definite, definite plus.

Basically, I need to categorize images somewhat along these lines:

• Full Size
• 75Percent
• 50Percent
• 25Percent
• MakeFit

Where makefit is a catchall that just jams something particularly enormous so that it fits, regardless of consequences. I don't care if I use CSS, Capture Profiles, or any other third party solutions as long as it's free and safe.

Anyone have any other suggestions as miraculous as Nita's?

[dorcutt]

Apparently this was accepted as a bug, #103056. At the very least, the fields should not appear at all if they are not intended to be used, but I really hope the actual functionality is added.