Hi res "Print Version" images no improvement

[Centauri27]

When I created documentation for our new product, I created two versions of most images: one for screen and a hi res version (300dpi) for print. I relied on Flare's ability to select the proper version depending on the target output. The documentation was output to WebHelp, PDF, and a physical printed manual. I did not use Flare to create the PDF or printed manual directly--rather, I created a Word file first, then used Adobe Acrobat 9 to create a PDF using the 'High Print Quality' setting. This PDF was also sent to the a professional printing company to print and bind the manuals.

Here is my question: The screen shots in the printed manual are not very impressive at all, despite the fact that they were 'captured' at 300dpi using Capture's 'print version' feature. If anything, they look worse than the screen shots from an older manual that were basically straight screen captures at screen resolution.

I am wondering whether going from Capture --> Flare --> Word --> PDF --> printed manual might have 'negated' (for lack of a better word) the 300dpi hi-res PNG files produced by MadCap Capture? In other words, should I have sent the original Word file and the original hi-res PNGs to the printer in order to get the higher quality? Our printing company prefers PDFs and I thought that using the "High Print Quality" setting in Acrobat would have preserved the image quality.

Can anyone out there share their experience with printing hi-res screen shots using Capture? I was a little disappointed that my extra effort in creating the two image files resulted in no improvement in the finished product.

Thanks.
Carl Lum

[NealPozner]

Hello, Carl. Please submit a bug report at http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx

If you could attach a sample project set up in the same way you have your project set up, with the images captured and configured in the same way, that will be helpful in suggesting a solution.

[navoff]

When I created documentation for our new product, I created two versions of most images: one for screen and a hi res version (300dpi) for print. I relied on Flare's ability to select the proper version depending on the target output. The documentation was output to WebHelp, PDF, and a physical printed manual. I did not use Flare to create the PDF or printed manual directly--rather, I created a Word file first, then used Adobe Acrobat 9 to create a PDF using the 'High Print Quality' setting. This PDF was also sent to the a professional printing company to print and bind the manuals.

I guess my first question is why are you going through Word first? Why not just output directly to PDF from Flare? Personally, when I generated content directly to PDF from Flare it looked ten times better than outputting it to Word. It seems like an unnecessary step and one that is bound to introduce additional problems.

[QuadraQ]

What is the "print version" feature that he's referring to? How do you use it? Does it really make a difference?

I'm going to be redoing screenshots soon, and this might be a helpful feature. Thanks.

[doc_guy]

Here is how I understand it:

You can't capture screen shots at 300 dpi. Your screen display is about 92 dpi. Capture can't make up the pixels out of nothing, so to get to 300 dpi, it has to shrink your image by 60%. The limiting factor here is the display that you are taking a screen shot of.

Capture doesn't digitally enhance the image to get 300 dpi, though that would be a cool feature.

WHen I'm taking screen shots, I almost never use them at actual size. I "reduce" the size by increasing the resolution. Then when the images print, they look cleaner, because the reduction was done by increasing the resultion, instead of just decreasing the size at 92dpi.

[QuadraQ]

I "reduce" the size by increasing the resolution. Then when the images print, they look cleaner, because the reduction was done by increasing the resultion, instead of just decreasing the size at 92dpi.

OK then here's the real question: For our existing images, I use an image class that sizes them to 4.5 inches wide (auto length) for print medium (no resizing for "default" medium). Is Flare smart enough to resize these by changing the dpi, to keep them sharp, or are they getting squished?

We're actually still using Adobe InDesign for our print version at this point because of some features for print that we require that Flare doesn't yet have. Still I'm hoping that will change soon, and this is one of the issues we'll have, since we have a lot of screenshots.

[htran]

I'm a little confused...

doc_guy wrote:

You can't capture screen shots at 300 dpi. Your screen display is about 92 dpi. Capture can't make up the pixels out of nothing, so to get to 300 dpi, it has to shrink your image by 60%. The limiting factor here is the display that you are taking a screen shot of.

"Capture doesn't digitally enhance the image to get 300 dpi, though that would be a cool feature.

"WHen I'm taking screen shots, I almost never use them at actual size. I "reduce" the size by increasing the resolution. Then when the images print, they look cleaner, because the reduction was done by increasing the resultion, instead of just decreasing the size at 92dpi."

So I think you're saying that even though the recommended resolution for a print image is about 300 dpi, if you capture an image at 300 dpi, it will have loss. But what I don't understand is that you say to reduce the size by increasing the resolution. Maybe I'm getting my terms mixed up. On the file properties tab for an image, what is the difference between size and resolution? Where do you adjust each?

Thanks!

[SteveS]

Hi

Doc_Guy is right (write?).

If you consider an image is made up of a series of coloured blocks you will see what he is saying. If my image is made of 600 by 400 blocks and I display the image at 100 dpi resolutuion, my image is going to be 6 inches wide - 600 blocks at 100 to the inch. If I increase the resolution (make the image sharper) to 300 dpi, the 600 blocks will be 2 inches wide (600/300 = 2). The image is 'sharper', but smaller.

To make a larger (size) image you have to capture more blocks. With a screen grab its a moot point, anything on a monitor is displayed at 96 dpi. You can make the image larger (ie more blocks) but all it is doing is saying convert this 1 gray block into 2...

HTH