January 2012 – Image management

Image Management

Video

Download Windows Media file from Dropbox

Foresight counts

How screen shot management can tie into one-pass “speedwriting” theory, usability, and QA testing at the same time

Screen shots by OS

All Windows OSes

Alt + print screen = currently active window copied to clipboard

  • Must paste image into image manip software next
  • Paint will suffice for the paste
  • Can’t get open menu images this way

Ctrl + print screen = full desktop

  • Must paste image into image manip software next
  • Paint will suffice for the paste
  • CAN get open menu images / hovers / pop-ups this way

If you happen to be in a dual-boot system using a Mac keyboard with a Windows OS (like, say, the room the class was in…)

  • Command (aka cloverleaf button) + Shift + f13

On-screen keyboard

(which will show up in your screen shot, but in case you ever need it…)

Start -> Run -> osk

New in Windows 7 – Snipping tool

similar to Mac Grab application

Mac OS X 10.4 ff

  • Native software: Grab
    • Applications -> Utilities -> Grab
    • Offers a timer mode so that you can go and navigate to a specific menu in order to capture it
    • Saves files on the desktop by default, auto-numbers by default, and (in some versions) saves as TIFF by default
    • You’ll definitely need to convert from TIFF to something web-friendly
    • You’ll probably want to add context-relevant notes to the autonumbering
  • Keyboard version:
    • Command-shift-3: Capture the full desktop to a TIFF or PNG file on the desktop
    • Command-control-shift-3: Capture the full desktop to the clipboard/buffer for pasting into an image manipulator
    • Command-shift-4: Capture a selected application to a TIFF or PNG file on the desktop
    • Command-control-shift-4: Capture a selected application to the clipboard/buffer for pasting into an image manipulator
    • mostly useful for when you need an image of Grab itself 😀

iPad / iPhone

  • Press and hold the home/menu button (the main button below the screen).
  • While the home/menu button is held down, press the power/sleep/lock button (the switch on the top edge of the device).
    • (Don’t hold the power button too long or your device will turn itself off.)
  • Your device should flash its screen and make a “camera noise”.
  • Your screen shot will be saved in the default Photos app (either “Saved Photos” or “Camera Roll” depending on your device).

Android

  • Wikipedia reports that the same home/menu + sleep/lock/power combination works for Android.
  • Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
  • On a T-Mobile MyTouch (Android 2.3), it works with VERY tricky timing:
    • Hold the power button longer than for screen-off but shorter than to toggle to the airplane/power off menu.
    • Tap the Home button before the airplane/power off menu appears, or that’s what you’ll get a screen shot of.
    • If you’re lucky your phone will make a camera noise before it goes black.
      • If you hold the power button too little a time, the screen goes black without taking a picture.
      • If you hold the power button too long a time, you get the airplane/power off menu.
      • If you hit the Home button before the power button, you’ll go to your home page rather than whatever you wanted a screen shot of.
Simpleshare (maybe something else?) for Android

Simpleshare was recommended as a free app to simplify taking screen shots on Androids.

ETA from Todd Young: The folks talking about it at the workshop may have had the wrong app name? From his email:

I downloaded SimpleShare, which was recommended by someone for Android, but it doesn’t appear to be what I would call a screen shot utility. Here’s the description:
https://market.android.com/details?id=za.co.duanemck.quickshare&hl=en
“Have you ever come across a link in an email or a Tweet that looked interesting, but you didn’t have time to read then? SimpleShare is here to help, simply send the link to a predefined email-address and read it later.
SimpleShare also allows you to share images/pieces of text with a pre-configured destination, removing the need to always type an address. It is integrated into Android’s share system.”

So it allows you to email links, text or images using the share feature. But if I want to capture an image of what’s on my screen (like my home screen, etc.), I can’t do that, as far as I can see.

Free video capture by OS

VLC media player (for anything that isn’t a phone)

  • GNU licensed freeware
  • Runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD, GNU, OS/2, etc etc
  • Captures sound and full screen video

Lync screen capture (for Windows and possibly others)

(does this work on Macs?)

Jing (for Windows or Mac)

http://www.techsmith.com/download/jing/default.asp

Win 7 native tool – psr.exe

  • Accessories -> Run menu
  • psr.exe
  • small window pops up
  • While recording, it automatically takes a screen shot when you click (you can adjust how many screen shots to store per session)
  • Helpful “inline” comment feature – you can leave text comments on the screen while you’re making your initial recording, so you can leave notes to yourself about places you had difficulty/things to redesign

    After you have them captured…

Native image manipulation software by OS

Win 7
Win XP
Mac OS X 10.4 ff

Installable image manipulation software by OS

Photoshop
Gimp
Others

How to avoid the dreaded fuzz

Do your own scaling, don’t leave it to the browser window

Scaling without fuzz

  • If by pixels: Divide by 2, 4, or 8
  • If by pecentage: Scale to 50% or 25% for best results
  • 75% sometimes works well and sometimes doesn’t

Web-compatible formats

  • Use PNG if available; you can keep layers separate
  • If not, JPG
  • If not, GIF

Web-incompatible formats

  • Mac saves screen shots as TIFF by default. Those will need converting before use.
  • Winows saves screen shots as BMP by default. Those will need converting before use.