Getting screenshots suitable for print on the Mac

2007 March 21
by Karen

The last month or so I’ve been trying to figure out how to get screenshots from my Mac at 300 dpi the resolution that my publisher insists that I must submit all images for print publication. The problem is that I have no idea how to make this work without the images looking terrible. On a PC I would use something like SnagIt which let’s you set the resolution at which you want to capture. However, I can’t find something similar for the Mac and it is driving me crazy.

Most of the articles on the web talk about bringing the images into Photoshop and changing the resolution. However, I see two potential problems with this. First, it is time consuming. Why should I retouch every image I capture? Second, most of what I’ve read seems to indicate that the quality will be less than ideal. So my question to those Mac users out there is “How do you get 300 dpi screenshots to send to your publisher?”

6 Responses leave one →
  1. 2007 March 21

    Isn’t Photoshop AppleScriptable now? It should be possible to write a procedure to do it.

  2. 2007 March 21
    mr wahlee permalink

    here’s a thread that covers it.

    http://forums.dealmac.com/read.php?4,2660160,2660197,quote=1

  3. 2007 March 21

    That thread is nice but I need a simpler way as I’ve got many screenshots to do for my publication.

  4. 2007 March 21

    I used Grab and then just ran a batch script in Photoshop to open everything, change the DPI to 300, change the width to whatever it was, save and close. It’s not super tough but I’d love to find an easier way.

  5. 2007 March 22

    My plan was basically what Jessamyn said: batch photoshop script. I’ll be happy to put the script together and throw it your way, or if you don’t have photoshop I’ll do them…no worries.

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