Resizing An Image

[jessjenn]

Hi Everyone. I want to take a screenshot and print it under 300 resolution, but everytime I paste it into Photoshop (after I take the screenshot via CONTROL+PRINTSCREEN button), it comes out as 3x2 inches, which is too small. I would like it to be 6x7 inches, but the only way I can think to do that, is if I resize the 3x2 inches image, to 6x7 inches. This makes the image a little blurry, so I sharpen it up a little bit.

Am I doing something wrong? Thanks everyone!

[Welles]

Welcome to the forums, jessjenn.

Nope you're not doing anything wrong. When you take a screen captured image you have only the number of pixels drawn on the screen to work with. If, for example, your screen is 15" wide and set to a resolution of 1024 x 768 in real terms you are capturing about 68.2 pixels per inch. When that resolution is changed to 300dpi the image has to be much smaller. Say you captured a screen image of 8" x 68ppi = 544. Now divide that by 300 which is the resolution you are changing the image to and you can see why the image is smaller.

There is no way around that limitation. I just experimented with a screen capture and increasing the resolution to 300dpi from 72. The best result was maybe using the Bicubic Sharper interpolation algorithm and then adding a touch of sharpening on top of that. Experimentation is in order. Try sharpening a Nearest Neighbor interpolation and see if you like that.

The issue you have discovered is precisely why all the Photoshop how-to books always have their screen shots printed at a small size. It is the big 'secret' how to keep them looking sharp when printed.

[chapelgrovefilms]

Okay, I have a similar question....

I'm working on a movie and I need a full-screen image of a screen cap of a Windows desktop. When I do a printscreen and paste it into PhotoShop, then change the resolution to 300dpi, I'm coming up with the same problem -- the resulting bitmap looks awful when pulled into Adobe Premiere and incorporated into the movie.

Is there ANY way to get a screen capture that's going to look good in my movie?

I've also tried creating a simulated Windows desktop from scratch in PS, but I'm no artist. And even so, it's still tending to look fuzzy in Premiere.

Any help???