Screenshots Blurry (Systems Training)

May 02, 2017

Hey Everyone, 

I'm still getting blurry screenshots when I publish a course. It looks so crisp and clear when I'm creating everything but when I publish I loose the crisp images I had. I'm trying out Articulate SL360 to make sure we should upgrade so I'm not sure if it is an issue with the product or if I'm forgetting something silly. I have been messing with this all day and could use the help. 

Please see the link to the test course. Please pick Sheila... she is the story I have been working on and creating crisper images. The images are not scaled from when I took them from the browser (all set to 100%). 

I have messed with browser size, image size, making sure images are not scaled, and I realize the difference between the HTML5 view in IE vs. the Flash view in Chrome from previous blogs. 

https://360.articulate.com/review/content/84db301f-8b88-4d69-99d0-87cd7f503413/review 

Please keep in mind this course is in early development stages. 

 

Thank you, 

--Jes

17 Replies
Tricia Ransom

I noticed that not all of the images are as blurry as Sheila seems to be. That first slide where you have to pick a resident - the middle guy looks nice and crisp. Did you do anything different for Sheila when you added the frame? I can't open it as I don't have 360, but thanks for letting me play around with the Content Review feature.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Jessica,

Justin shared a comprehensive break down and overview of screen recording (or screenshots) and ensuring the quality was where you needed it to be. A lot of things to consider here, but I'd start with his recommendations - especially your overall screen resolution and story size. That looks to be a larger story size which also will cause some blurriness as the screen scales up or down to fit the users' view. 

Jessica Feltman

No, I have tried messing with it a lot though. I have made the story size bigger in the past to help with this issue but I couldn't remember exactly what the premium size I found was. I thought it was 1024 by _____. Right now it is 1024 by 576 but that isn't what I want. I think I just messed with this file to much so I'm going to try it with a copy of my backed up file and start again. :/ 

 

Ashley -- From Justin's overview a lot of it was about screen recordings. Does this apply to screenshots too? I'm assuming yes but I just wanted to double check. 

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Jessica,

A lot of the same principles would apply - such as matching the story size to your screenshot size and resolution and then what's the screen size you're displaying it on? Storyline is going to scale it larger/smaller when inserted depending on those differences, and when you go to view the published output if you're viewing it on a much larger screen with Storyline set to scale, that's going to cause more blurriness. 

Since you've played around with this file too much, you may want to give it a test in a brand new file just to make sure everything is matching up. 

Jessica Feltman

Hi Ashley, 

Ok, testing a new file. 

So give me your thoughts on this. What is the normal resolution for most desktop users to have? I would think 1920x1080? 

Currently my story size in design is set at 1024 x 576. (Should it be 1024 x 800?) 

If I develop for the 1920 resolution is my story size to big? We found if you have an even higher resolution then it is clearer (duh) but I'm not sure what the norm story size is I guess so most users will get the clear view like I see when developing in Articulate. 

I find it silly that the images are crisp and clear in articulate but when you hit publish everything changes. It should be you see what you get right? 

I know this is the perfectionist coming out in me but I have done it before and just need help figuring it out again. :) See attachment for comparison with the new file. 

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Jessica, 

Thanks for the image - those look pretty close to me, but I know I'm not always the best at picking out image discrepancies. Can you pinpoint an area I should be looking at? 

As for the "normal" - I don't believe I've seen a standard or common denominator among desktop users. I did a quick web search and found some statistics about users at one particular web development site that shared as of January 2017, 95% of their users had a  screen resolution of 1024x768 pixels or higher. 

Jessica Feltman

Alright, I believe I have made a little progress. 

We just invested in Articulate SL 360 for multiple reasons but the review function is a big one. 

I have been struggling here (in this post) because when I publish to Articulate 360 Review my screenshot images look very blurry. Not even thinking... this lead me to believe it was something I was doing. 

I finally uploaded the file to our LMS to see how much of a difference it would be in the spot it will live and the images are crisp and clean. 

So @ashleyterwilliger why doesn't Articulate 360 Review show the true published content? 

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

HI Jessica,

I went back to your original post with the Review link and I'm still not seeing the blurriness.  Here's a link to a screenshot of what I'm seeing.  I'm viewing it on my Thunderbolt with a 2048 x 1152 resolution so perhaps that's the difference is that mine is already quite a bit larger and therefore not scaling? 

John Curran

I come across a lot of clients who have problems when developing systems training in Storyline. I always recommend that they capture a screenshot at the same resolution as the storysize (or maybe a bit smaller if they want to include a title bar or nav buttons on the screen). This certainly makes things look good at the authoring end but when it is published things often go downhill either because the learner may be accessing on a lower resolution display and some scaling is taking place or because the published output is compressed.

I've also noticed a blurriness with images in HTML5 published output compared to Flash output. Is this a known issue?

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