Forum Discussion
Storyline low screenshot quality
Hello, I'm having some difficulty uploading screenshots of a website as a background for a slide. I have downloaded various screenshot apps and zoomed in but nothing seems to improve the quality. Is there any advice out there on improving this? Is there a specific aspect ratio that screenshots should follow?
Hello,
The rule of thumb with zooming in on images is to capture them at a higher resolution and then they will stand up to zooming in on them. An image that is at a lower resolution will quickly deteriorate in quality once it starts being blown up past its original size. (Vector graphics being the exception, which a screen capture would not be vector.)
You may try looking at the settings of your screen capture software and set the resolution and screen size (raster) higher. For example, if your Storyline project is 1280 x 720 pixels and you need to zoom in on a website screenshot and display it on part of your Storyline slide, try to capture the website image at a higher size (such as 1920 x 1080 or higher) and see if you can set the resolution to a higher rate (such as 300 pixels).
Again, capturing higher than you need will allow you to blow up an image and retain quality. Capturing at the same size or lower and then blowing up an image will decrease quality.
5 Replies
Hello,
The rule of thumb with zooming in on images is to capture them at a higher resolution and then they will stand up to zooming in on them. An image that is at a lower resolution will quickly deteriorate in quality once it starts being blown up past its original size. (Vector graphics being the exception, which a screen capture would not be vector.)
You may try looking at the settings of your screen capture software and set the resolution and screen size (raster) higher. For example, if your Storyline project is 1280 x 720 pixels and you need to zoom in on a website screenshot and display it on part of your Storyline slide, try to capture the website image at a higher size (such as 1920 x 1080 or higher) and see if you can set the resolution to a higher rate (such as 300 pixels).
Again, capturing higher than you need will allow you to blow up an image and retain quality. Capturing at the same size or lower and then blowing up an image will decrease quality.
My display resolution is at the highest, 2560 x 1440. I can't seem to configure the capture settings for screenshots on Windows nor Screenspresso. Do you have any recommendations for screen capture softwares that allow you to increase the quality?
You might try Snagit from Techsmith. I have that through work and it looks like you can alter the screen size (raster) and also alter the resolution (dots per inch, or dpi).
hello there-I'm having the same problem with bringing snagit screenshot images into my SL slide size 1280 x 720. My external monitor and my laptop displays are both the same as the highest resolution they go is 1920 x 1080. I'm importing my picture size from snagit without resizing, but since my slide size is smaller, it's reduced about 85%. my SnagIt is set to 100% with 96 dpi (because copilot told me that increasing the dpi only mattered if you were printing). I compared both 125% zoom and 150% zoom, and of course I could see the menu's text much clearer at 150%, when I dropped into SL 1280x720, the image was grossly pixelated. less pixelated at 125% zoom but not as clearly readable. I can't split the images. I'm trying to use these images in an eLearning course that is training on an interface. How can I get the quality of the capture without the pixelation brought into SL? I also followed the directions from a different post: https://articulate.com/support/article/Storyline-360-Best-Practices-for-High-Quality-Images-and-Videos
Hi CAP_Oldcastle,
Thanks for sharing all those details, and thanks for also checking the Articulate article on high-quality images, that helps narrow things down.
What you’re seeing is expected behavior when screenshots are captured at a resolution that’s close to (or lower than) the Storyline slide size and then scaled down and back up. Even though your displays are set to 1920×1080, once a screenshot is reduced to fit a 1280×720 slide and then zoomed or displayed larger on-screen, the image can start to look pixelated, especially for UI text.
A couple of things that can help here:
- Avoid browser or OS zoom during capture (125% or 150%). While it can make text look clearer on-screen, it doesn’t add real pixel data and can actually reduce clarity once the image is resized in Storyline.
- Capture at native resolution with no zoom, then crop tightly to the area you need. Keeping the capture as close to 1:1 as possible with how it will appear on the slide usually produces the best results.
The key factor here is pixel dimensions and how much scaling happens once the image is on the slide.
Hope this helps clarify what’s happening and gives you a couple of focused things to try.
