Help taking screenshots!

I have to produce an A1 poster for my University module, of which it involves taking screenshots. When I take my screenshots and place them on they're absolutely tiny.

Is there anyway to print screen at a very high DPI so my screenshots aren't going to need a microscope to see them?

i think you can only screen shot at your screen res. i.e. 1440 x 1200 or wat ever.

to screen shot press apple key, shift, 4

Liam said:

Is there anyway to print screen at a very high DPI so my screenshots aren't going to need a microscope to see them?

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There is no more information available than the resolution you are working with. In other words, you would be trying to interpolate information between pixels and there isn't anything there. You might want to find the screen image that you want, then crank the resolution down as low as you can (640 by 480) so that the image is physically larger on your screen and then try to capture it. But even if that works it is still going to be quite small.

Screenshots are taken at a little less than 72 dpi and there's no way to change it without changing to a screen with a higher resolution.

Just use a good digital camera.

Sherman Homan said:

You might want to find the screen image that you want, then crank the resolution down as low as you can (640 by 480) so that the image is physically larger on your screen

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That will actually end up with a smaller image because you will only have 640x480 pixels instead of native screen res. The only thing that can be done in this situation is to physically print the pixels bigger, i.e. print the screenshot at lower dpi (for example, to get A1 you might need to go down to 20 dpi). The only way to get a 300 dpi A1 screenshot is to have a screen that is about 14,000 x 9,000 pixels!

cazabam said:

That will actually end up with a smaller image because you will only have 640x480 pixels instead of native screen res. The only thing that can be done in this situation is to physically print the pixels bigger, i.e. print the screenshot at lower dpi (for example, to get A1 you might need to go down to 20 dpi). The only way to get a 300 dpi A1 screenshot is to have a screen that is about 14,000 x 9,000 pixels!

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You are right, but we are approaching this from two different directions. Since it is impossible to get a 300 dpi image on a A1 from a screen shot, I was proposing to start from a physically larger image. But it still won't help, by the time it gets blown up to A1 it is a pixellated mess.

Thanks for the replies fellas - looks like I'm stuck with not-so-big shots!

Thanks anyway!

You can try enlarging the image a few percentage points at a time in Photoshop and running an Unsharp Mask filter after each enlargement (just a small amount), but you're probably going to end up with a mess anyway.

Apple really does need to address this (allowing higher dpi screenshots). Perhaps with the rumored Resolution Independent GUI we'll get it.

CreativeGuy said:

*Snip*

Apple really does need to address this (allowing higher dpi screenshots). Perhaps with the rumored Resolution Independent GUI we'll get it.

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Hi, CreativeGuy!

Is this supposed to be in Leopard? That would be ultra cool!... :girl:

According to a Photoshop book I read, you can achieve dramatic size increases in pictures by doing it step by step. Do a 10% increase in size each time, repeating over and over until you have what you want. I have tried it, and it looks OK - not dramatically better than just doing the whole increase at once, but better. Give it a whirl!

Take a shot at the maximum resolution you can handle and save it at 200dpi at 200%. It shouldn't look too bad at all.

Well, there is Genuine Fractals...

The problem with Genuine Fractals (and all the other image enlarging apps and plug-ins) is that it only works (acceptably) when the image is high-res to begin with. For instance, it'll work great if you want to blow up a 5x7 300dpi image to 20x28. But to take a relatively small 72dpi photo and blow it up to 8x10 simply doesn't work. I've tried them all and they all produce sub-par results at best.

Of course, what I consider sub-par and what others do may be totally different for their needs.