ubuntu-manual team mailing list archive

[Ilya Haykinson <haykinson@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thorsten,

I took the information from https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TakingScreenshots -- who
recommend 8-bit color for screenshots that are going into PDFs. Their
recommendation seems to be based on a compromise between color depth and
file size.

I erred on the dimensions -- 800x600 is not mentioned anywhere. I would
imagine 1024x768 would make a better size for full-desktop screenshots.

However, on the bit depth, I recommend that we not go with full color
(24-bit or higher) images unless we absolutely need it: the additional file
size is probably not worth the minor improvement in quality given the small
size of the images. Exceptions would be when taking screenshots that contain
full-color photos or video.

At the end of the day, we probably just want to have someone experiment by
trying to embed in our manual a bunch of different versions in different
color depths, and only deciding then what the standard should be.

-ilya

On Sun, Jan 31, 2010 at 1:37 AM, Thorsten Wilms <t_w_@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi!
>
> I sadly had to leave the meeting yesterday, during the discussion on
> screenshots.
>
> Everything in the summary is fine, except "800x600 8 bit images".
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-manual/Meetings#Meeting%2030/01/10
>
> A screenshot will be in 16 bit by default. 8 bit could means either
> "truecolor" or indexed.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8-bit_color
>
> In either case, you will see color-banding. Attached: a screenshot
> converted to 256 colors (8 bit). Note that results with a single palette
> for all images will be even worse, same for "truecolor".
>
> If you then use JPG compression, you gain nothing from the reduced
> number of colors. Actually, you might end up with larger file sizes and
> the artifacts of 2 kinds of reduction.
>
> So don't dot it, stay 16 bit! ;)
>
>
> Regarding 800 x 600: this sounds very inflexible and should be talked
> about again, once there is an idea of what shots need to be taken. But
> to give you an idea, I attached an image the roughly conforms to the
> format (ended up missing 6 pixels in width and 27 in height, because I
> simply resized the window manually).
>
>
> --
> Thorsten Wilms
>
> thorwil's design for free software:
> http://thorwil.wordpress.com/
>
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