Capture Still Images (introduction)

Part of the definition of desktop publishing is that images are integrated with the composition of other media elements, generally text. Once image skills are learned for DTP, this knowledge has many other applications. Still images might be used in many ways other than newsletters, for example: word processing documents, web pages, electronic slide shows, database fields, or as images used by video editing program to make a movie of slides. Use the information and tutorials below to learn how to capture images from different sources so that they can be used for compositions in other computer applications.

 

From Clipart. 

Many common programs provide clip art collections that can be used in print and Web page publication. In Microsoft Office applications such as FrontPage, Publisher, Powerpoint and others, click on Insert in the Menu Bar and drag down to Pictures. Appleworks and more recent versions of Microsoft Office applications have a clipart search function that searches tens of thousands of images at their respective company online clipart databases.

The process to save clipart into Web usable formats depends on the version of the application being used. Older versions generally require copying an image and pasting it into a graphic editor such as Paint or Pixlr then saving into the Web formats of GIF, JPG or PNG. Newer versions save a step by providing a right click menu item titled Save Picture As... Pull down menu items from the dialog box then allow saving into the Web formats. The GIF format has been the smallest and therefore best file size to use for clipart graphics.

From The Web. 

To copy an image on a web page requires just a couple of clicks.

On a Macintosh computer,  hold the mouse button down on a web page image for a couple of seconds and a menu appears with a command to copy the image to the clipboard so that you can later paste it into some destination file. Another option is to save it to a disk or drive and then later insert the file into the place it is needed. 

On a Windows computer, right click the image, and from this menu you can save the Web image as a file.

To find an image is easy.

There are many search engines that have a check box or special link for images collections. Perhaps the most efficient general system for finding a large number of images is Google's. 

If seeking images that will be placed on your web page or if needing to work with images that you can legally keep for longer than two years for educational purposes, there are web sites that do provide images for free whose image use does not generally violate copyright policy.

 A Partial list of other image search systems

Issues with web and other image sources

Copyright. Images are generally not copyright free for web use, though educators can claim "fair use" for in-class or other "limited audience" educational use. "Fair Use" law does not apply to the web. That is, an image taken from a web page could be put in a Powerpoint presentation or word processing document for educational use with proper citation and reference to copyright law. The same web image could not be placed in a personal or school web page without explicit written permission from the owner of the image. Study the North Carolina guidelines for Fair Use of the copyrighted works of others within educational settings.

Protection. Just as with the text of any web page, images can be about subjects so explicit or graphic in their depiction of certain themes that they are unacceptable for school use. Such themes include violence, sexuality, race, lies and distortions of history and others. That is, it is just as easy to search for acceptable themes as it is to search for the ones that are not appropriate for children and classroom use. Should what we teach about image searching be any different than what we already teach about searching for text? Image searching seems to accent an area of discussion that leads to more fundamental questions. In empowering children to better use the Internet's resources, are we sufficiently preparing them to avoid trouble and/or to deal with situations they might intentionally or unintentionally seek out? Schools pay for filtering systems that shut out Internet sites that are trouble for educational use. Internet Service Providers can also handle such filtering for other groups. Are parents as knowledgeable about such protection services, about how to obtain them and control them as school systems? The same filtered search done at school may yield results that also include unacceptable elements at home. What is the obligation of teachers and school systems to prepare parents in managing their home Internet environment? How is this being dealt with in the school system where you are teaching? Does your school system have any brochures or standard handouts, parent training sessions or community awareness activity on home Internet protection?

Capturing Stills From Any Video Source: videotape, videodisc, camcorder, TV

There is a wide variety of software and hardware applications for capturing video from camcorders on different computer platforms. Software applications such as iMovie on the Mac platform and MovieMaker on Win platforms all have a feature that allows a still image to be saved from any frame of a video composition.

From Scanners

Scanners allow an image or a relatively flat object to be placed on its surface and make a high quality digital copy of the image. Scanners can be found in every public lab on campus.

From Digital Still Cameras

Digital still cameras differ from standard photographic cameras in that they contain no camera film. The image is stored as computer data. Image storage is done in two different ways. In one design, the image is stored on a floppy diskette which is then taken out and inserted into a computer where an application can open and edit the file. In the other design, the image is stored in computer chips and a wire must be connected from the camera to the computer to transfer images. The chips may be internal in the camera, or they may be removeable. The removeable chips go by different names such as Memory Cards or Smart Media Cards. For basic help with any camera, search the manufacturer's Web site or search for the cameras name and the word "tutorial".

From All or Parts of Computer Screens

Every computer screen should be thought of as an image that can be captured in whole, or in part. The press of just a couple of keys makes a digital snapshot of the computer screen that can later be used in other applications.


These links describe what keys to click to capture all or part of the computer screen. Some key click options will save the screen snapshot to disk and others will save it to the clipboard. The clipboard is a part of the computer's active or RAM memory. 

Converting Images to Different Formats

Often the image that is captured or created is not in the right file format to be used in another application. Many image applications have procedures for saving files into different formats, but when this is not available, there are applications that specialize in image conversion.

If the image is saved as a file to disk, its file format may be fine for applications such as word processing, but will not work on web pages. Another application will have to be used to the convert the file format to something useable for the Internet. Sometimes these tools go by the name of graphics editor. For Web page display, when an image is opened or inserted into  the graphics editor, it should be saved as the file type of GIF, JPEG (also JPG) or PNG. The GIF format only allows 256 colors. It is used for images which are line art or images which are solid uniform colors and PNG 8 is a better version of the GIF format. The JPG format is used for photographs or paintings or other images with many subtle changes in the tone of the colors used. The PNG 24 format is a better quality version of JPEG, but as it is a lossless format, it does not compress to a smaller file size as effectively.

If the image is saved or copied to the clipboard, it can be quickly pasted into these many graphics applications and then more quickly convert the file type to the necessary GIF, JPG or PNG formats.

To learn how to use Appleworks or Paint applications, study the links in the next section on Paint or Draw for the computer platform that is needed.
 

Paint or Draw by Hand

 The terms "paint" or "draw" have had distinct meanings in computer applications. One difference is in layering. Paint programs at first provided a single image layer, so that if new lines or images are placed over other images, they replace the image data that they are over. The Paint application that comes with all Windows computers is of this type. More current paint programs do all mutiple layers.

Draw programs work with collections of objects which are a stack of image layers, so that sliding an upper layer to one side can reveal image parts that were once covered over and hidden. Each new image element brought into a composition becomes the topmost layer until the Arrange command is used to reposition the new layer in the stack. Any layer can be repositioned at any time. Each layer is an object. These objects are generally of three different types: a picture (photograph or sketch); a shape (square, rectangle, line etc.) or a text box, a rectangle filled with a heading or a paragraph and more.

Pressure Sensitive Drawing Tablets


These image manipulation skills are fundamental to further work with desktop publishing in later assignments and to web page development. However an image is acquired, any images must be properly labeled on a web page with its source. If you create the image, credit yourself. If it comes from clipart, say so, indicating the software application from which it comes. Any image must be properly labeled with its source, creator and/or web page address. Further, if the web page from which you have taken the image or other media is not a Federal government web site or the page does not give you specific permission to use its images, then do not put yourself in violation of Federal copyright law by using it in a web page. Where permission is explicitly given on a web page, carefully read and follow the qualifications for that permission.