Today’s post is about incorporating social media into your photo books. How do you do that? Easy, take a screenshot. Nowadays it’s very common for folks to share their good news, funny everyday occurrences and sometimes crazy nonsense on their Facebook timelines, Twitter etc. Why not capture it for posterity?
How to Capture a Screenshot on a Mac
Command + Shift + 4 will give you a cursor that allows you to drag over the area that you want to capture. Once you release the mouse or trackpad it will make a shutter noise and save the image as a .png file. Upload the image to the photo book company of your choice. If the software doesn’t recognize your .png file, then convert it to a jpeg using one of the free online photo editing tools I mentioned in my earlier post. Then it’s just like any other photo.
How to Capture a Screenshot on a PC
1) Snipping Tool available on some editions of Windows 7; or
2) Use the Print Screen key on your keyboard
I found a tutorial on how to use the Print Screen key here. Since I’m not a regular PC user, it’s probably best for me to defer to the articles I found.
If the method you use captures more of the image than you want to use, you may need to crop it by using one the photo editing tools of your choice. You may be able to do it within the photo book company’s software as well if they feature it as part of their editing tools.
Here’s one of my layouts that I’ve been working on which features a Facebook screenshot. It’s from my pregnancy journal – a book I’ve been laboring on (seriously no pun intended) for twice as long as my pregnancy! I kept a journal on my computer, writing down my thoughts about impending motherhood and chronicling my new experiences. Of course I took lots of belly photos (though not as many as I had intended) and featured the key moments like our baby shower and of course our first photos of PhotoBookBaby. This Facebook screenshot is of a photo I posted showing off my 37 week belly in a parking garage mirror. Folks thought it was pretty funny.
My intention was to write up a quick post with a screenshot example but it just ballooned from there, and I ended up making several notes on why I put the page together the way I did. I hope it will inspire and help you out with your photo book layouts!
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***CLICK ON THE IMAGE FOR A CLOSER LOOK***
