[HN Gopher] Show HN: Screenstab - A tool to turn screenshots int...
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Show HN: Screenstab - A tool to turn screenshots into image assets
Author : mikaelaast
Score : 126 points
Date : 2021-02-10 13:14 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.screenstab.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.screenstab.com)
| marcodiego wrote:
| Back in the day we simply configured compiz switcher and got a
| good screenshot:
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Compiz-S...
|
| Linked image is not as beautiful as reality was.
| WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote:
| Just want to quickly say congrats and awesome idea. Will
| definitely use in future
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP: Thanks :)
| markhall wrote:
| This is great concept with a strong execution. Interested to see
| how the price-point resonates relative to typical frequency of
| use.
| kareemm wrote:
| Fantastic idea. I've looked hard for a tool to make nicer product
| marketing screenshots without a designer and there are very few
| nice tools. The best I've found is Screely[1].
|
| Couple suggestions:
|
| 1. Be able to add a magnifying glass effect to draw the eye[2]
|
| 2. Put in different browser chrome
|
| 3. Allow annotations and arrows that don't look like they were
| made with a quick and dirty screenshot tool
|
| 4. Allow resizing and cropping
|
| 5. If you want to get fancy, build an OS X app to take and edit
| the screenshot in one go.
|
| 6. Add drop shadows and other effects
|
| Paying for a tool like this above would save me so much time
| making product marketing screenshots and would be a no-brainer
| for me.
|
| 1 - https://www.screely.com/
|
| 2 - like this:
| https://www.pixeden.com/media/k2/galleries/157/001-loupe-scr...
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP here: Thank you very much. That was my starting point as
| well, to quickly generate consistent and good-looking marketing
| material without involving a human, basically. Thanks for the
| thoughtful feedback and suggestions.
| O_H_E wrote:
| Useful or not, that looks sexy.
|
| Bonus points if you can add a set of copy-able settings, so one
| can apply the same transformations to different pics potentially
| in different sessions.
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP here: I humbly thank you! Yes. Saving settings as well as
| batch processing of images are both on my roadmap.
| gegtik wrote:
| This is cool as heck
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP: <3
| Bob_LaBLahh wrote:
| Very nice. I'd use it.
|
| Two ideas to consider: (1) give option for one time purchases (2)
| raise your price (I'd pay more)
|
| Good luck!
| michaelmcdonald wrote:
| This. So much this. I'm sick and tired of subscriptions for
| software. The fatigue is real.
| op00to wrote:
| No idea what this actually does after reading the web site. Is
| there a gallery of examples or something?
| tyingq wrote:
| It appears to spruce up screenshots with tilt, drop shadows,
| and so on.
|
| It really, really, could use a gallery of before/after examples
| though.
| manjana wrote:
| There is an example on the landing page. It transforms, skews
| and add shadows (+ more probably) to images.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| The mix of seller, buyer and "you" in the writing makes it hard
| to follow who's who sometimes.
| endisneigh wrote:
| I'd rather pay $100 once and have this on my computer
| permanently. Any chance of that happening?
| fudged71 wrote:
| A while back I saw a way to take an SVG screenshot of a webpage,
| which seems like an excellent intermediary format if you are
| warping text etc and not wanting to run into aliasing problems
| etc. Is that what you are doing?
| glsdfgkjsklfj wrote:
| Here is something completely different:
| https://github.com/gcb/mk6
|
| you can "write" (or even read) the screen shot in very simple
| HTML5 (soon markdown) and a CSS file will magically make it
| kinda-look like windows/gnome/kde/osx/ios/android.
|
| goal is both to have fully accessible "screenshots" in
| documentation and to ease the authoring for developers. Mostly
| because i was tired of having a VM with default vm themes just to
| create screen shots :)
| woliveirajr wrote:
| Why stab the screen to get beautiful images?
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP here: Finally someone is asking the right questions... I
| don't know. Naming stuff is hard, and it was late at night.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| I think it's a cool product but the name is not something
| memorable for me.
| kinard wrote:
| Well done, seriously well executed.
| dvh wrote:
| "Before" contains information. "After" is stock photo fluff.
| sneak wrote:
| People pay money for "stock photo fluff", as you put it.
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP here: Yes. Not to mention how OCR-unfriendly it is... I
| don't know what to tell you. Screenfluff didn't have the same
| ring to it.
| [deleted]
| sscarduzio wrote:
| This is really pretty. Thanks for taking the time to creating it.
| I concur with other users saying that it's strange to scroll to
| move: messy with trackpads, and what does it mean to move? Better
| provide an optional scroll bar that mirrors the scrolling, or can
| be manipulated directly with the mouse.
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP: Thank you :) So yeah, I gather that the scrolling is a bit
| unintuitive... For what it's worth, the up and down keyboard
| keys are mapped to the same motion, so they should be a good
| substitution.
| btbuildem wrote:
| Ah.. my go-to for this is to take a photo of the screen with my
| phone. The effect is spot on, and as bonus, you can capture the
| pixellated nature of the image.
| EForEndeavour wrote:
| The risk of horrible moire comes to mind.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| Indeed. There's even an xkcd for it - https://xkcd.com/1814/
| simplecto wrote:
| This is neat. Points for execution!
|
| I did this for the first iteration of my side-project using my
| camera to "take a photo of a photo".
|
| I did a side-by-side comparison of screenstab vs iphon6 taking
| pic of screen. original screenshot as control
|
| Here: https://imgur.com/a/urRmG2S
|
| WFH means we have time on our hands to do comparisons like this.
| LOL
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP here: Thanks a bunch! Your comparison highlights something
| that always bothers me about taking a real-life photo of a
| screen: the banding/moire effect resulting from the physical
| pixels being viewed from an angle. This was actually something
| I encountered early on in Screenstab when I was attempting to
| replicate the look of a real subpixel layout. Had to scrap that
| approach.
| simplecto wrote:
| Interesting! You should put a side-car blog up and talk about
| the challenges and lessons that came from building this
| thing. I've been doing that and was able to ride the front-
| page of HN for about 18 hours. Link in profile.
|
| Also, I see that you are in Norway?! Hej from Sweden :-)
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP: I like that idea. And yes, I've noticed your posts.
| Hej, sota bror!
| rbinv wrote:
| Cool idea. I wonder if the effect(s) could be achieved solely
| with CSS?
|
| edit: the page says the transforms are done locally, but maybe
| you could also offer a hosted API so screenshots can be replaced
| automatically.
| mikaelaast wrote:
| Hi, OP here! The depth-of-field effect is pretty much
| unattainable with CSS. I have toyed with the idea of an API as
| well, to sweeten the deal for subscribers (and also it would be
| neat as heck!).
| [deleted]
| digitalgangsta wrote:
| Nice idea and i really like the simplicity! Could you provide
| other effects? If there was a range of different effects offered,
| using the same simple interface that'd be very cool.
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP here: Thanks, and great question! I really like the idea of
| it being a one-click thing. Adding features is a slippery
| slope...
| o-__-o wrote:
| For those looking for a DIY solution, ImageMagick is the tool
|
| https://legacy.imagemagick.org/Usage/warping/
| NearAP wrote:
| Thanks for this. Was looking for a tool like this just about 2
| weeks ago (for flipping and rotating images on the web; I saw
| [1] but it was for Shopify)
|
| 1. https://apps.shopify.com/flip-and-rotate-product-image
| detritus wrote:
| ImageMagick's neat, but the steps required to warp and then
| tenderly shadow and sheen the output of a grab are, in my
| experience, much better done (initially at least) with a GUI
| tool. A lot quicker to intuit, test and iterate.
|
| I hate the thing personally[1], but GIMP would likely be a
| better graphic manipulation suggestion, in this context.
|
| Of course, once you've worked out what you're after, and want
| to manipulate tens or thousands of images, ImageMagick's your
| wizard.
|
| .
|
| [1] I'd just download a trial of AffinityPhoto and use that
| tyingq wrote:
| Paint.Net with the Shape3D and Drop Shadow plugins does
| pretty well. Definitely some learning curve, but nowhere like
| GIMP or Photoshop. And free like beer.
| bennyp101 wrote:
| Ah, it doesn't work on my Firefox :(
|
| > WebGL warning: <Create>: AllowWebgl2:false restricts context
| creation on this system
|
| Works fine on Chrome though, looks cool - couple of things;
|
| - I found the the scroll to move very strange to use, click and
| drag would be nicer
|
| - When I changed the blur intensity, it took over the mouse
| movements and used that to move the image rather than scroll -
| until I clicked on the image again
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP here! Dang it! What OS and version of Firefox are you on, if
| you don't mind my asking? I hear ya about the scroll, and
| that's valuable feedback. Are you using an actual mouse or a
| trackpad?
| bennyp101 wrote:
| Latest Firefox on Manjaro - pretty sure it's to do with with
| the graphics driver and Firefox not playing nicely (fine on
| Chrome) - so I wouldn't worry too much! (There's some webgl
| config settings I think...)
|
| Using a mouse, so the scrollwheel to move it seemed ... off
| ... but then changing the blur intensity made it do what I
| would expect (letting the mouse move the image) so that's all
| good! :D
| tylermenezes wrote:
| I'm using the same setup and no problems here! Maybe a
| problem with open-source graphics drivers? I'm using
| proprietary.
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP: Invaluable feedback. Thank you :)
| dubcanada wrote:
| I am guessing this has something to do with your OS or gfx card
| more then your Firefox. It seems the error is most likely due
| to something stopping WebGL initialization on your Firefox.
|
| On a brand new installation of FF dev on Windows it works.
| bennyp101 wrote:
| Yea, pretty sure theres some webgl config settings that I
| need to tweak - works fine in Chrome, I just use that as
| fallback in case something doesn't work in FF.
| darsoli wrote:
| Is there only one transform option, or could you offer several?
| That might be a good way of satisfying those who want a very
| fancy looking image to others who want specific functionality
| (magnify certain portions of a window, etc).
| hahamrfunnyguy wrote:
| Pretty neat. What are some intended uses case for something like
| this?
|
| I've created similar content for a hero image before, but outside
| of that or perhaps as part of a video I am not sure how I would
| use this.
| neodymiumphish wrote:
| Yeah, this is my take as well. I plan on doing TryHackMe/CTF
| write-ups on GitHub/Medium/etc, but there's no way I would be
| using this at that price range for something like that, where
| it's maybe 3 images per post and one or two posts per month.
| Maybe I can get by with the free offering, though, but I'd like
| to make the screengrabs a bit more legible.
| pg5 wrote:
| You could do single window screenshots and then use GIMP with
| some drop shadows.
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP here: That's <$1 per image :) I'd venture to say that's a
| good deal, any way you slice it.
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(page generated 2021-02-10 23:02 UTC)