In many cases, they show a beautiful virtual 3D box shot, but somehow neglect the same eye candy on their product screenshots. What I am talking about here is the use of various artefacts such as not properly clipped window borders, weird shadows or the most obvious “dirt” on background.

So it is important to have pixel perfect virtual boxes (which don’t even exist in reality), but the quality of screenshots of products itself doesn’t matter ? Or are there some other obstacles that make producing nice screenshots a hard task ? Lets have a look.

New Windows 7 & Vista Aero theme look

With the arrival of the new Windows Aero theme, new problems related to taking screenshots emerged. The new see-through Aero Glass windows with rounded corners look really cool. But in the moment you capture images of your software with traditional print screen tools, you will also capture everyting you see beneath the glass parts of window. A new term was coined to name this – “a dirty background”. Dirty backgrounds may look weird, out of context and act disturbing. We all know having additional links on shopping cart page may distract customer from the buying act, so why should we tolerate distracting elements on images whose main purpose is to persuade potential customers to buy as well ?

Have a look at this screenshot:

I just grabbed the above screenshot, while writing this article, from the current website of one well-respected ASP member (hope it’s ok Andy ).

Notice the “dirty background”. Also, the corners of the clipped window look tufty. Looking at this real example makes my eyes wander to the dirty background area trying to recognize what was beneath. I think this is distracting, because I should be considering the quality of the help file window and not puzzle dirty backgrounds.

So I made one small improvement:

And, because Perfect TablePlan relates to organizing ceremonial events, I themed the same screenshot on a background with wedding table image plus one reflection effect for the screenshot itself. Have a look:

However, in the last example, the background is back again, which may distract users from the screenshot objective. I think in this case we have a better kind of distraction, because the wedding table image background  relates to the screenshot itself, while the previous window with random dirty background was completely unrelated.  The screenshot in this example can be further improved by putting more focus on the captured window itself, while keeping related background image present.

For this purpose, I made the original background image as half transparent against solid black background producing the following result:

Does it matter ?

Now that we improved Andy’s real-world screenshot, the most important question still persists – does it matter? Would it improve the overall perception or even increase sales? The fact is Andy is successful even with dirty background screenshots. So what, would he need it ?

Looking for an answer I have found following articles:

1. Bob Walsh in his “Why Hammers Sell Better Than Your Software” article wrote “A really good screenshot… this one screenshot sold me on this task management application”, (referring to culturecode .com). Really, this Mac-shot is very clean and the magnifier effects help emphasize the focus even more.
2. Stephen Anderson in his blog post claims that “Eye Candy IS A Critical Business Requirement“. My favorite slide from his presentation shows very nicely that eye-candy is also about trust.
3. Brandon Staggs on his web design service page claims: “Everyone knows the power of a first impression. The first judgment a visitor makes about your web site is how it looks”. So here is a question for Brandon: What influence does have screenshots made with various “artefacts” on the “first impression” factor ?
4. Apple – absolute perfection in design. If you look at any Apple software website, you can clearly see only  artistic crafted screenshots created in 3D space with shadows and reflections. Apple claims “design is function”.

So the conclusion of the above examples is that yes, pretty screenshots matter. The main reasons are:

• It helps to better target customer FOCUS.
• Pretty screenshots build customer TRUST.
• Pretty screenshots (on pretty web page) make a good FIRST IMPRESSION.

How can you do it ?

Lets move on to the technical part – creating a clean and pretty screenshot in the new Windows Aero environment. My main concern here is to explain how to get rid of the “dirty background” problem. There is a myriad of screen capturing tools but only 2 and half of them are able to directly capture clean images of windows in Aero Glass environment (none of that tools is from Microsoft tough).

Note: Besides “dirty backgrounds”, another problem is how to capture gradual surrounding shadow of windows.

Without tools

Essentially, you don’t need any tools to make a clean screenshot in Windows Aero. The trick is to position the window being captured against some solid color surface, then capture it and crop it. Just follow tutorials like this one.

With this approach, to get the solid background, you can do any of these two:

1. Set desktop wallpaper to some solid color and remove icons in some greater area to make space for windows positioning.
2. Open an empty white page in any Internet browser and lay Aero windows against the empty white page.

After the capture, a cropping step is required, because you are capturing either the whole desktop or a greater region with traditional capture tools. Depending on the tool, some may have a built-in cropping function.

There is also the option to turn off Windows Aero theme. This makes windows non-transparent, but it doesn’t solve the problem with rounded corners and window shadows. Finally, you must position the window against a solid background to properly handle rounded corners and shadow.

Last but not least, cropping itself may become an aesthetics problem. In most cases, you will have to do it by hand, which will produce unequal margins on more screenshots. And it may look unprofessional to have multiple screenshots – each with slightly different margin around. Of course, you can crop right around the window border – loosing shadow and possibly producing tufty corners.

The final problem which cannot be solved through this manual method is the fact that the captured images are already combined against its background color. Further adjustments as shown in the  examples above (with wedding backgrounds) are due to the lack of Alpha channel information, almost impossible to do without a professional tools.

With tools

Another approach is to use a tool which captures clean Windows Aero image (possibly with Alpha transparency channel).  There are only a few options here. A total of 2 applications can capture the clean image of Aero windows with Alpha channel and 1 application can capture the clean image, but without Alpha channel in captured window.

As you can see, the lack of tools might explain why many vendors tolerate the lower quality of their screenshots. It’s logical – if it’s tedious or hard to achieve, they simply don’t do it.

The Tools (sorted by price)

1. Window Clippings by Kenny Kerr, price $18

This tool simply does it. Captures clean Windows Aero images with complete Alpha transparency channel and shadows around. You can capture multiple windows at once, add watermark or send resulting image to FTP. Images produced by Window Clippings can be reused in external tools such as Photoshop for creating more sophisticated compositions (eg. themed backgrounds, reflection effects, 3D perspectives etc.)

2. WinSnap by NTWind software, prices starting at $24.90

This tool only does half of the job. It captures clean Windows Aero images, but without the underlying Alpha transparency channel. It simulates the surrounding shadow, which is a consequence of not recording the Alpha channel itself. As a result, images produced with WinSnap cannot be fully reused in Photoshop for more sophisticated compositions, because transparent parts of windows are already combined against white color. WinSnap on the other hand offers built in effects – reflection, contour, rotate, resize and watermark. It also has a sophisticated function for capturing all application windows at once.

3. CrossGL Alpha Screenshot by MicroInvention Ltd., price $29.95

This tool does it too. It captures clean Windows Aero images with complete Alpha channel and shadow around. You can capture multiple windows individually and position them mutually in a built-in Image Composer. Images produced by CrossGL Alpha Screenshot can be fully reused in external tools such as Photoshop. The program has built-in reflection, rotation, resize and 3D perspective tools and can put an arbitrary image on background. Watermarking, FTP and Send by Email are also included.

Use of these tools makes it quick and easy. They also automatically crop Windows Aero screenshots with constant margins, so your screenshots don’t suffer from the crop-by-hand variable margins problem.

Pretty Sells – Does it Relate to Screenshots? is a post from: Association of Software Professionals

We all know that we should be spending more time reading good books about business, sales and marketing. But it’s difficult to find worthwhile books. Here are some tips for locating the best business books, buying them affordably, and building a library that will pay dividends year after year.
Choosing Good Business Books
Amazon.com has more reviews than other book sites. But it’s often difficult to tell if the book being reviewed is relevant to the software industry in general, and to mISVs in particular.  Many times I’ll buy a marketing book based on amazon.com recommendations, only to find that the book is targeted at larger enterprises. Most of us don’t need to read about strategies that ensure that our marketing staff is communicating effectively with our manufacturing managers.

In addition, there are a lot of books whose principles simply don’t translate well into the world of software development. A better source of information is to listen to recommendations from fellow software developers.

• Read book-related threads in the ASP newsgroups;
• Read the Software Marketing Book Club postings in the Educational Software Cooperative’s (ESC’s) blog;
• There are more than 30 reviews of marketing and sales books in the archives of my Marketing Newsletter. All of them are written from the perspective of a mISV in the software development industry;
• Ask for recommendations from other mISVs, and share information about your favorite books with the community.

Finding the Books You Need
Once you’ve chosen a book, the least expensive way to acquire it is to borrow it through your local library. Here in the US, town libraries’ book catalogs are searchable online. I’m able to easily search the catalogs of 20-or-so nearby towns. All local libraries here in Connecticut have inter-library loan programs that allow you to borrow books from any library in the state, for just a dollar or two.

Online stores such as amazon.com offer discounts on most books. And you can find deeply-discounted bargains in the used-book category for many business and marketing books.

Local bookstores are a great source for recently-published books. Generally, you can spend as much time as you like checking each book, to ensure that it will be useful in your business.
Building a Library of Marketing, Sales, and Business Books
There are quite a few bookstores on the Internet that sell remainders. My favorite is Book Closeouts. Remainders are books that publishers sell at deep discounts because they printed too many copies. Or they’re books that have been returned by book stores to the publishers, and the publishers don’t want to carry tiny quantities of them in their inventories.  Book Closeouts offers more than 50,000 books at deeply discounted prices, including some really great marketing and sales books. These books are so inexpensive, it’s easy – and affordable – to build a library.

Here in the US, local libraries sell used books to raise funds. A small town library might offer 15,000 books at its weekend sale. Larger libraries can have up to four times that number. The typical mix of books is 95 percent donations from the people in town, and 5 percent library discards. While books can cost between $2 (US) each and $5 per bag, you can generally expect to pay $1 for each book you buy.

At each book sale, there are typically a dozen-or-so dealers with their handheld PDAs and phones, reading barcodes and making big stacks of books. But most of the books are bought by book-lovers and bargain-hunters. You’ll find books that simply aren’t available at bookstores. And you’ll be helping your local library. Don’t go to these sales expecting to find recent tech books. But you’ll often find great business books, and books in every category. To find book sales in your area, visit Booksalefinder.com.

Finally, there are book-trading clubs online. You list the books that you want to trade, and you’re given credit for each book that other club members request and receive from you. You use your credits to request books from other members. All you pay are the shipping charges to send your book to another member. Check out Book Mooch.
The Bottom Line
Programming might be the most enjoyable part of your business. But building a successful software development business requires a lot of knowledge about business, marketing and sales. Spend a couple of hours each month reading hard-hitting business books, and watch your business grow, year after year.

How to Find Great Business Books for microISVs is a post from: Association of Software Professionals

… the idea behind it:

This new resource is intended to help you as a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals share your experience and learn from others on various topics of your interest.

… main benefits you can get from the blog:

I’m sure many of you are advocates of blogs in general. What’s in it for you on this one?  First of all, you will know how others handled various aspects of their business, what was successful and what went wrong. You can learn from their know-how and calibrate your strategy in the right direction, avoiding pitfalls.

Secondly, you can benefit from important advertising / promotion opportunities via the ASP Blog. Don’t get me wrong, we won’t encourage or accept blatant advertising. We encourage real knowledge, tips, ideas. The more you contribute, the more your name will be associated with Software Industry Professionals.

… contributing to the blog:

Any ASP member can post on the blog. You just have to send your request to blog@asp-shareware.org and you will get further details via email.

… what you will read about:

Apart from official organization announcements, the blog’s content will be entirely generated by ASP members, so the topics and posts will reflect the subjects you consider to be important -  software development, marketing and distribution a.s.o. This said, we look forward to receiving  your suggestions regarding blog categories or any other issue related to the blog.

Last but not least, I want to renew our invitation to drop by the ASP Hospitality Suite at SIC (July 16-18, 2009 in Boston, Massachusetts). Be sure to come where you will be able to talk to us and to other members over a cup of coffee. For a more elaborate discussion and schmoozing, you can join us at the ASP Lunch!

Welcome.

Welcome to the New ASP Blog is a post from: Association of Software Professionals