Extracting images from other documents

- So if you're making video projects for work, chances are you're going to need to incorporate some elements from other software, maybe spreadsheets from Excel or a Gantt chart from some project management software. Now sometimes programs will be able to export an image of their content, but often they don't, so if that's the case, what can you do? The good news is that both Macs and PCs have the ability to take really easy screenshots. On Windows, there's a program called Snipping Tool, you'll find it if you open your start menu and search for it.

You can then choose to grab the whole screen, or a specific program or section of the screen. On Mac, you just need to press shift command three, to grab an image of the whole screen, or shift command four, to select an area of the screen. You'll then have a new PNG image you can use inside film. When grabbing screenshots, there's a few simple tips to remember. First, make sure your screen is running at a decent resolution. If you're creating a 1080p video project, that means you need your image to be 1920 by 1080 as well, if you want to display it fullscreen, without it looking blurry or pixelated.

It's often also a good idea to run the program in fullscreen mode, if one exists, and to hide your taskbar. This way people don't get to see what else is open on your screen, and won't be distracted by unrelated things on your desktop. It sounds obvious, but especially make sure you don't have any confidential emails or private messages lurking somewhere on the screen. You don't want to only notice that once you're showing your video to your boss.