Managing diagrams & screen shots for paper/online

[Robert Barlow-Busch <robert -at- FOCUS-SYSTEMS -dot- ON -dot- CA>]

Our Information Development team is trying to establish processes for
working with graphics. We have recently started producing online
documentation, and have also started working with screen shots. Previously,
we created all our diagrams in Adobe Illustrator (Macintosh); the challenge
now is figuring out how to manage the various graphic formats we need.

We're pulling our hair out right now, trying to get this done with the
wrong software -- and bouncing between Mac and Windows applications. Feh!

Does a nice Macintosh software package exist that can can import bitmaps,
label with vectors, and export the whole thing as bitmap? How about simply
converting a vector to a bitmap (like Illustrator to .gif)?

Here's a description of our situation and needs:

- we get screen shots in .bmp (Windows bitmap) format, in colour.
- we need to scale the screen shots down to much smaller sizes and change them
  to grayscale.
- we need to label some screen shots, but would like to use a vector-based
  application for this (Illustrator?) so we can easily change the labels. This
  means importing a bitmap graphic, then laying vector labels on top.
- the resulting graphic must be imported into FrameMaker.
- the resulting graphic must also be changed to .gif so we can use it with
  HTML online docs.

I'm interested in hearing from those of you who have similar requirements.
What software do you use for translating formats, for scaling bitmaps, for
labelling screen shots?

Any help much appreciated . . .

-- Bob

_____________________________________________________________________________
Robert Barlow-Busch                         There's nothing like a good vowel
robert -at- focus-systems -dot- on -dot- ca                  movement after a day of feeling
Focus Automation Systems Inc.               consonated. . .