Screengrabs

As per the legal department, screengrabs of images or video content are covered by copyright. Therefore, we have to seek written permission before using it. If your story is time-sensitive, err on the side of caution use a stock/free image or any of the images already uploaded on WordPress.

Once you have the all-clear to use a screengrab, these are the guidelines to note:
When using the screengrab function to get a still image from a video or if the only image available is vertical in form, it’s important to remove the “black/white bars” on either side of the vertical frame.

You can do this via Canva (free to use) with the steps below:

● Create a new document with custom dimension 1200 x 858
● Then upload the image, drag it around to fit or scale it
● Copy the image, reduce the opacity to 70 and move to one side of the image
● Copy the reduced opacity image and move it to the other site.
● Use the position function, where you can layer the two faded images so that it’s behind the original image
●  Apart from changing a vertical image to a horizontal image as seen above, remember you can also use Canva to resize standard horizontal Featured Images to 1200 x 858.

It is important to bear in mind that if we are not the owner of an image or video from which you want to do a screengrab, you still need to credit the screengrab. Furthermore, when creating a screengrab of only a portion of a screen, the initial image might be changed substantially in the process for which the owner’s permission may be required. Unless we had the right to use an uncropped version, we do not have the right to use a cropped version.