Screenshot beautifier: make any screenshot look designed

A screenshot beautifier puts a raw capture on a backdrop and gives it padding, rounded corners and a soft shadow, so it reads as a finished image instead of a crop. Drop yours into the editor above, pick a backdrop, and download a PNG at the same resolution you started with.

How to beautify a screenshot

1. Open your screenshot: click Open image, drag it onto the preview, or paste it with ⌘V (Ctrl+V on Windows).
2. Pick a backdrop. Mesh gradients suit most interfaces; solid white or mist works for documentation.
3. Set padding, corners and shadow. The defaults (8% padding, 12 px corners, medium shadow) are a good start.
4. Choose a ratio if you're posting somewhere with a preferred shape, then Download PNG or Copy.

What actually makes a screenshot look good

Most "beautified" screenshots that look off get one of four things wrong, and all four are about proportion rather than decoration.

• Padding that matches the image. A fixed 64 px border looks thin around a full-screen capture and bloated around a small dialog. This editor sizes padding from the image itself (a share of its average side), so a wide banner and a tall panel get the same visual breathing room.
• Corners that echo the interface. If the capture is a window, round it about as much as the window already is. Heavy rounding on a sharp-cornered web page looks like a sticker.
• A shadow you notice only when it's gone. A long, low-opacity shadow lifts the shot off the backdrop. A dark, tight one looks like 2009.
• A backdrop that doesn't compete. Busy gradients behind a text-heavy screenshot make the text harder to read. Use a calmer backdrop, or set it on a solid colour.

Ratios that fit where you post

An automatic ratio keeps your screenshot's own shape. When a platform prefers a shape, pad to it instead of cropping:

Why your screenshot stays sharp

Screenshots on a Mac with a Retina display are saved at twice the point size, so a 1440-point-wide window comes out 2880 pixels wide. Many online editors quietly scale that down to a web-friendly size before you export, which is where the softness comes from. This one never resamples your screenshot: the backdrop and padding are added around it, and the download contains your original pixels.

Your image never leaves your device

The whole editor runs in this browser tab. Opening an image reads it locally; the PNG is drawn locally with the canvas API; nothing is sent to a server, so there's no upload limit, no queue and no copy of your screenshot anywhere else. If you need to hide part of it first, blur the private bits before you download.

Keeping a set of screenshots consistent

A single beautified screenshot looks good; a set only looks good if every image shares the same backdrop, padding, corner radius and ratio. Decide those four once, before you start, and reuse them for every image in a launch post, a docs page or a changelog. The easiest mistake is changing the ratio per image, which makes a carousel jump in size as people swipe. This web tool starts fresh each time, so jot the settings down; the Shottie app remembers them between captures for exactly this reason.

Frequently asked questions