# How to make screenshots look good for X, LinkedIn and slides

> Put it on a background with padding, a soft shadow and rounded corners, then size it for the platform: 16:9 for X and slides, 1.91:1 or square for LinkedIn.

A good-looking screenshot is the raw capture plus four things: **a background** behind it, **padding** around it, **a soft shadow** under it, and **rounded corners**, exported at **the aspect ratio of wherever it's going** (16:9 for an X post or a slide, 1.91:1, square or 4:5 for LinkedIn). Neither macOS nor Windows does this for you. The closest built-in is the Mac's window capture (**⌘⇧4**, then **Space**, then click a window), which keeps the window's rounded corners and drop shadow on a transparent background. Everything past that means a trip through Keynote, PowerPoint, Figma or Canva, or a screenshot tool with a background editor, like hypershot's [artboard](/docs/hypershot/editing/artboard/).

## The built-in way

**On a Mac**, start with a window capture rather than a region:

1. Press **⌘⇧4**, then **Space**. The pointer becomes a camera.
2. Click the window. You get the window with its own rounded corners and the macOS drop shadow, on transparency. (Hold **⌥** while you click if you ever want it without the shadow.)

That already looks decent pasted onto a white slide. To go further, place it on a slide in Keynote or a frame in Figma or Canva, fill the slide or frame with a color, leave a margin, add a shadow from the image's style options, and export at the size you need.

**On Windows**, Snipping Tool (**Win+Shift+S**) captures cleanly, but its editor has no background, padding or shadow options. The usual route is PowerPoint: a 16:9 slide with a colored background, the screenshot in the middle, a shadow from **Picture Format**, then export the slide as an image.

Both routes work, and design tools give you complete control. The cost is time: five minutes per image, a second file to keep if you ever need to redo it, and doing it all again when the screenshot changes.

## With hypershot

The [artboard](/docs/hypershot/editing/artboard/) is the frame around every capture, and it carries all four ingredients.

1. Capture the thing: `⌘⇧W` on macOS or `Ctrl+Shift+W` on Windows for a whole window, `⌘⇧2` on macOS or `Ctrl+Shift+3` on Windows for part of the screen.
2. Open it in the editor and press **B** for the Artboard tool.
3. Under **Background**, pick **Solid**, **Gradient** or **Image**. The gradient popover has twelve presets; **Capture** pulls its colors from your screenshot, so the background matches whatever you shot. **Image** can use a blurred copy of the capture itself.
4. A background starts with 75 px of padding on every side. Drag the outer handles to change it.
5. The [shadow controls](/docs/hypershot/editing/artboard/#shadow) appear once a background is on: opacity, blur, and an angle dial for direction and distance.
6. Round the corners with the [corner radius](/docs/hypershot/editing/artboard/#corner-radius) handles. The screenshot and the background round independently; hold **Shift** to link them.
7. Optional: **Chrome** adds a macOS or Windows title bar, useful when your capture is a region and you want it to read as a window.
8. Type the exact export size in **Size**, and click the lock to hold the aspect ratio.

Then copy it, drag it out, or save it. The capture stays an editable `.hypercapture` file, so changing the gradient next week is a click, not a rebuild.

## Sizes for each platform

Platforms crop and recompress images that don't fit their feed, so size for the destination:

| Where | Shape | A size that works |
|-------|-------|-------------------|
| X, single image | 16:9 | 1600 × 900 |
| LinkedIn, landscape | 1.91:1 | 1200 × 627 |
| LinkedIn, square or portrait | 1:1 or 4:5 | 1080 × 1080 or 1080 × 1350 |
| Slides (Keynote, PowerPoint, Google Slides) | 16:9 | 1920 × 1080 |

Feed specs shift now and then. If a platform starts cropping your images, check its current recommendation. With a background on, hypershot's size inputs set the whole image, background included, up to 8192 px per side.

## Tips

- **Crop first, then pad.** A tight crop on the part that matters, with generous padding, reads better than a full window shrunk to fit.
- **Keep the background quieter than the screenshot.** The **Capture** preset or a blurred copy of the image keeps the colors in the same family.
- **Label it if it needs explaining.** Arrows, text and [numbered steps](/blog/numbered-steps-on-screenshot/) sit on top of the artboard, so the polish and the markup live in one file.

## Can I reuse the same look on every screenshot?

For a consistent series, pick one gradient preset and one padding and use them every time. **Capture** gives each image its own matching colors, while a fixed preset like **Midnight** or **Mono** makes a set look like a set.

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From https://hypernuclear.com/blog/make-screenshots-look-good/