Consistent and high-quality molecular captures are crucial for presentations, publications, and team communication. But getting a clean, reproducible image from a molecular modeling platform typically requires a mix of screen captures, manual cropping, and editing. This can waste time and introduce inconsistencies across images.
If you’re working in SAMSON, there’s an easier way — the dedicated Interface > Captures settings in the Preferences panel. With a few tweaks, you can automate your image capture process and ensure all your snapshots are presentation-ready, every single time.
The hidden workflow boost in Preferences
You can access capture settings by navigating to Interface > Captures via the Preferences panel. Open the panel with Interface > Preferences from the menu or press Ctrl + K (Windows/Linux) or Cmd + , (Mac).
What you can configure:
- Default Save Location: Define a dedicated folder for your molecular screenshots, so you never lose them in the downloads folder again.
- Custom Filename Prefix: Set a prefix like
projectA_. SAMSON will automatically append a running number — ideal for organizing series of captures. - File Format: Choose between
jpg,png, orbmp. PNG is perfect when combined with the transparent background option for overlaying on slides. - Image Size: Match your capture resolution to the viewport or set a custom size with an aspect ratio lock if needed. Super helpful when preparing figures for publications that require precise image dimensions.
- Preserve Aspect Ratio: Toggle this on to avoid unwanted distortions when changing height or width manually.
- Transparent Background: Enable this to remove the background — perfect if you’re preparing images for slides with customized backgrounds or publications with figure styling constraints.
One capture shortcut to remember
Once your preferences are set, just press F10 to take a snapshot — SAMSON will automatically apply all your custom settings.
Why this matters
Whether you’re preparing multiple snapshots of a conformation series or repeatedly capturing different stages of a molecular simulation, consistency is essential. Instead of manually cropping and renaming files after each screen capture, SAMSON does the work for you. Your images are aligned, named systematically, and ready for presentation or publication.
Set it once — and never think about it again 🧠💾
You can learn more about capture settings and other useful preferences here in the full documentation.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can get SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.