# Lessons: previews and screenshots

> What we learned shipping 2,000+ component previews.

- Capture the actual component, not the marketing hero; crop to the component.
- Store light and dark shots; label "dark-only demo" honestly when the source has one theme.
- Never hotlink: save compressed WebP locally with credit to the original site.
- Re-check crops at card size: blurry or cut-off previews are worse than none.
- Thumbnails of whole sites are fine for "site" cards; component cards need component shots.