A system creates an electronic file corresponding to a printed artifact by launching a video capture module that causes a mobile electronic device to capture a video of a scene that includes the printed artifact. The system analyzes image frames in the video in real time as the video is captured to identify a suitable instance. In one example, the suitable instance is a frame or sequence of frames that contain an image of a page or side of the printed artifact and that do not exhibit a page-turn event. In response to identification of the suitable instance, the system will automatically cause a photo capture module of the device to capture a still image of the printed artifact. The still image has a resolution that is higher than that of the image frames in the video. The system will save the captured still images to a computer-readable file.