In principle, taking a screenshot on the computer is very simple and, I believe, everyone knows how to do it. However, with the right technique you can save a lot of time and effort and greatly improve the appearance of the screenshots.
Maybe you don't need it but it is better to answer the question immediately: What are the screenshots?> Screen capture screenshot on PC, Mac, Samsung, Huawei, iPhone
To take a screenshot and save images from the screen, just press the Stamp - R Sist key (Print Screen on English keyboards) on the keyboard.
Depending on the keyboard, you may need to click on a function key (FN) in combination with the Stamp key.
Not everyone knows that if you press the Alt-Stamp combination you take the screenshot of the only active window .
This is very useful if you want to save time making clippings.
For the record, the Stamp key is so called because before the advent of Windows, that key was really used to print and not to save images.
In Windows 8 and Windows 10, on the other hand, if you press the Windows-Stamp key combination, the screen photo is automatically saved in a folder called " Screenshota " which is located inside the Images folder.
In Windows 10, pressing the Shift Windows S keys you can select the area to be saved as a screenshto.
Windows 7 instead does not give any warning of what is happening by pressing the Stamp key so one might ask: Where did the screenshot go?
In Windows 7 the image is not automatically saved on the hard disk, but is copied to the Windows clipboard.
The clipboard or clipboard is the hidden area of Windows where the copy and paste data is saved (see how to view the copied text and the copy and paste notes.
The screenshot is therefore in memory and must be pasted somewhere.
You can then open a Word sheet and press on Paste to see the image .
Better yet, you can use an image editing program to view the screenshot in full screen and edit it.
UPDATE: You can install the Microsoft Snipit program to photograph the PC screen which also works with the Stamp key, integrating into Windows.
Once taken a screenshot with Windows 7 it is therefore necessary to paste it into a program such as Paint .
You can also press the Ctrl-V combination to paste the images from the clipboard.
From Paint you can edit the image and save it as a file.
However, the best program for importing screenshots for editing is not Paint but IrfanView, one of the most powerful image browsers for PC.
IrfanView, complete with plugins, allows you to view, crop, resize files, even more than one simultaneously.
About Irfanview, mentioned on several occasions, I spoke in the articles on:
- Browse and edit photos and images with Irfanview
- Plugins for IrfanView
- Best image and photo browsers on your computer.
In summary, to take screenshots it is: press Stamp or Alt-Stamp, open an empty Irfanview window, go to the File -> Paste menu, select the area to be cut out and use the Edit -> Crop function to cut it out, at the end except the new image .
In some cases I use resizing even if this causes a clear loss of image quality.
But even more easily, however, you can make sure that every time you press the Stamp key, the screenshot image is automatically saved in a dedicated folder, both with Windows 7 and with Windows 8.
To do this, just use the small Screenshoter tool that immediately saves the screenshots without needing to do anything else, if not press Stamp.
To save time in cropping the image, you can use the Stamp-Alt which only saves the screenshot of the active window or try the new Windows 7 capture tool found in Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Capture tool (Snipping Tool). With a scissor icon you can draw a rectangle on the screen to highlight the desktop area to be saved in a screenshot.
From the capture tool you can also edit the image taken with the typical editing elements.
To optimize a screenshot, you should avoid scaling; when you resize a screenshot image it tends to become blurry and the text will be difficult to read.
Better to use the image cutouts (the crop) to show only the interesting part.
With Irfanview you can also add annotations on the image or buttons and writings from the Edit menu -> Paint.
You can copy and paste between selected pieces of the screenshot to make a collage to save together as a single image.
As written in another article, automatic programs can also be used to save images from the desktop .
There are also some extensions for Chrome and Firefox to capture backgrounds and images from websites .
