Pressing your alt and print screen button takes a screen shot of your screen as it is.
You can then open Paint and paste that captured image for use, which can then be saved into an image format such as bitmap (bmp) or jpeg. This approach works fine, to a point. If, for instance, you wanted to take a screen shot of a specific area on your screen, then the method described above will not work well enough. Sure you can crop the part you want and save it, but thats an extra step you need to take before you get to the screen shot you want. How do you take screen shots of a specific area on your screen? I have a few applications that I use for specific screen shot purposes everyday:
- FireShot is a Firefox add-on that allows you to capture screen shots within the Firefox or Flock web browser. It can also be integrated into Internet Explorer. The immediate disadvantage of this screen capture tool is that it is limited to the browser window only. You won’t be able to take screen shots outside that window. The other limitation is that its not entirely free. You will have to pay for it.
- Another tool that I use for screen capture is called SnagIT, which allows you to capture video and images of a specified screen area.
- I found a tool called Bug Shooting. This is a completely free piece of software.
- For video clip stills, i.e. screen captures from video files I use GOM Player
