Hello friends, today I am presenting some easy way to take good quality screenshots in windows operating system. During my tryst with NREGA and/or computer software I have seen that taking good quality screenshots is a big problem for most of the persons. Screenshots plays a vital role when you want me or someone else to solve your problem. The error shown in the screen is a big help for the person who is trying to solve the problem. Also the quality of the captured image is very much important. Error messages are normally shown in message boxes with default font size. A blurry or hazy image will be of no help for the person who is helping. There have been number of instances where someone has contacted me and he has failed to say me clearly the error message. I have told him to send me a good quality screenshots. Some have never arrived, some arrived but they were of no help. Also to my surprise some failed to understand what a screenshot actually is. Today I am discussing all the possible way to take good quality screenshots in details. Some methods will not require any special software, some may require. These methods may not work on windows versions older than Windows 7.
What is Screenshot?
A screenshot is an image of what is visible on a monitor, television, or other visual output device. You can read more about screenshot here. In simple words screenshot means taking picture of the computer’s screen.
What is a bad screeenshot and Why?
Simply put a bad screenshot is screenshot which is not readable. We send screenshot to someone else to make him understand the problem. So, bad screenshot will not solve the purpose.
Things to avoid for good screenshots…
1. Never take picutres of your computer screen with mobile.
2. Never paste captured image in MS Word. It is the worst thing I have seen.
3. Avoid sending screenshot over whatsapp. Because whatsapp decreases image quality, making it more blurry.
How will you take Good quality screenshots?
There are several ways by which you can take good quality screenshots. Some are really simple and don’t require any extra software. Old Ms Paint is more than enough for it. Also there are special softwares which are designed only for taking screenshots. I am going to explain both approaches. Choice is yours.
Taking screenshots without software :
Method 1 :
1. While in the desired screen press “Print Screen” button. It will copy the image to the clipboard. This key is located after the function keys in standard keyboards. In most cases “PRT SC” can be written on the key.
2. Open “Paint” program. It can be opened by clicking start menu and typing ‘paint’.
3. Press Ctrl+v. The picture will be pasted in paint.
4. Press Ctrl+S. The save as dialog will appear.
5. Give a desired filename.
6. Select “Save as type” PNG (*.png) or 24-bit-bitmap (*.bmp; *.dib).
7. Click Save.
This will capture the whole screen. If you wish to capture an active window then just press Alt+PrtSc at step 1.
Method 2 :
How about capturing the image and automatically saving it to a file? Windows has this option too.
Just press Window Key + PrtSc. Thats all. Your whole desktop is now saved as an image in Pictures > Screenshot folder (i.e. C: Users XXXXX Pictures Screenshots).
Method 3 :
You can use windows snipping tool. Though this is a dedicated software I am listing it here as it is included in windows. You can see guidelines on using snipping tool here.
Taking screenshot using softwares :
FastStone Capture :
This little software is best according to me. There are lots of option. Even acquiring images from scanner or saving images to pdf is available. Its available here.
Greenshot :
It is a free utility. You can get it form here. Also the documentation are great.
Dropbox :
Though dropbox is a cloud storage service. It has a nice feature of capturing good quality screenshot and directly saving them to the cloud.
If you use dropbox just enable “Share screenshots using Dropbox”. Now whenever you press the “PrtSc” button your screen will be saved in the “Screenshots” folder in dropbox root folder.
You can get Dropbox from here. Also you can read my article on Dropbox from here.