Screen Capture as jpeg?
November 30, 2005 1:37 PM Subscribe
Can I do this? I'd like to do a screengrab (difficulty A) and save it as a jpeg (difficulty B) so I can pull it into Photoshop and edit to my hearts content. I have a PC running XP. If the Metagods would so grant this wish, I promise to use this power for good not evil.
blah. If you open a new file in Photoshop and paste in the screenshot on the clipboard you can save it as a JPG.
posted by whatzit at 1:40 PM on November 30, 2005
posted by whatzit at 1:40 PM on November 30, 2005
SnagIt is free for 30 days and will save screenies natively as JPEG. It's by far the best screen / window capture program I've found for Windows.
posted by killdevil at 1:43 PM on November 30, 2005
posted by killdevil at 1:43 PM on November 30, 2005
to take a screenshot of a game/movie/any full screen app try fraps
(irfanview is a handy program to save pics in different formats)
posted by suni at 1:46 PM on November 30, 2005
(irfanview is a handy program to save pics in different formats)
posted by suni at 1:46 PM on November 30, 2005
Does just regular PrintScreen (sans Shift+) not take a full-frame screenshot? It does in Win2k, not sure about XP. Then just paste it into windows paint, and save as JPG.
posted by vanoakenfold at 1:57 PM on November 30, 2005
posted by vanoakenfold at 1:57 PM on November 30, 2005
Yes, PrintScrn does a full-frame screenshot in XP as well.
posted by undertone at 1:59 PM on November 30, 2005
posted by undertone at 1:59 PM on November 30, 2005
Yeah.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 2:03 PM on November 30, 2005
- PrintScreen.
- Open Photoshop.
- File | New...
- Ctrl-V
posted by DrJohnEvans at 2:03 PM on November 30, 2005
I use purrint, tiny, simple and free.
However, unless your doing screen grabs of full colour images on a high resolution display, you don't really want to do what you think you want to do... Jpg's are lossy, and that is most problematic at hard boundaries between two colours - like text, the title bar area, window edges. The loss shows up as blurry edges. whatzit's suggestion will yield much better results.
There is much more to say about image file formats... Someone probably has a great link though, so I won't bother going into it just yet.
posted by Chuckles at 2:04 PM on November 30, 2005
However, unless your doing screen grabs of full colour images on a high resolution display, you don't really want to do what you think you want to do... Jpg's are lossy, and that is most problematic at hard boundaries between two colours - like text, the title bar area, window edges. The loss shows up as blurry edges. whatzit's suggestion will yield much better results.
There is much more to say about image file formats... Someone probably has a great link though, so I won't bother going into it just yet.
posted by Chuckles at 2:04 PM on November 30, 2005
PrintScreen (sans Shift+)
Yeah, my bad on that, but they both work. The Alt+PrtSc is still a nice trick though.
posted by whatzit at 2:29 PM on November 30, 2005
Yeah, my bad on that, but they both work. The Alt+PrtSc is still a nice trick though.
posted by whatzit at 2:29 PM on November 30, 2005
DrJohnEvans has it perfectly. The beauty of the File|New is that Photoshop automagically senses that you have an image in your clipboard and creates the new canvas to be the same size as the image.
posted by starscream at 3:00 PM on November 30, 2005
posted by starscream at 3:00 PM on November 30, 2005
Chuckles is right: Don't use JPEG for screenshots. JPEG compression is designed for photographs, and works very badly for screenshots. You can paste directly into Photoshop, or use a file format that is better-suited to screenshots (PNG, BMP, GIF, TIFF...).
posted by mbrubeck at 3:24 PM on November 30, 2005
posted by mbrubeck at 3:24 PM on November 30, 2005
The PrtSc solution will not work if you are attempting to capture a frame of a video.
Well, it might, but you might also get a black box where the picture should be.
In any case, to resolve you need to go into your display properties, into advanced and turn off hardware acceleration.
Just don't forget to put the hardware acceleration setting back up to where it was before (usually maximum) when you're done.
posted by mr_silver at 3:29 PM on November 30, 2005
Well, it might, but you might also get a black box where the picture should be.
In any case, to resolve you need to go into your display properties, into advanced and turn off hardware acceleration.
Just don't forget to put the hardware acceleration setting back up to where it was before (usually maximum) when you're done.
posted by mr_silver at 3:29 PM on November 30, 2005
Oh, and don't save in BMP unless you really have to as the file sizes it produces are massive (like 100x bigger). I always use GIF since everyone and everything can read that.
posted by mr_silver at 3:32 PM on November 30, 2005
posted by mr_silver at 3:32 PM on November 30, 2005
Gadwin's printscreen can be configured to save your capture (full screen, active window or selection) as a jpeg and even number them as you go by rules you set up. And it's free.
posted by phearlez at 3:47 PM on November 30, 2005
posted by phearlez at 3:47 PM on November 30, 2005
5 Clicks
Especially useful for webpage image grabs. Capture size control, and only 5 clicks :)
posted by DrtyBlvd at 3:56 PM on November 30, 2005
Especially useful for webpage image grabs. Capture size control, and only 5 clicks :)
posted by DrtyBlvd at 3:56 PM on November 30, 2005
By the way, when you have an image on the clipboard and you select "New" in Photoshop, it automatically sets the dimensions of the new photograph to those of the one on the clipboard. So you just "new", "okay", paste. Voila!
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 4:07 PM on November 30, 2005
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 4:07 PM on November 30, 2005
don't forget you can do the same with mspaint, it will save as PNG and loads a *tad* faster than Photoshop
posted by SNACKeR at 4:43 PM on November 30, 2005
posted by SNACKeR at 4:43 PM on November 30, 2005
I'll second Gadwin's Printscreen. It's simple, lightweight, and like phearlez said, free.
posted by mindless progress at 5:12 PM on November 30, 2005
posted by mindless progress at 5:12 PM on November 30, 2005
My favorite screen-cap program -- ScreenPrint 32 -- free, small, Save As gif, jpg, etc. Love it - use it daily.
posted by davidmsc at 5:31 PM on November 30, 2005
posted by davidmsc at 5:31 PM on November 30, 2005
Response by poster: Geez, guys! I'm so sated I think I have an afterglow! Thanks for all your help.
posted by wordswinker at 8:15 PM on November 30, 2005
posted by wordswinker at 8:15 PM on November 30, 2005
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by whatzit at 1:39 PM on November 30, 2005