How to take Screenshots- A Step-by-step Guide

[EviLb0b]

This is a guide to tell you everything you need to know about how to take screenshots. I'll try to keep it as simple & short as i can.

1. Capturing the Screen:

a) PC's (Microsoft)

When the image you need is on the screen, simply hit the "Print Screen" button. This button is located to the right of the F12 button on most keyboards. However, this captures the ENTIRE screen including the task bar at the bottom so sometimes its easier to press Alt+Prt Scr as this only captures the window your currently looking at and saves time when cropping. This picture shows the location of the Prt Scr button circled in red (click to enlarge):



After pressing the button it looks as though nothings happened, but the image is captured and stored in your computers temporary memory.

IMPORTANT: DO NOT TAKE ANY MORE SCREENSHOTS OR "COPY" ANYTHING

This is because the image is saved on the clipboard and capturing/copying anything else will mean this will be removed.

b) Mac's (Apple)

This is actually pretty simple. Just hold command+shift+4 (cmd key usually has apple symbol on or a square with small circles at each corner). Your cursor should change into cross-hairs. Then simply click and drag the cross-hairs over the part of your screen that you want to view, let loose, and there you have it! It saves itself on your desktop as photo 1.png (usually)! Here's a pic showing how to select the screen you want captured (clicking it will enlarge):



Notes:
-For Apple you have programs like Preview, Adobe Photoshop, etc, to work on images.
-command+shift+3 will take a screenshot of the entire screen.
-pressing "control" before "command" will copy your pic to the clipboard ready for pasting (instead of saving to desktop), e.g. ctrl+cmd+shift+4

2. Viewing the Image:

a)Using Microsoft Paint

Open any program in which you can edit pictures. I like to keep things easy so I use MS Paint. Since most people use Windows, this program comes included. This is how to access it (again, click to enlarge!):



Once you opened this then just click "Edit" at the top followed by "Paste" and the image should come onto the screen. For those of you who are more advanced users (Geeks & Tech Heads!) you can use Adobe Photoshop to further manipulate your images.

3. Editing the Image:

a)Using Microsoft Paint

Now to sort out your picture by getting rid of the "excess" parts you don't need. E.g. If you take a screenshot of yourself playing Runescape, then you don't need people to see the black area around the game, & if your a freeplayer you don't want the advert there. This problem is solved by using the "Cropping" tool. You have 2 choices on Paint, as this pic shows:



Remember that Paint also has a magnifying tool which is always useful for those little touches. Use it as much as possible when making small changes to your image.

4. Saving the Image

When you are finally happy with the image and are ready to show the world, the first thing you must do is actually save it! Just go to "File" and then "Save As". On the popup box name the file THEN change the type. The default setting on Paint is Bitmap, but i recommend you change it to .PNG or .GIF as this reduces the file size (without losing quality) and its easier for uploading...

5. Hosting the Image

Now for the final step. You have to upload your image in order to display it on the forum as on many forums you can't add attachments to your posts. This means your image needs to have an internet link (http://www...). There are many websites offering Free Hosting but I use ImageShack® as its fast & easy to use. Also, it gives you the actual thing you need to type into your post so the image tags are already around it & they allow various file types with a max. of 1.5MB (more than enough).

Basically, start of by going to www.imageshack.us & click on "Browse" on the right. Find where you saved the image and click Open. Then just hit the "Host it!" button and let it host the image. It will give you quite a few links to the image. The only useful ones to you are the one that says "Hotlink for forums (1)" (for this just delete the link they have to imageshack or all the pics you post will have a link to the site, this will leave a small pic in your post which you click to enlarge) & "Direct link to image" (this is useful for small pic to put image tags around or to use as a link from your hotlink.)

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Don't feel you have to take screenshots just because we have a section, but by all means practice and when you get good you can fly through the steps. However, there is no point actually posting your images unless they have something to show. Ideas of images to capture are:
-Goals/Achievements (e.g. mining 85!)
-Defeating tough opponents (Players/NPC)
-Max Hits, Amount of Money or Rare Items
-RS fakes- but make them actual fakes
(no point making one with all lvls 99 or full dragon on, do something that cannot really be done, e.g. 512 hitter on a black dragon, finding a phat in a sack, etc.)

...And that is all there is to it! If you have any problems/questions/comments please feel free to post below as this thread will remain open.

HAPPY SCREENSHOTTING :!:

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EDITS:

IB: Divided the "Capturing the Screen" section into a Mac, and a PC section.

EviLb0b: Links to pictures went dead so I fixed those. Also found one for Mac screenshot. Will add "Viewing the Image" and "Editing the Image" on Macs aswell.

[shan]

Wow, very nice and detailed guide.... :shock: Although i know how to take a screenshot, this is really, really awesome.

You're a great mod evilb0b. :P

[Johnny]

yes, really, really, cool screenshot guide. I bet now, most people will do guides with some screenshots!

here is my little (hehe) rs picture:



:shock: lol....

[schoolboy178]

yes that was a very nice screen shot but i cant post on website cus it wont lemme download it well thx for helping me anyway

[Johnny]

Originally Posted by schoolboy178

yes that was a very nice screen shot but i cant post on website cus it wont lemme download it well thx for helping me anyway

How come schoolboy178? tell your porblem in detail and we will try to help you.

[schoolboy178]

Originally Posted by Johnny

How come schoolboy178? tell your porblem in detail and we will try to help you.

i dont no when the screen pops up to say run it goes red and it says unknown publisher or whatever then i press run and it says something u need to log on to a local adminasatrtor idk

[Ihavebeermon]

just a thing, but I prefer www.imageshack.com

www.digikitten.com is also good

[Johnny]

i don't really understand schoolboy178

here is a little pic to help:



then:



and vwa-la! just paste the link on a reply and you're ready to go!!!!

hope this has helped you mate!

p.s. make sure you save it as a .PNG type of file (i recomend .PNG more than .GIF cos .GIF lowers the quality of the picture)

hope it helps! is you still have truble ask us!

[EviLb0b]

Originally Posted by Johnny

p.s. that is in portugese. (so don't get confused)

Lol, why is that? It always says "Browse" when I go to imageshack.us, or are all your web pages like that.

(Hey, theres a chance you wanted to learn Portugese and set that as the default language... :) )

[Johnny]

Lol, why is that? It always says "Browse" when I go to imageshack.us, or are all your web pages like that.

(Hey, theres a chance you wanted to learn Portugese and set that as the default language... )

no, lol i AM portuguese....yeah its true i live in portugal (i also speak fluent portuguses) but go I to a english school. so at home its kinda weird cos i speak english and then i sometimes speak portuguses. Sometimes i start a sentance in portuguese and end in english....lol