Off Topic: Screen Captures

[jpresley]

How are the screen captures created within some of the messages on this forum? I have viewed perfect screen captures within topics which have been imported into xara, modified then brought to the message.
I am an educator and wish to use the same technique for teaching purposes.
Thanks,
jpresley

[jpresley]

How are the screen captures created within some of the messages on this forum? I have viewed perfect screen captures within topics which have been imported into xara, modified then brought to the message.
I am an educator and wish to use the same technique for teaching purposes.
Thanks,
jpresley

[pduggan]

PrintScrn (key to right of function keys) to capture whole screen, Alt PrintScrn to capture active window only and Ctrl V to paste into Xara.



Peter</p>



Peat Stack or Pete's Tack?</p>

[alkolka]

jpresley,

There are dozens (hundreds?) of tools that can capture your screen image, or a part of it.

The Print Screen key will capture your whole PC screen and place it on the clipboard. Then you can paste it into Xara X and crop and enhance.

I use the program Snagit 5 from Techsmith (www.techsmith.com) for screen captures. It provides tremendous vesatility, including previews, output file format, capture-to-printer, capture-to-email, capture-text-as-text, yada yada yada. It is not free, but is inexpensive.

The sample below was output to jpeg at 50% quality inorder to reduce bandwidth impact. Some quality is lost in that process. The original each look better. Is the Snagit 5 image sharper? No, but it is easier to grab and you can do more during the process.

[jpresley]

You learn something every day.
I appreciate the help.

jpresley

[roman]

It's the best I've ever seen and it's directly in the bitmap editing tool, which is very convenient. You can grab everything including cursor. I can't imagine working on my tutorials without it.

[Egg Bramhill]

Another thing worth bearing in mind is the final file size of the print screen .xar file once saved. Often you may not require the whole screen or entire window. Create a rectangle above the section of screen that you require, Select this and the imported screen grab and "Arrange / intersect shapes". Then select this shape and "arrange / create bitmap copy". Delete the original intesect shape. Now when you save the .xar file only the bitmap copy will be saved and not the whole screen grab. This can dramatically reduce the .xar file if your working with several screen grabs in one .xar file.
Egg

[Kimi]

I use a program called UltraSnap to do all my screen captures. I used the PctScn button method for years, and then ran across UltraSnap not long ago on the MediaChance website (I own several of their other programs).

UltraSnap runs in the task tray, and you can save your screenshots in several different formats (.jpg is the one I use), instead of the standard .bmp. UltraSnap lets you save a region, a window or the entire screen. After using it, I can't imagine using anything else. I've been really happy with it.

UltraSnap costs $23 and you can find it here:
http://www.mediachance.com/ultrasnap/index.html

Geeze, I sound like a commercial. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Kim

[gwpriester]

Is about the only thing I use CorelDRAW for these days. It is an excellent screen capture utility.

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

<a href="http://home.earthlink.net/~garypriester">
Be it ever so humble...</a>

http://www.thuntek.net/gwp/flag.jpg

[rheaton]

Capture, crop, twiddle colors, copy, & paste back to xara for annotation. (Paint Shop Pro and Xara are the only tools I now use. I've owned Fireworks for three years and probably don't have more than 5 hours seat time with it.)