A Guide To Taking Screenshots

Taking a screenshot - a 'snapshot' of your PC desktop and the windows open on it at a given time - can be very useful for various reasons. In this guide we'll look at why you would want to take screenshots and look at one program that allows you to do it.


Why take screenshots?
In terms of gambling online, the main reason you would want to take a screenshot is as evidence that something actually happened. In the majority of cases when there is a dispute or question over bet settlement or bonus T&C with a gaming site, being able to produce a screenshot will usually increase your chances of getting things corrected quickly.

It's worth saying - a screenshot isn't definitive 'proof' of anything, it is very simple to 'doctor' any image so it portrays an image of anything you want it to. However in the majority of cases that you might need a screenshot for, it is usually sufficient evidence and well worth doing (for the split second it takes to take a screenshot, why not do it!?).


When should I take a screenshot?
Here are the main times that you should think about taking a screenshot:

• When placing a bet - try and get a screenshot of the betslip including the bet/transaction ID in it for evidence. Occasionally you will have a bet settled incorrectly - or you might record a bet incorrectly - and in these cases it is invaluable to have a screenshot to check back on to see whether you really did place that bet (or just forget to hit 'confirm'!!! ).
• Prior to taking a bonus - when you're about to take a bonus on, before you deposit / start working towards the bonus, make sure you get a full screenshot of the terms and conditions that apply. In this way if there's any problem getting the bonus later on - or the T&C change later on - you always have a record of the original T&C that you signed up/took on the bonus under; invaluable when contacting customer services.
• When transferring large amounts of money - if you are transferring large amounts of cash between a bookie and Skrill/Moneybookers or your bank, it's useful to take a quick screenshot of the withdrawal/deposit/transfer confirmation page (if for no other reason than you have a precise timestamp of the date/time that the transfer took place!).
• When you hit a big win! - it's always nice to remind yourself that sometimes things DO go your way...! Plus it gives you a chance to show off your win on the forum.

There are numerous other reasons why you might want to take a screenshot, but those are the main reasons you might want to in terms of online gambling.


What program should I use to take screenshots?
There are literally hundreds (if not thousands) of applications that allow you to take screenshots. Some have untold numbers of bells and whistles, others have just the absolute most basic of features - my personal favourite though (admittedly it was probably the first one I ever tried!!!) is Gadwin PrintScreen.

You can download Gadwin PrintScreen from here.

Once you've installed PrintScreen it should start automatically when you start up Windows (if not you can configure it to do so in the configuration page). To take a screenshot, all you need to do is press the 'PrtScn' key (above the 'Insert' key on most keyboards) and PrintScreen will take a snapshot of your current 'desktop' (by default the full screen you are currently looking at I think) and save the screenshot to your hard drive.

There are a few extra settings you can modify to tweak Gadwin PrintScreen. To do this, right click on the PrintScreen icon in the system tray and select 'Properties...'. Here are a few of the options on the different tabs of the configuration screen that I would recommend changing:

Preferences

• Show notification messages - I unticked this so you don't get an annoying message to tell you the screenshot has been taken each time or to prompt you where to save the images to.
• Preview the captured image - I untick this, again most of the time I just want the screenshot to get taken and don't want to see how it will look.
• Show splash on startup - I unticked this because I just want the thing to start, I don't want to be told each time it starts!

Source

• Captured area - from time to time it's worth changing this depending on what you're doing. Most of the time I just have it set to 'Full Screen' and that is perfectly fine (if I'm screenshotting bet receipts for example, usually I'll have one bet receipt on one side of the window and another (lay) bet receipt on the other).
  Sometimes though you only want a screenshot of the 'Current Window' that you're using (mainly because it saves on having to crop the image for privacy later if you know you're going to have to send it off by email) - the 'Client Window' option is basically the same as 'Current Window' except it excludes any toolbars or status bars from the screenshot (again useful for privacy if you have a lot of bookmarks say on your toolbar in your browser when you take a screenshot).
• Capture Mouse Cursor - I actually leave this set because it's useful to focus the mouse on the thing I'm taking the screenshot for (ie if there's a long list of bet receipts on the page (ie 12bet comes to mind!) then I will focus the mouse just under the bet I want to screenshot to 'highlight' it).

Destination

• File - the 'Capture Directory' option is the main thing to change here if you want your screenshots saving to a different location to the default.

Image

• Image quality - On this tab you can set various options relating to the actual image that is captured/saved. The main thing I would recommend here is to set the file type to JPEG and then further down adjust the JPEG Quality option to something smaller than 100% - I have mine set to 50% and generally that is fine. This saves on a lot of space over time.
• Stamp - this is a very useful option to have set - it automatically adds a timestamp to the image which is very useful for 'evidence' of the date/time the shot was taken if you're sending it off to CS.

Advanced Configuration/Techniques
Managing your screenshots folder
As you take more and more screenshots, you can get to a point where you might find that Gadwin PrintSscreen starts to slow down (actually only after 1000s of screenshots but if you take enough of them they soon stack up!). If you find this is the case then you should move all the existing screenshots off into another folder and restart Gadwin PrintScreen - this should speed up the time it takes to take a screenshot.

Backing up your screenshots
With hard disk space relatively cheap nowadays, it's easy/cheap enough to just keep all your screenshots indefinitely. If you are going to do that though I would recommend backing up your screenshots regularly, and doing so in such a way that you move the existing folder out into a backup folder (or compress them to save space, although I don't bother because the most popular image files like gif/jpg are compressed already, plus it's a faff if you have to access the screenshots later).

The setup I have is that once a week, a backup script runs that moves the existing PrintScreen screenshot folder out into a backup folder and renames the backed up folder YYYYMMDD - where YYYY is the year, MM the month and DD the date (ie 20111027). The script then recreates the default screenshot folder ready to take "this week's" screenshots.

Doing this has a few advantages, firstly the screenshot folder doesn't get too 'clogged up' and it's quick and easy to find the most recent few days of screenshots. Secondly you have a whole bunch of backup folders which by default will be listed in reverse chronological order (because of the YYYYMMDD naming scheme), making it easy to quickly find old screenshots. Finally it's just good housekeeping (albeit a little bit geeky maybe )!

Summary
In this guide we looked at screenshots and how they're useful in keeping visual records of various things related to online gambling. If you haven't already got a screenshot tool installed, I would highly recommend you install one and use it very regularly (after a while it becomes second nature to hit 'PrtScn' and takes up minimal time to do). You never know when you'll need a screenshot when gambling online, it really is an invaluable option to have.

EDITORIAL NOTE: This article was originally posted on the forum here. There is some discussion about screenshot tools there and alternatives to Gadwin PrintScreen, plus other user's info/experiences.