Guide to taking screenshots

[munk]

It's useful to take screenshots for a number of purposes, mostly as evidence that something actually happened - in the majority of cases when there is a dispute or question over bet settlement with a gaming site, being able to produce a screenshot will usually increase your chances of getting things corrected quickly. This is a short guide to taking screenshots using Gadwin PrintScreen (you can download it from here*).

Once you've installed Gadwin PrintScreen it will start automatically when you start up Windows (if not you can configure it to do so in the configuration page). From there, all you need to do is press the 'PrtScrn' key and Gadwin will take a snapshot of your current 'view' (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...'. From there you can do a number of useful things - here are a few of the options on the different tabs of the config 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).

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 - actually I only just noticed this but it's possibly quite useful and I just set it now (after using it for 2+yrs!). This allows you to have a timestamp added to the image which could be useful to indicate the date/time the shot was taken if you're sending it off to CS.


* - there are lots (LOTS!) of other screenshot tools out there, Gadwin just happens to be the one I picked randomly from Google a few years ago.

I think Windows 7 even has one built in (the Snipping Tool), so it might be worth having a look at that if you can't be bothered downloading another app like Gadwin.

[nowthen]

I can recommend Lightscreen. I use it and it does exactly what its supposed to.

[Mariner13]

Screenshot Pimp is an add on for Firefox and is very good - it's way better than Aviary which i used to use. You can select which ever destination folder, and then one click (or pressing AltGr + J) puts a screen print there, the name of the file includes the time and date.

I think it can also do videos too, but haven't used that.

[carpediem]

On a Mac I use Grab (in Utilities folder) - it can capture a selection, window, screen or timed screen - and saves it as a tiff file to whichever location you choose

[amanwithaplan]

even easier on a mac - command shift 4 and spacebar - choose window to grab

no configuration needed - nice png file on desktop for safekeeping