Screenshots

[Pips]

I feel a real idiot asking this question, it's so basic. So I apologise in advance. All I can offer in my defence is that I have never taken a screenshot before.

I guess to take a screenshot you just press the 'print screen' button on the keyboard. But once I've taken the shot, where do I look in the FSX folder to find it?

[wiltzei]

Hitting Print Screen will copy the image on your screen to clipboard. You´ll have to paste it into a picture editor, and then save it manually.

I use a payware program called Fraps, which saves my screenies into a specified folder in lossless png-format.

At the moment I don´t recall any other good freeware photo editors than Paint.net.

Hitting v-key on your keyboard will save screenshots directly from FS into My Documents / Flight Simulator XXX folder (as far as I remember). But they are stored in bmp-format, which takes really much space, and the folder will be a pain to explore, if you don´t organize it regularly.

[anatolpopov]

Oh, wiltzei was faster

[guzler]

I use a freeware program called FS Screen. Can't remember where I got it from, but it works well. Instructions will be included, but from what I remember, you launch it before FSX then press a button at the opportune moment.

[Pips]

Thanks guys. I have both Paint Shop Pro and IrfanView, so I'll have a play with them.

[IanP]

Or, in FSX, there's one other, simpler option.

"Press V".

That saves a screenshot as a bitmap file (large, but you can change that later using PSP or Irfanview or Paint or whatever to your My Pictures/FSX directory.

The only disadvantage of this route is that it uses more space because bitmap is an uncompressed format. The advantages of it are that it's very simple and bitmap is an uncompressed format, so you get to control what you do with the screenshot more if you want to edit it later.

I use a mixture of methods - mainly prntscrn and paste and pressing v then editing later. I don't bother using FRAPS or anything else, because if I want to just hit a key and have a screenshot saved, that's exactly what v does!

[Paul K]

The problem with pressing the Print Screen key is that you can only have one image at a time in clipboard. Press it again, and the first image is lost, unless you have saved it elsewhere.

I use this...

http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/

You still use the print screen key, but it saves every image, and numbers them in sequence. You can also specify the folder it saves them to, the format and size of the image, and even whether the mouse cursor is to be included in the shot.

[Milton Shupe]

It doesn't get much simpler than Snapper.

Saves as a JPEG with your choice of quality compression, to a location of your choosing, with a name prefix of your choosing.

Saves immediately with each hit of the PrntScrn key, takes as many as you can as fast as you can ... no problem. :-)

http://www.ovosoft.net/snapper/

[X_eidos2]

Another freeware choice is Martin Wright's Multi-grabber. Very similar to Snapper, but you have to remember to turn it on or "start monitoring" before launching FS.

http://www.btinternet.com/~mnwright/

[Pips]

I like the sound of Snapper. Cheers all.