How To Take A Picture Of The Computer Screen

Seen A Nice A Website?.....Capture It For Ideas And Colour Schemes!

When designing a website it is not unusual to be in a scenario whereby you need a screenshot (captured picture/photocopy) of the screen, otherwise known as a screen grab or screen capture - It turns what is on the computer screen into an image file (i.e. a .jpg file).

Ordinarily that screenshot (captured picture/photocopy) would be of a software installation sequence (for tutorial purposes) or something from the internet (i.e. a web page) that you can use for inspiration and project ideas. Other examples would be a screenshot of an email receipt (to act as evidence later), a Windows error message (to post on a technical forum) or a video frame (displaying a business-ideas flow chart for example).

Many of these things could be printed onto paper, sent to a PDF file and/or sent to a OneNote file for safe keeping, but sometimes it is best to screenshot them. For example. If you are trying to screenshot something on the move, like a software installation process or some video footage, a screen grabber (screen capture) program can save (screenshot/save an image of) the screen every half a second or so.

The program I have been using for years is called Grabby. It is a simple, ideal for the absolute beginner, no-frills, program that does its job. It takes an image of the whole screen, as opposed to parts of the screen, which means you will have to edit each screenshot. This should not be a problem because many screenshots have to be edited anyway, regardless of the screen capture program used, simply because a screenshot is only meant as a rough copy that you trim later.

The heart of a good program is in its ease-of-use and not in its fancy "1,000" features. Meaning. Screen capture programs that offer 20-30 menu-items or 10 buttons for example tend to be complicated for the sake of being complicated, whereas a screen capture program with the bare-minimum of features is often the better one. And that is what Grabby is - A no nonsense "Grab that screen NOW!" kind of program.

Begin by downloading Grabby 3.3. Once downloaded, double click on the grabby33.exe file to install Grabby (the Trial version). If you like Grabby you can REGISTER it (Buy it) for £8.

Note: The free version of Grabby (grabby30.zip) is for Windows XP and Windows Vista only. It is not compatible with Windows 7 - It does not save bitmap files properly. So I suggest paying £8 for the Windows 7 Compatible Version, if you like Grabby of course.

When grabby has been installed double click on the GRABBY desktop shortcut icon to continue.

Fig 1.0  Double click on the Grabby icon to continue




Fig 1.1  Click on the BASIC GRABBY SETTINGS button to continue

When grabby is launched for the first time you will need to click on its BASIC GRABBY SETTINGS button in order to set up the Image and Screenshot (Grab/Capture) settings.

The FREQUENCY Setting

The first setting is FREQUENCY. It is the interval time, in MilliSeconds, between each snapshot being taken automatically. 1,000 milliseconds is equal to 1 second. So 5,000 milliseconds is 5 seconds. When you enable the Automatic TIMER function a snapshot of the screen is taken for you, automatically, every FREQUENCY amount of milliseconds (i.e. every 1,000 milliseconds or every second).

Fig 1.2  Click on the OK button when you have finished changing the settings

The RECYCLE RATE Setting

RECYCLE RATE is the Last Number generated for use in a screenshot filename before that number is reset (recycled) to 1. Each screenshot is automatically named Grabbed by default, and cannot be changed within these settings, followed by a number. So the screenshots will be saved as Grabby1, Grabby2 and so on.....all the way up to RECYCLE RATE (i.e. all the way up to Grabby1000 in this example).

When the number reaches RECYCLE RATE (i.e. 1000) it is reset to 1. Meaning. Grabby1000 will be saved but then the old Grabby1 will be overwritten by the new, current, Grabby1. Then the old Grabby2 will be overwritten by the new, current, Grabby2. And so on. Hence why you set the RECYCLE RATE high, so you never reach it and therefore never overwrite a screenshot.....

.....within that session of screen grabbing/capturing only. Meaning. Once you restart Grabby itself the RECYCLE RATE starts at 1 again. So you can STOP and START within a session and continue the RECYCLE RATE from where you left off from a STOP, but once you restart Grabby itself the RECYCLE RATE starts at 1 again. A rotation system in other words. In this scenario copy your grabbed screenshot files and paste them into a separate folder (i.e. web_screenshots, ideas_screenshots, etc).

The FORMAT Setting

FILE FORMAT lets you choose which file format the screenshots are saved in - .bmp (Bitmap - Uncompressed Data) or .jpg (JPEG - Compressed Data). With computers having so much memory these days DO NOT EVEN ENTERTAIN JPEG (.jpg). Always set FILE FORMAT to Bitmap (.bmp). Bitmap is the raw, uncompressed, data of an image (screenshot). When working with a Bitmap image (screenshot) you can always edit it and then resave it as a .jpg file, but working with an already compressed .jpg image and resaving it as a .jpg file means it will be compressed again and will more than likely look blurred/blotchy.

The FORCE 24 Setting

FORCE 24 Bits can be ignored because grabby takes the best possible resolution. A bitmap will be 32 bits and a jpeg will be 24 bits on a modern computer. With this said, the JPEG QUALITY does not matter either. However. Leave it set to BEST QUALITY regardless. Remember. It is suggested that you use Bitmap.

The OUTPUT FILE Setting

OUTPUT FILE PATH should be set to the path name of your PICTURES folder, or a sub-folder within the PICTURES folder. In this example I have set it to the SCREENSHOTS sub-folder inside my PICTURES folder.

BEGIN TAKING SNAPSHOTS

When you have finished changing the settings click on the OK button (Fig 1.2 above) to exit the settings window and then click on the START button (below) to begin snapshotting.

Fig 1.3  Click on the START button to begin snapshotting

After clicking on the START button you are ready to begin snapshotting. Simply bring whatever you need a snapshot of (i.e. a website, video footage, etc) to the front of the screen and then press the PRTSCR (Print Screen) keyboard key. Each time you press the PRTSCR keyboard key down a snapshot of the whole computer (desktop) screen will be taken and saved as a Grabby file (i.e. Grabby1.bmp or Grabby1.jpg).

The internal counter will then be increased by one, if the counter has not gone past your RECYCLE RATE limit. If it has, the counter will be reset to 1 - Ready to create, and overwrite any existing, Grabby1 file.

To stop grabby, and prevent it from taking any further snapshots, simply click on its STOP button. Clicking on the EXIT button will close down (exit) grabby, but if you click on the START button instead the counter will continue from where it was before. So if it is on 5 and you click on STOP, and then START again, the next snapshot will be Grabby6. If you EXIT grabby though and then double click on it to relaunch it, the next snapshot will be Grabby1 (because it will be classed as the first snapshot).

Fig 1.4 shows that five snapshots have already been taken as I click on the STOP button. Grabby's taskbar icon also shows this (Fig 1.5).

Fig 1.4  Click on the STOP button to stop grabby from taking further snapshots




Fig 1.5  The grabby taskbar icon shows that five snapshots have already been taken

It is not necessary to have the Grabby window open when you take snapshots. You can minimize its window.....as I always do. Once you have taken all your snapshots do not EXIT grabby yet. Instead. Make sure they are complete and what you wanted by viewing them first.

Go to your PICTURES folder (or SnapShots sub-folder), right click over the first snapshot (i.e. Grabby1) and then left click on the PREVIEW menu-item (not shown here). Windows Photo Viewer should then preview Grabby1 and the other snapshots thereafter. If you are happy with what you have, EXIT grabby.

Fig 1.6  Right click on a snapshot and select the EDIT menu-item to bring up the default editing software

To edit a snapshot right click on it, to bring up its context (options) menu, and then select the EDIT menu-item (above). This will bring up your default editing software which is normally Windows Paint or an editing package that has been installed by you or a piece of software (i.e. software from a printer installation). From there you would obviously chop out the bits you do not want in order to create the real snapshot (image) you want.

Fig 1.7  Snapshotting a template website for ideas and colour schemes

In the above example scenario I have taken pictures from Template Monster, a website that offers standard and designer website templates. This is so that I could remember what template I liked and/or what colour scheme I liked for use with a website that I may be doing. This is an example scenario only. From there I would probably mock edit (copy and paste) some of the design components to see how they would look and so on.