|
Your donations keep RPGWatch running!
RPGWatch Forums » General Forums » Tech Help » Screenshot help

Default Screenshot help

January 25th, 2018, 16:47
Anyone that can recommend me a screenshot app that has good extra features, for example drawing on images etc.
Chan is offline

Chan

Chan's Avatar
Traveler

#1

Join Date: Jan 2018
Posts: 17
Mentioned: 0 Post(s)

Default 

January 25th, 2018, 17:08
Not sure what exactly you're asking for. If it's just abour basic stuff, I use IrfanView not just as a viewer but also as a simple screenshot edit (arrows, circles, etc).
As for taking screenshots, it's either PrtScr or FRAPS, depends on the product. I'm avoiding F12 within Steam because Origin, uPlay, RSC and Galaxy don't contain the same feature and I'm kinda alergic to nonstandard keyboard mapping.
For example, if we all including devs agreed Esc is "go back", then Square Enix can shove off with their ports that force Backspace use for that function.
--
Toka Koka
joxer is offline

joxer

joxer's Avatar
The Smoker
Original Sin 1 & 2 Donor

#2

Join Date: Apr 2009
Posts: 23,468
Mentioned: 230 Post(s)

Default 

January 25th, 2018, 20:19
Yep, would also go for fraps to take the screenshot. (Screenshots out of games can easily be done via "Snipping Tool" which is pre-installed on Windows 10 btw).

Free software to edit it is plentyful:
Infranview as a great lightweight option, also to convert them, including batches.
Gimp is a free alternative to photoshop and sorts
Inkscape is also pretty good for certain work
Paint.net is another option.
--
Doing Let's Plays Reviews in English now. Latest Video: Encased
Mostly playing Indie titles, including Strategy, Tactics and Roleplaying-Games.
And here is a list of all games I ever played.
Kordanor is offline

Kordanor

Kordanor's Avatar
Wastelander

#3

Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 4,320
Mentioned: 45 Post(s)

Default 

January 26th, 2018, 00:23
I screenshot constantly and use FRAPS and really like it myself as it captures all the post-processing effects. I own a purchased version as it is super cheap.

For editing I am lucky to own PhotoShop but I know many really like GIMP which is free.
--
Character is centrality, the impossibility of being displaced or overset. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
wolfgrimdark is offline

wolfgrimdark

wolfgrimdark's Avatar
SasqWatch
Original Sin Donor

#4

Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: NH
Posts: 3,391
Mentioned: 79 Post(s)

Default 

January 27th, 2018, 16:44
If you just want to draw circles around things and plop some text on the screen, Irfanview is the way to go. Paint.Net and GIMP are far more powerful but also far more complex.

Originally Posted by joxer View Post
As for taking screenshots, it's either PrtScr or FRAPS, depends on the product. I'm avoiding F12 within Steam because Origin, uPlay, RSC and Galaxy don't contain the same feature and I'm kinda alergic to nonstandard keyboard mapping.
I hear that - but I ended up just making my own scheme long ago: F12 is for videos (currently Shadowplay) and F11 for screenshots. I've got it that way in FRAPS, Steam, and Shadowplay. Any half-decent screenshot utility is going to let you map those keys.

I just use Steam for screenshots (could use Shadowplay for that, too).

Now here's another question: JPG or PNG? I keep jumping back and forth. PNG is higher quality but, assuming you aren't cranking up compression on JPG, just barely higher quality. PNG uses far more disk space, too… but what's a couple of megabytes on today's hard drives?
--
The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views….
-- Doctor Who in "Face of Evil"
Zloth is offline

Zloth

Zloth's Avatar
I smell a… wumpus!?

#5

Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Kansas City
Posts: 7,637
Mentioned: 34 Post(s)

Default 

February 4th, 2018, 17:33
I often use Fraps for within SWTOR. IrfanView is also nice, as a General tool, also for taking screenshots (dunno whether it works from within games).
--
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)
Alrik Fassbauer is offline

Alrik Fassbauer

Alrik Fassbauer's Avatar
TL;DR
Original Sin 1 & 2 Donor

#6

Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Old Europe
Posts: 20,704
Mentioned: 41 Post(s)

Default 

February 27th, 2018, 01:25
Originally Posted by Zloth View Post
Now here's another question: JPG or PNG?…
Just something everyone might like to keep in mind, when taking screenshots with FRAPS, while using the JPG format the quality will be garbage.

So basically if you want JPG convert your screenshot images to that afterwards, 90% quality is fine and still ends up worlds better than the FRAPS JPG junk.

For such batch image conversion there are many options, for example Faststone Image Viewer and XnView.
Watchtower is offline

Watchtower

Watchdog

#7

Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 147
Mentioned: 1 Post(s)

Default 

February 27th, 2018, 02:52
I always take screnshots as raw or if not possible then bitmaps.
For viewing, basic editing and format conversion I always use IrfanView.
--
Toka Koka
joxer is offline

joxer

joxer's Avatar
The Smoker
Original Sin 1 & 2 Donor

#8

Join Date: Apr 2009
Posts: 23,468
Mentioned: 230 Post(s)

Default 

February 27th, 2018, 05:27
I use IrfanView for large images (large as in over 20Kx20K) as it handles them well, and sometimes when I need more than three instances of image viewers open at the same time.

Otherwise I personally don't like it, the options, controls, settings, interface etc, it's just not well done on the usability side critiquing as a former developer, none of them are perfect but damn IrfanView can annoy.

Also the two I listed offer portable versions without having to trust a third-party for such option, which is great for someone just wanting to check something out to see if they like it, and portable versions are generally the better option.

For editing beyond crop/rotate/invert/resize I'd rather use GIMP or Paint.net.

I just use PNG rather than BMP as it supports lossless compression so quality isn't an issue and has more features than BMP.

Unfortunately if converting images to JPG, even at 100% quality, some colours still suffer, blue and red being good/obvious examples, so quality is always a tradeoff with it.

One image format I remember being really interested in is FLIF, haven't looked into it for I don't remember how long, but it seemed like it had a lot of potential especially for internet related things (which if I remember right Google was trying to do less impressively with their own image format, which unfortunately has a better chance of taking over being Google).
Watchtower is offline

Watchtower

Watchdog

#9

Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 147
Mentioned: 1 Post(s)

Default 

February 27th, 2018, 14:42
Stuff I don't care too much about - jpg, the ones I do - png
--
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." — H. L. Mencken
zahratustra is offline

zahratustra

SasqWatch

#10

Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 4,721
Mentioned: 4 Post(s)
RPGWatch Forums » General Forums » Tech Help » Screenshot help

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

All times are GMT +2. The time now is 10:05.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2022, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
vBulletin Security provided by DragonByte Security (Pro) - vBulletin Mods & Addons Copyright © 2022 DragonByte Technologies Ltd.
User Alert System provided by Advanced User Tagging (Lite) - vBulletin Mods & Addons Copyright © 2022 DragonByte Technologies Ltd.
Copyright by RPGWatch