How do you get a screen shot

[LionelDave]

Any search I do on screenshot overwhelms me and I haven't figured it out yet so I need some help.

On anything else I press "Alt" amd "Print screen" and then paste the picture into Paint and I have a picture of what was on the screen.

But when I do that in Railworks all I get is the opening screen of the game.

Anyone have an idea of what I'm not doing right?

Thanks
Dave

[Hawk]

You could try just hitting the PrtScn key without using the Alt key.

[LionelDave]

Thanks Hawk

I've never done it that way before but I'll try that tonight.

I guess it's true you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Dave

[Hawk]

The difference between the two is PrtScn will capture the entire screen whereas Alt+PrtScn only captures the currently selected window.

[arizonachris]

Dave, what version of Windows? "PRNTSCREEN" does not work in Vista or Win 7. I use a program called "FRAPS" http://www.fraps.com/download.php/ it works great. Then you can upload the screen shots to a host site like Photo Bucket.

[LandN]

My question is, where do you go to retreive a pic taken with PrtScr or F9. I have used it a couple of times to capture derailments, but can't find them. I use the camera icon for regular shots which works well and puts them in "My Pictures" folder.

Jay

[LionelDave]

OK Here's what happened.

"Prt Sc" 0r (Prt Sc Plaus Alt key) would only show the games opening screen not the screen shot I wanted to take.

I tried fraps but couldn't save a screen shot. I don't know what I'm doing wrong but the screenshot folder never aquired the picture. (I even was running Fraps as admistor.

But thanks to LandN I can now capture a screen shot via the camers icon. Thanks so much. I don't know why I couldn't figure that out by myself.

TO: LandN when you use the "Prt Sc" 0r (Prt Sc Plaus Alt key) the picture is stored on the clipboard and you need to paste it some where to see it. I use the windows Paint program.

TO ArizonaChris You are right I'm running windows 7.

Thanks to everyone for your help. It worked. I can now capture a screen shot.

Dave

[Chacal]

Press Ctrl-S for captures during the game.
The snapshots end up in your "My pictures" folder.

[Hawk]

TO: LandN when you use the "Prt Sc" 0r (Prt Sc Plaus Alt key) the picture is stored on the clipboard and you need to paste it some where to see it. I use the windows Paint program.

MS Paint?

That's probably the worst program you can use for images. It does a crappy job when you save anything with it.

Try Irfanview. It's free, quite versatile and very good.

[ex-railwayman]

You don't have to use the built in print screen button, get yerself a freeware utility such as Irfanview, as suggested by Hawk, install it, create a folder in your 'My Documents' section on your c:drive, go into Irfanview, click on Options > Capture/Screenshot, then in the boxes you want to tick -
1) Full desktop area - all monitors
2) Hot Key - I use the F10 button on my keyboard
3) Save captured image as file
4) Destination Directory - browse to your created folder on your c:drive and click on it
5) Save as - scroll down to make ALL your screenshots JPG format to post on any of the Railworks forums, any other formats such as PNG are not allowed.

Then press Start, go into your game and whenever you want to take a screenshot press F10, it'll make a sound to indicate that the shot has been taken and will appear in your specially created folder, afterwards you can then transfer your screenshots to a hosting site such as Photobucket, Imageshack, or, whatever you use personally, I use http://www.mynetimages.com/, which have always been OK and very easy to transfer your URL of the screenie into the Screenshots section of this forum.

Good luck.

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.

[Hawk]

5) Save as - scroll down to make ALL your screenshots JPG format to post on any of the Railworks forums, any other formats such as PNG are not allowed.

One correction I'd like to make here. If you attach an image to a post, jpg is the best option (png, bmp files are not allowed due to their huge file size), however - if you upload the image to an image hosting site, the format doesn't matter.
That said, even if you do use an image hosting site, using the png or bmp format is still not recommended because those formats will cause the forum to slow down while loading those remote hosted images, in which case jpg is still recommended. Even jpg's hosted on remote sites can be a bit slow in loading in the forum due to the connection speed between the forum server and the remote hosting server. Using png's will slow that down even more.

If you use Irfanview to grab screenshots or to convert png files to jpg, click on the jpg Options button and set the Save quality to 75 or 80 and you'll still have a good screenshot at a lower file size.

Just keep in mind that even jpg's have a file size limit when attaching to a post, which is 256 KB (this file size does not apply to remotely hosted images, but too large of a file will slow down the loading of the image, as mentioned above), but the dimensions of the image have no set limit. They will be resized to an appropriate size, which the visitor can then click on the image to view full size.
See this topic for more info on that.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2836

I hope this helps.


Edit 1: I've moved this topic to a Global Announcement and retitled it.

[Hawk]

Posting an image in this forum is pretty simple.

First, make sure the image is 256 KB or smaller.

When creating (or replying to) a post, look below the text box and you'll see a tab marked 'Upload Attachment'.

attach1.jpg

Just click on the 'Browse' button to find the file on your hard drive, then click 'Add the File'.
Once the file is uploaded you'll see something similar to this.

attach2.jpg

Hope that helps. :-D

[arizonachris]

FRAPS will only work once you are in the game. I use a program called Gadwin Print Screen for Windows screen shots: http://www.gadwin.com/download/

Very easy to use, runs in the Task Bar, just right click and see your Windows screen shots. Gadwin will NOT capture in game screen shots.

[AlexEdwin]

Make sure you have the keyboards (Function Lock key) OFF for the (PrtScn key) to work and open up your paint program and paste from the clipboard, (Gimp in my case).

[steve_the_slim]

Why is everyone using all these custom programs when RAILWORKS HAS A BUILT-IN SCREENSHOT FUNCTION?

Press Ctrl-S for captures during the game.
The snapshots end up in your "My pictures" folder.

I get that these programs are highly useful when a program doesn't have a screenshot function, but just hitting Ctrl-S is a heck of a lot easier for Railworks. And if for some reason that isn't working Steam also has a screenshot feature that works in all Steam games (F12 by default).