Have you ever wondered how to get a screen shot of your desktop? Believe it or not, you don’t need any extra software than what already comes with Windows. All you need is a keyboard and Microsoft Paint. Read on for more.
No extra cost needed
Taking screen prints of your desktop are useful for a variety of reasons. Whether you just want to save some shots to show some friends, or if you’re putting together a tutorial and want to use some live images to enhance it, it is quite useful and surprisingly easy to do. Better yet, you don't need to spend anything extra in order to do this.
Step 1
For screen prints, what you see is what you get. So if there are certain things you don’t want to show up in your screen shot, such as inactive programs, active windows, or anything else, be sure to get them out of the way before continuing.
Next, you’ll want to find the handy Print Screen button – sometimes shown as ‘PrtSc’ – on your keyboard. Depending on the type of keyboard you’re using, this key will not be in the same place for everyone. Essentially, it could be found with the set of keys that read Insert, Delete, Home, End, Page Up, Page Down. Or, it could be found to the right of the row of function keys (F1 through F12). If you’re using a laptop, the placement of this key could vary even more, so be sure to check every edge of your keyboard to find where it’s hiding.
If you only want to take a screen shot of the active window, then press ALT+PRINTSCREEN.
Step 2
Once you’ve pressed the Print Screen key, you’ll want to open up Microsoft Paint. If you have another image-editing software that you’d like to use, you can open that as well. But this tutorial will concentrate on Microsoft Paint.
Once the program opens, click on “Edit” and choose “Paste.” Your screen shot should appear in the program. If the “Paste” option isn’t highlighted, try using the Print Screen key again. Afterwards, be sure to save your file.
Step 3
While the Bitmap is the default file type you can save the image as, I recommend using JPG or PNG in its place as it will use a little bit less disk space. However, the image quality for JPG will distort slightly, and won’t be as refined as saving it as a bitmap or PNG file. You can even select to save it as a GIF or TIFF file if you prefer.
Doing More with your Screen Print
Unfortunately, Microsoft Paint doesn’t come with a standard set of imaging features that are available with other types of image-editing software. While you don’t need anything extravagant as Paint Shop Pro or Adobe Photoshop, there are other programs you can use. If you have a digital camera, sometimes the software that comes with it will allow you to crop, resize and do other things with the picture. Sometimes, software and drivers that come with printers come equipped with image-editing software as well. So be sure to check out your options. There are some free image-editing programs out there. Here are some useful Bright Hub articles to help you choose which one is right for you.
Here is information about the free open-source GIMP image editor.
Top 10 Best Free Photo Editing Programs
Here is information regarding Quick and Easy Image Editing with InfranView (also free)
Here is another good free image program Faststone Image Viewer
Here are the Best Image Editors for Desktop Publishing
