How to Make a Screen Capture

You can take a picture of your computer screen anytime. This is useful in making tutorials or capturing an error message for tech support.

To save a screen, simply hit the PrtScn key in the upper right hand section of your keyboard. Enter any program that allows pasting of pictures (Word, PowerPoint, Publisher, any graphics handling program, and so on) and type Control V. Now you may crop the screen to keep just the part you need. This is how all the screen shots for this class where created.

If you want to save the screen capture as a JPG (or other format) graphics file, you must paste it into a graphics editing program like Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Paintshop, MS Images, or some other.

See Examples below:

This is a screen shot of this screen. Notice that when I resized it smaller, the clarity of the text is ruined. Use caution when you alter the captured screen.

Instead of resizing a paste smaller, CROP away what you don't want. Below is an enlarged CROP that shows you what the CROP TOOL looks like. Hist: You must click on your pasted graphic for the Picture Toolbar containing the CROP TOOL to appear.