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A screenshot (also known as screen capture or screen grab) is a digital image that shows the contents of a computer display. A screenshot is created by the operating system or software running on the device powering the display. Additionally, screenshots can be captured by an external camera, using photography to capture contents on the screen.


Screenshot techniques


Digital techniques

The first screenshots were created with the first interactive computers around 1960. Through the 1980s, computer operating systems did not universally have built-in functionality for capturing screenshots. Sometimes text-only screens could be dumped to a text file, but the result would only capture the content of the screen, not the appearance, nor were graphics screens preservable this way. Some systems had a BSAVE command that could be used to capture the area of memory where screen data was stored, but this required access to a BASIC prompt. Systems with composite video output could be connected to a VCR, and entire screencasts preserved this way. Most screenshots are raster images, but some vector-based GUI environments like
Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metr ...
are capable of generating vector screenshots.


Photographic techniques

Screenshot kits were available for standard (film) cameras that included a long antireflective hood to attach between the screen and camera lens, as well as a closeup lens for the camera. Polaroid film was popular for capturing screenshots, because of the instant results and close-focusing capability of Polaroid cameras. In 1988, Polaroid introduced Spectra film with a 9.2 × 7.3 image size more suited to the 4:3 aspect ratio of CRT screens.


Built-in screenshot functionality


Android

Screenshot support was added to ''Android'' in version 4.0. In older versions, some devices supported screenshot functionality with one of the following combinations: * Press and hold the * Press and hold * Press and hold and double tap the . Screenshots can be taken by pressing , and are saved in the "Screenshot" folder in the gallery after a short sound and visual effect. On certain devices that use modified Android; the button combination and the storage location can vary. Also, when a keyboard is connected via USB-OTG, pressing the print screen button will take the screenshot. There is no direct way to take screenshots programmatically in non-system apps. However, on most devices, apps may use the system screenshot functionality without special permissions.


Amazon Kindle

On Amazon Kindle devices, one can take a screenshot by: * Kindle Paperwhite - touch and hold on the top-left and bottom-right corners of the screen (or top-right and bottom-left corners). The screen will flash and the image will be saved in the root folder of Kindle storage. * Kindle or Kindle Touch – Simply press and hold the and then tap anywhere on the screen. * Kindle Keyboard (Kindle 3 and Kindle DX) – Press * Kindle Fire 2 and Kindle Fire HD (with volume button) – Press and hold the at the same time. Open the Photos app to access the screenshot(s). * Kindle Fire (no volume buttons) – One needs to connect their Kindle Fire to a computer with the Kindle SDK installed and take a screenshot through the development environment.


ChromeOS

On Chromebook and related devices with the ChromeOS keyboard layout, pressing the equivalent of on a standard keyboard will capture the entire screen, and the equivalent of will turn the mouse into a rectangle select tool for capturing a custom portion of the screen.


HP WebOS

Screenshots of the HP webOS can be taken. For webOS phones, simultaneously press . For the HP Touchpad, press . In either case, screenshots will be saved to the "Screen captures" folder in the "Photos" app.


Linux

On KDE or
GNOME A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its characte ...
, key behavior is quite similar to Windows. (See § Microsoft Windows.) In addition, the following screenshooting utilities are bundled with Linux distributions: *
GIMP GIMP ( ; GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free and open-source raster graphics editor used for image manipulation (retouching) and image editing, free-form drawing, transcoding between different image file formats, and more specialized ...
: A
raster graphics editor A raster graphics editor is a computer program that allows users to create and edit images interactively on the computer screen and save them in one of many raster graphics file formats (also known as bitmap images) such as JPEG, PNG, and GI ...
that can take screenshots too * gnome-screenshot: The default screen grabbing utility in GNOME * ImageMagick: Has an command-line tool that captures screenshots in a variety of formats. Type to capture the entire screen to your
home directory A home directory is a file system directory on a multi-user operating system containing files for a given user of the system. The specifics of the home directory (such as its name and location) are defined by the operating system involved; for ...
. * Spectacle: The default screen grabbing utility in KDE * scrot: Allows selecting arbitrary areas of the X screen and windows. *
xwd In the X Window System, the program xwd (X Window dump) captures the content of a screen or of a window and optionally saves it into a file. xwd runs in one of two ways: if a user specifies the whole screen or the name or identifier of a wi ...
: The screen capture utility of the
X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wi ...


Apple iOS

A screenshot can be taken on iOS by simultaneously pressing the Home button and the Lock button from the
Original iPhone The iPhone (retrospectively referred to unofficially as the iPhone 2G, iPhone 1 or original iPhone) is the first iPhone model and the first smartphone designed and marketed by Apple Inc. After years of rumors and speculation, it was officia ...
to the iPhone 8 Plus in addition to the second- and third-generation SE or the iPad models of the iPad (1st generation and later), the iPad Mini up to the 5th generation, the iPad Air up to the 3rd generation, or the first two generations of the iPad Pro or by pressing the Volume up and Lock button since the iPhone X and newer iPhone models and iPad models since the iPad Pro (3rd generation), iPad Air (4th generation), and the iPad Mini (6th generation). The screen will flash and the picture will be stored in PNG format in the "Camera Roll" if the device has a camera, or in "Saved Photos" if the device does not. From the iOS 11 update, a little preview will pop up in the bottom left corner, which can be swiped left to save or clicked to open up an editor where the screenshot can be cropped or doodled on before being saved or shared. The screenshot feature is available with iOS 2.0 and later. The same shortcut for Mac OS is used in iOS to take a screenshot, with bringing the screenshot directly in iOS' editing window in iOS 11 and later. Third-party Bluetooth keyboards often have a key or function key command devoted to taking a screenshot.


Apple macOS

On
macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...
, a user can take a screenshot of an entire screen by pressing , or of a chosen area of the screen by . This screenshot is saved to the user's desktop, with one PNG file per attached monitor. If the user holds down while doing either then the screenshot will be copied to the clipboard instead. Beginning with Mac OS X Panther, it is possible to make a screenshot of an active application window. By following , with pressing the , the cross-hair cursor turns into a small camera icon. The current window under the cursor is highlighted, and a click on the mouse or trackpad will capture a screenshot of the entire highlighted element (including the parts offscreen or covered by other windows). A provided application called Grab will capture a chosen area, a whole window, the whole screen, or the whole screen after 10 seconds and pops the screenshot up in a window ready for copying to the
clipboard A clipboard is a thin, rigid board with a clip at the top for holding paper in place. A clipboard is typically used to support paper with one hand while writing on it with the other, especially when other writing surfaces are not available. The ...
or saving as a TIFF. The Preview application, also provided, has the same capture options as Grab but opens the captured image immediately in a new window. Since macOS 10.14 Mojave, Apple brought to users a revamped screenshot utility, called Screenshot app. A utility toolbar will show up when users press . This toolbar allows users to choose capture modes and options to take screenshots. Users can change the default location of saved screenshots from the Options menu in Screenshot app. Besides, this application supports recording Mac screen in full-sized or chosen portion. A shell utility called "screencapture" (located in /usr/sbin/screencapture) can be used from the
Terminal Terminal may refer to: Computing Hardware * Terminal (electronics), a device for joining electrical circuits together * Terminal (telecommunication), a device communicating over a line * Computer terminal, a set of primary input and output devi ...
application or in shell scripts to capture screenshots and save them to files. Various options are available to choose the file format of the screenshot, how the screenshot is captured, if sounds are played, etc. This utility might only be available when the macOS developer tools are installed. A user cannot capture the screen while
DVD Player A DVD player is a device that plays DVDs produced under both the DVD-Video and DVD-Audio technical standards, two different and incompatible standards. Some DVD players will also play audio CDs. DVD players are connected to a television to ...
is running.


Maemo 5

On Maemo 5 a screenshot can be taken by pressing simultaneously. Screenshots will be saved as "Screenshot-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.png" in "Images/Screenshots" on the internal storage.


Windows

On
Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for se ...
, pressing captures a screenshot of the entire desktop, while captures only the
active window A window manager is system software that controls the placement and appearance of windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. Most window managers are designed to help provide a desktop environment. They work in conjunc ...
. Captured screenshots do not include the mouse pointer. Windows places these captured screenshots in the
clipboard A clipboard is a thin, rigid board with a clip at the top for holding paper in place. A clipboard is typically used to support paper with one hand while writing on it with the other, especially when other writing surfaces are not available. The ...
, meaning that an additional program needs to retrieve them from the clipboard. Starting with
Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for download via MSDN and TechNet on August 15, 2012, and later to ...
, however, or instantly saves a screenshot to the "Screenshots" folder in "Pictures" library. All screenshots are saved as PNG files. Note: On some notebooks you have to hold and then press instead. Windows Vista and later include a utility called Snipping Tool, first introduced in
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition Windows XP, which is the next version of Windows NT after Windows 2000 and the successor to the consumer-oriented Windows Me, has been released in several editions since its original release in 2001. Windows XP is available in many languages. In ...
. It is a screen-capture tool that allows taking screenshots ("snips") of a window, rectangular area, or free-form area. Starting with
Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on ...
, Snipping Tool gained time delay functionality, useful for capturing context menus. Snips can then be annotated, saved as an image file or as an HTML page, or emailed. However, it does not work with non-tablet XP versions but represents an XP compatible equivalent. Windows 7 and later also include Problem Step Recorder as part of their troubleshooting platforms that once started, automatically captures a screenshot at mouse clicks. There are exceptions to what can be captured by this method. For example, contents in hardware overlay are not captured. This includes video images that
Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP) is the first media player and media library application that was developed by Microsoft for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as ...
10 or earlier play. As such, special software may be required to capture the screens of video games.


Windows Phone

In Windows Phone 8, screenshots can be taken by simultaneously pressing and holding the phone's Power button and the Start button. The screenshots are saved in the phone's native screen resolution under "screenshots" in the Photos hub. The screenshot functionality is only available for Windows Phone 8 or later. The screenshot combination for
Windows Phone 8.1 Windows Phone 8.1 is the discontinued third generation of Microsoft's Windows Phone mobile operating system, succeeding Windows Phone 8. Rolled out at Microsoft's Build Conference in San Francisco, California, on April 2, 2014, it was released ...
and later is the phone's Power button and the Volume Up button.


Xbox One/Series S, X

As of March 2015, an
Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...
or Xbox Series console can take a screenshot by double-pressing the Nexus button. Pressing the Y button will then save it. The equivalent voice command for this action is "Xbox, take a screenshot".


PlayStation

A
PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013 i ...
or 5 console can take a screenshot by pressing and holding the SHARE button on a DualShock or DualSense controller.


External tools

Notable external tools include: *
Bandicam Bandicam (stylized as BANDICAM) is a closed-source screen capture and screen recording software originally developed by Bandisoft and later by Bandicam Company that can take screenshots or record screen changes. Bandicam consists of three main ...
*
Camtasia Camtasia (; formerly Camtasia Studio and Camtasia for Mac) is a software suite, created and published by TechSmith, for creating and recording video tutorials and presentations via screencast (screen recording), or via a direct recording plug-in ...
*
CamStudio CamStudio is an open-source screencasting program for Microsoft Windows released as free software. The software renders videos in an AVI format. It can also convert these AVIs into Flash Video format, embedded in SWF files. CamStudio is wri ...
*
CloudApp CloudApp is a cross-platform screen capture and screen recording desktop client that supports online storage and sharing. CloudApp full and partial screen recordings export to .mp4 format. Full or partial screen image captures export to either J ...
* Greenshot * Gyazo * IrfanView * Jing * KSnapshot * Lightscreen * Microsoft Snipping Tool * Monosnap * PrintKey 2000 * scrot *
ShareX ShareX is a free and open-source screenshot and screencast program for Microsoft Windows. It is published under the GNU General Public License. The project's source code is hosted on GitHub. It is also available on the Microsoft Store and S ...
* Shotty * Snagit * Snapz Pro X * VVCap * Window Clippings *
Xfire Xfire (pronounced "X-Fire") was a proprietary freeware instant messaging service for gamers that also served as a game server browser with various other features. It was available for Microsoft Windows. Xfire was originally developed by Ul ...
* XnView *
Xwd In the X Window System, the program xwd (X Window dump) captures the content of a screen or of a window and optionally saves it into a file. xwd runs in one of two ways: if a user specifies the whole screen or the name or identifier of a wi ...
* PicPick Some web browsers, for example Firefox and Microsoft Edge, have a screenshot tool which can be used to capture a whole web page or part of it.


Common technical issues


Hardware overlays

On Windows systems, screenshots of games and media players sometimes fail, resulting in a blank rectangle. The reason for this is that the graphics are bypassing the normal screen and going to a high-speed graphics processor on the
graphics card A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or mistakenly GPU) is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display device, such as a computer mo ...
by using a method called hardware overlay. Generally, there is no way to extract a computed image back out of the graphics card, though software may exist for special cases or specific video cards. One way these images can be captured is to turn off the hardware overlay. Because many computers have no hardware overlay, most programs are built to work without it, just a little slower. In Windows XP, this is disabled by opening the Display Properties menu, clicking on the "Settings" tab, clicking, "Advanced", "Troubleshoot", and moving the Hardware Acceleration Slider to "None."
Free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, n ...
media players may also use the overlay but often have a setting to avoid it or have dedicated screenshot functions.


Screen recording

The screen recording capability of some screen capture programs is a time-saving way to create instructions and presentations, but the resulting files are often large. A common problem with video recordings is the action jumps, instead of flowing smoothly, due to low frame rate. Though getting faster all the time, ordinary PCs are not yet fast enough to play videos and simultaneously capture them at professional frame rates, ''i.e.'' 30 frame/s. For many cases, high frame rates are needed for a pleasant experience.


Copyright issues

Some companies believe the use of screenshots is an infringement of copyright on their program, as it is a
derivative work In copyright law, a derivative work is an expressive creation that includes major copyrightable elements of an original, previously created first work (the underlying work). The derivative work becomes a second, separate work independent in ...
of the widgets and other art created for the software. Regardless of copyright, screenshots may still be legally used under the principle of fair use in the U.S. or fair dealing and similar laws in other countries.


See also

*
Comparison of screencasting software This page provides a comparison of notable screencasting software, used to record activities on the computer screen. This software is commonly used for desktop recording, gameplay recording and video editing. Screencasting software is typically ...
* Codeless test automation * Print screen * Screencast *
Thumbshot {{Wiktionary Thumbshots are screenshots of online documents such as web page in small thumbnail sizes. Thumbshots help users to visualize web sites or preview links before clicking. The dimension of a thumbshot image (usually under 120 pixels in ...
* Video capture


References


External links


Use Snipping Tool to capture screenshots
at
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
{{authority control Graphical user interfaces