A screenshot (also known as screen capture or screen grab) is an analog or digital image that shows the contents of a computer display. A screenshot is created by a (film) camera shooting the screen or the

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

running on the device powering the display.

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 A text file (sometimes spelled textfile; an old alternative name is flat file) is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists stored as data within a computer file system. In ope ...

, 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 Basic or BASIC may refer to: Science and technology * BASIC, a computer programming language * Basic (chemistry), having the properties of a base * Basic access authentication, in HTTP Entertainment * Basic (film), ''Basic'' (film), a 2003 film ...

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 ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

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.

Screenshot tools

Notable software for capturing screenshots include: * Bandicam * Camtasia * CamStudio * CloudApp *

Greenshot Greenshot is a free and open-source screenshot program for Microsoft Windows. It is developed by Thomas Braun, Jens Klingen and Robin Krom and is published under GNU General Public License, hosted by GitHub. Greenshot is also available for macO ...

* Gyazo * IrfanView * Jing * KSnapshot * Lightscreen * Microsoft Snipping Tool * Snip and Sketch *

Monosnap Monosnap is a screenshot program for macOS, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows, Windows. The program allows users to create screenshots, annotate them and upload them to the cloud. It was released for Mac OS X on 11 July 2012. Several days after it ...

PrintKey 2000 PrintKey 2000 is a discontinued screenshot software program for Microsoft Windows which rose to popularity in the late 1990s. The free software allows the user to modify screenshots after they are taken. The program is activated by the Print sc ...

Screenpal ScreenPal (formerly known as Screencast-O-Matic) is a cross-platform screen capture and screen recording software originally developed in 2006. History The company was founded by AJ Gregory in 2006 as Screencast-O-Matic. The software includes f ...

scrot scrot is a minimalist command line screen capturing application. It allows a substantial degree of flexibility by specifying parameters on command line, including the ability to invoke a third-party utility to manipulate the resulting screensh ...

ShareX ShareX is a free and open-source screenshot and screencast software for 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 Steam. Fea ...

* Shotty * Snagit * Snapz Pro X * VVCap * Window Clippings * Xfire * XnView * Xwd * PicPick Some web browsers, for example

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curr ...

and

Microsoft Edge Microsoft Edge is a Proprietary Software, proprietary cross-platform software, cross-platform web browser created by Microsoft and based on the Chromium (web browser), Chromium open-source project, superseding Edge Legacy. In Windows 11, 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 accelerator, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or colloquially GPU) is a computer expansion card that generates a feed of graphics output to a displa ...

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, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

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 Frame rate, most commonly expressed in frame/s, or FPS, is typically the frequency (rate) at which consecutive images (Film frame, frames) are captured or displayed. This definition applies to film and video cameras, computer animation, and moti ...

. 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 a first, previously created original work (the underlying work). The derivative work becomes a second, separate work independent from ...

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 Fair use is a Legal doctrine, doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to bal ...

in the U.S. or fair dealing and similar laws in other countries. Screenshots have also been an object of study in academic research, in fields such as law, media studies, and semiotics.

References

External links

Use Snipping Tool to capture screenshots
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Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

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