Luckily for us, there are many options to click screenshots on Windows. Let’s take a look at some of them below.
1. Print Screen
There is a physical button on your keyboard called — Print Screen, usually at the upper-left side of your numerical pad.
Pressing Print Screen once copies the screenshot of your current screen to the clipboard. Next, open any image editing program like — MS Paint and paste the image from the clipboard and save it into any format you want (preferably PNG or JPG).
2. Windows Button + Print Screen
This is the method you should be using if you want an instant screenshot without the use of any additional software. When you take a Screenshot using this way, first your screen will blink once confirming that the screenshot has been taken. Then your screenshot will automatically be saved to “C:\Users\Amandeep\Pictures\Screenshots”, provided your primary OS drive is C.
3. Alt + Print Screen
Pressing these two buttons together only captures the screenshot of any active window which you have open and running. From there you can go into MS-Paint and save it. This is particularly useful if you do not want to edit the screenshot yourself, as this presents a perfect window image to you.
4. Snipping Tool
The Snipping Tool is a utility bundled with almost every version of Windows (except Home basic), and it is a great application to take Screenshots as well as edit it on-the-fly. Using the Snipping Tool, you can take screenshots for specific parts of your screen if you wish to, and you can select from a few modes of Snip modes such as Free-form, Rectangular, Window Snip, Fullscreen Snip etc. After selecting, you can take the screenshot and save it in your format of choice.
5. Windows Game Bar
Press the Windows Button + G on your keyboard, brings up the Windows Game Bar, and you can use it to take screenshots of your games, and record videos. The keyboard shortcut to take a quick screenshot via the Windows Game Bar is Alt + Windows Button + Print Screen. It should be kept in mind that the Windows Game Bar is an exclusive feature to Windows 10 only.
6. Fraps
If you try taking a screenshot in-game, using the above-mentioned methods, and the result will be a black screen in paint. It is because Windows can’t handle APIs such as DirectX or OpenGL natively. Therefore, to take screenshots for your games, you have to resort to some other methods, such as using Fraps. This is one of the most famous applications worldwide to take screenshots (and record videos as well), and it is quite easy to use as well. One of the best features of the software is the ability Fraps is a paid software that cost $37, but screenshots can be captured in .BMP for free.
7. PicPick
PicPick is a dedicated software to take screenshots. It supports multiple capturing methods for screenshots, a useful image editor to edit your screenshots quickly with the inbuilt app, fast sharing options so you can link the screenshots to others, and various hotkeys. The software is free to use for personal and non-commercial use.
8. Dropbox
If you click the Print Screen button, Dropbox automatically saves the screenshots to your folder of choice on your drive, as well as uploads the screenshots to their cloud servers. You can then get the screenshot link quickly to give to others. An alternative to this app is Microsoft’s OneDrive, which can also serve the same function.
Wrapping up
For a lot of people (like yours truly), screen capturing is something they do on a daily basis and have to do a lot of. There are a lot of options to take screenshots on Windows, and unless you’re a power user, you will be happy enough with the default tools and options, without installing Third-Party Applications, such as the Snipping tool and the Windows Game Bar for video games. On the other hand, if you have a lot of Screenshots to take, then you’d be better off using a dedicated Screenshot software such as PicPick. Also Read: How to Screenshot Part of Screen (Windows | Mac | Android)
