Need an advice regarding screenshots in AARs.

[J HG T]

K! I'm planning starting my AAR in a week or two. Before starting it I would be happy to hear what software people use for taking screenshots. I've never had need for high-quality screenshots before, but this AAR thingy calls for proper tools.

In short: What's best, free and easiest to use program to use for taking screenshots?

Thanks in advance!

[Data]

Can't help here but iirc Binge gave some advice on this in one of his AAR's. I don't think he'll miss this thread and you'll be good to go soon; can't wait to see you RPing.

[Tree Dog]

IrfanView is great for this.
Lots of options and can make lossless screenshots.

[Bingeling]

I used ScreenGrabPro to grab regions of my game. I then uploaded my images to photobucked and linked from there.

Stuff the direct url in the image tags (link on top on the matrix window), and it should work OK.

If I needed to cut or resize images, I used the very fancy Paint (mspaint), which any windows should be supplied with. A good thing with a screen grab program is that you can grab the correct area, so you don't have to modify the image afterwards. If you do this properly, all you would need external work for is reducing size (for instance for a galaxy map taken at high resolution).

I would very much suggest to limit the sizes of your images. If the image is too wide, the whole thread page is messed up. So make a habit of grabbing only what is needed, and shrink when necessary.

I did a "raw write" in a document when I played. I inserted the images in this document at the same time. When I posted the AAR I copied/pasted the text to the forum window, and edited in images manually with the document as a guide to which image goes where.

How to find the correct image? Put images for each forum post in separate sub directories. Upload to different online folders. Sort your local folder on file date, and this should give you files in the correct order. It can be quite annoying to find the correct image from the thumb image on a site like photobucket, especially if you have 4 different images for one post, each of the tactical situation in the same section of the empire. So locate by order taken, and have different and proper names for each one. And have the location in text in your "on the run" document.

[J HG T]

Data. I certainly like to RP my games, but not so sure if I'm a good storyteller. Oh well, we'll see it soon enough.

Thanks to both Tree Dog and Bingeling. Will try those out.

Bingeling. Thanks for the tips. I use Imageshack myself, and probably use some helpful naming system for my pics to keep them in order.

[Igard]

I don't know if this is of any use to you, J, but you can turn off the displays by pressing the 'T' key. You can turn off description by pressing 'D' IIRC.

This gives you a cinematic mode.

Also, to zoom fully, you have to use the 'page up' and 'page down' keys rather than the mouse wheel.

[J HG T]

Didn't knew about those at all, Igard. Thanks! 

[Data]

Confirmed on all of the above, textbook stuff from the romulan.[:)]

[Cvan]

Nobody uses numpad 0 for taking screens?

[cookie monster]

I made a page here at wite wiki with some good extras for making screenshots etc

http://witewiki.com/index.php/Extras

Snagit is the dogs b*llocks! You can use the free trial, the unlocked version will cost though.

It's great for making arrows and borders quickly.

I use the screenshot assistant myself which is a good program and free

I use The Gimp as an image editor, it's a bit more powerful than paint.net

You could use the windows snipping tool to capture regions of the screen, but Im not familiar with how quick the whole process is to save