Can anybody please tell me how to capture screenshots in FS9

dave lock

Hi Dave,

Go to the following site;

http://members.lycos.co.uk/Berlin_flightsim/

Download screenshot manager. Once installed you can then run this utility in conjunction with Fs9 and by pressing the print screen button (on your pc) you can save screenshots to a directory of your choice.

Cheers

Stew

Hi Stewart

Thank you very much for the info.

dave

Dave there are a whole host of utilities that will "capture" what is on your screen at the time and allow you to make them into a screenshot. Myself I use one called "FSScreen". Works the way Stew described above. I find it very useful for all kinds of things including taking FS9 screen shots. Especially when you order something via the internet it's nice to capture the confirmation page data so you don't have to physically write all that info down.

But one thing to remember is that once you've "captured" a screen image you will need some way to edit it. Most web forums, including this one, will have a max size limit to images, like screen shots, that you can post. So you will also need a program that will do that for you as well. The typical image limit these days is 600 x 800 pixels with a memory size limit of about 100kb. If you take a raw screen image, directly from FS9 and save it, it's size will be whatever setting you have in your FS9 screen settings as far as height and width. The memory size, what people call the image's weight, will then vary on your settings for your graphics as well as the settings in the sim. For example if I take a screen capture, my program FSScreen saves the image as a bitmap file. It's size is usually 1200 ish by 1000 ish pixels, I don't remember the exact numbers. However the weight of the image, depending on what's in the image can be up to 500kb, way way over the limit for most forums. In addition since in my case the files are saved as .bmp files (bitmaps) I also need a way to convert them over to .jpg or JPEG files to again comply with most internet forums rules for posting screenies.

So again I need another program that will reduce the weight of the image while leaving the height and the width at the values that I want. When you do this, squish an image down to fit a certain memory size limit, you get what's called compression of the image and you lose some quality. Unfortunately you really can't do too much about it.

So ideally you'd like to have an all in one program that will be able to capture any screen image you want, edit it in height and width and be able to compress it to the memory size limit that you need to fit forum guidelines as well as save the image in a JPEG format.

If only there was an all in one program out there.

But wait, there is! It's called Infraview, and it will do all of the above. And best of all it is freeware. Check out this link if you'd like to download this utiltiy. It's what I use to resize all of my images, it works great and has many nice features.

http://www.irfanview.com/index.htm

Good luck and let us know if you have any other questions about posting screen shots.

Thanks for the info Mike, I have downloaded a program called Rapidshot, which I found on a search of google. Very good program and easy to use although I have not yet had an in depth look.
I dont know if it will do what you were stating in your message, so I will download infanview as well and try that .

Thanks for the info from Stew as well, but when I went to download screenshot manager from fs Berlin, it took me to a T Mobile site in German so I gave up on that one.

all the best

dave

Any old screen capture program will do. Just as long as you are able to edit it with something afterwords, you should be all set.

Cheers Mike.I will see how I get on.

dave

there is one out there that I use...called screenshoter (or something like that) I'll let you know exactly but it gives you the option on what size you want to save it at...! I'll post it later as I am not at my FS9 computer.

Its called Snapshooter...and it can be found at Avsim..under said name. I like it and the ability to change the size without a separate program...

Dav, I have been using a thing called MWSnap found here: http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/index.html and have found it to be pretty good. There are a ton of these utilities to choose from, however, a few are payware, many are adware or carry spy bots to build and send to an info gatherer cookies with data on your activities (in order to target you for spam/e-mail ads), but many are also pretty darn good, with varing features, so you may want to try out a number of them until you find one you are comfortable with. A few things to look for. 1) You should be able to specify a save folder for your screen shots. 2) Your shots should be automatically labeled with titles/sequencually increased numbering. 3) You should be able to specify the format in which the shot is saved. ie jpg, gif, bmp etc. 4) Very desireable is the ability to specify the save size (600x800) and level of detail (density - more data better pic but more kbs), and most important, 5) A convient way to control and trigger the shot including whether a selected area of the screen, full window or full screen including and background visable outside the current window. Not really all that complicated, but each program usually has something special about it and you will settle in on one that you feel comfortable with pretty quickly. One warning. It is so very eazy to compile a hell of a lot of screenshots very quickly. You will need a good manager program to organize and fiddle with sets of pics. I recommend this free program: Firehand Ember Free found at http://www.firehand.com which I have used for years, and once you learn to use it effectively find that all others pale in comparison. In any case, view, organize, delete bad shots and save to CD quickly as you will use hugh amounts of space on your hard drive, even it you have a large one. Firehand has more than one free program, and all are excellent, and I have never had the need for the upgrade payware, alto many iterations ago I payed for all of them in the full version. Very powerful, well supported by this excellent company, but I just never used the full power of the pay versions, so all you really need is the freeware.

Have fun...

Ron

Edit: Sorry, I don't know how to get those url's to become active, so just copy and paste to the explorer window of the brouser you are using and hit return.

Thanks Ron, I didn`t know there were so many of these utilities out there, Its a bit mind boggling. This rapidshot I have has given me the results I wanted but I havn`t had a chance to play around with it yet.

My thanks to all that have come to my aid in this.

dave lock