As I work on IGPX month, a friend of mine complemented me on the images I have been capturing and uploading and asked how to capture images from DVDs. After I gave him the run down, a thought occurred to me as I searched the site and found no real guide to explain how one goes about getting screen shots and capturing images from video hosting sites and what not. Seeing as how I don't have much to do during the summer except read this technique book for teaching, I have decided to make another guide covering the basics on how to capture images when watching something via YouTube, Crunchy Roll, Anime Season, Hulu, or your site of choice. It should be noted that this process also works with DVDs you play on your computer. It is recommended though that you watch the videos in a small window as it will make the image easier to capture. Not to mention if you do it full screen, you usually get nothing at all.
Step One: Find an image.
This is always going to be the easy step since all you have to do is find a scene in the anime or manga that looks good and would make for a good image here on the site. For this example, we are going to use a clip from YouTube from episode 2 of Fairy Tail. Once you find a scene you want, hit the pause button. Make sure there are no time counters or subtitles at the bottom of the screen. Subtitles are okay but if you want a good, clean image, its best to try and avoid subtitles. Next hit the Print Screen button, which is abbreviated to 'Prnt Scrn'. It is usually above the Backspace bar and to the right. (I didn't put an image here since not all keyboard are alike) We got a good image here. Let's go ahead and hit the Prnt Scrn button
Step Two: Paste the Image into MS Paint (or some sort of graphics program)
Open Microsoft Paint or whatever graphics program you use. At the top of the screen hit the edit button and then scroll down until you see the Paste button. Hit them both accordingly. The screen shot you captures should pop up. The image below has red arrows to guide you along.Edit and Paste are marked by the red arrows.
Step Three: Save the Image
Pretty easy step here. Simply go to File. Then go to Save As. When you are saving, make sure that you are saving it to Pictures where you can edit the image further.Step Four: Go to Pictures and Find Your Image
Hit the Start button in the bottom left hand corner of your screen then scroll up to the left. You should see Pictures on the left. Click on it, find your image, then open it.Follow the arrow. It'll guide you.
Step Five: Click on the Fix Button
The Fix button is at the top of the screen. Simply click on that to open up the crop menu. When you have the crop menu open, click on the icon that says "Crop Image". A rectangle will pop up for you to crop. Outline the image you want to crop and then click apply.The Fix button is what you are looking for at the top.
First click the red arrow. Then move the rectangle to your liking (as seen in the red circle). Then click apply at the blue arrow.
Step Six: You're Done. Upload to Anime Vice
After you click Apply, your changes will be saved and you have a perfect screen shot. If you are unhappy with how it looks, click "Crop Image" or "Undo" to go back and attempt to crop the image to your liking again. Once you are done, either exit out of the editor or click on one of the arrows at the bottom of the screen and your work will be saved. After that, head on over to Anime Vice or any Whiskey Media site and upload the image. Looks much better, doesn't it?
