How to Take a Screenshot on Your Windows PC – Taking screenshots on PCs is not really something people do regularly. Personally I take about 4-5 screenshots on my mobile device daily but on my PC, maybe once a month.
As the name implies, taking a screenshot on your PC means snapping the screen on your PC, and it’s rather easy than many people suggest. There is more than one way to take a screenshot on Windows PC and the most known of them all would be the Print Screen key.
Various Ways to Take Screenshots on Windows PC
Snipping Tool
The snipping tool is a very known way of taking snaps on windows PC screens. Open the snipping app on your PC and hit on the “New” button to snip out a section to snap. By default, the snip type is a rectangular shape but can be changed to a circular or no form shape if you click on “Mode”.
Once you are done snipping out a section on your PC, hit on “File”> “Save as” and proceed to save the image.
Snip & Sketch
An upgraded version of the Snipping tool with an automatic screenshot button. Once you open the app, click on the “New” button in the upper left corner to take a screenshot.
A menu pops-up where you’d select which shape you’d like the screenshot to be taken. After the screenshot is taken, you will view it on the Snip & Sketch window where you can edit it and save it. Unlike the Snipping tool, Snip & Sketch automatically save screenshot images to the clipboard.
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Using the Print Screen Key
The Print screen key is sometimes labeled (prt sc) on your PC’s keyboard and a single press on this key would take a screenshot and save it to your clipboard. Then you will need to open an image editing tool (Paint) and paste (Ctrl + V) the image there.
There are various functions the Print screen key carries out when combined with other keys on your Keyboard. We’ve already mentioned what the Print Screen Key does on its own. How about what it does when you combine its functions with other keys on the keyboard?
Print Screen Key + Alt Key
Captures a single window on your screen given that there might be multiple windows open on your PC. So what you want to do is to highlight the window you want to screenshot its image before pressing this combo.
This method also saves the image to your clipboard so you are going to have to open an image editing tool on your PC and paste the image there (Ctrl + V).
Windows Key + Print Screen Key
This trick also captures the entire screen but saves it differently unlike the Print Screen key. Open the “File Explorer” app on your PC, then navigate to “Pictures”>”Screenshots”.
Windows Key + Alt Key + Print Screen Key
Another trick that captures the entire screen but saves it differently. To find the image, open the “File Explorer” app and then “Videos”> “Captures” or try a Windows Key + “G” combo.
The latter direction will prompt you to the G-bar menu. On that menu, click on “Show all Captures” and then select an action you wish to take on the screenshot image.
Other Key Combo That Takes Screenshots On Windows PC
Windows Key + G: Opens the Game bar menu. Here you could click on the “Capture” button and then the camera icon to take a screenshot. The image will be saved under “Videos”> “Captures” in the “File Explorer” app.
Windows Key + Shift + S: Takes a screenshot using the Snip & Sketch tool. The screen dims and prompts you to choose an option of how you want to take the screenshot; By Default, Rectangular form, Freeform, Window Snip or FullScreen Snip.
Do note that this does not save your image. Instead it copies it to the clipboard meaning you need to paste it to an image editing tool.
Conclusion
When you screenshot an image using any of the keys combos above, depending on what you used, it either saves the image to your PC’s clipboard or somewhere in the file explorer. To edit the image, you have to paste it to a photo editing tool, preferably Paint.
Just open the photo editing tool you want to use and hit on Ctrl + V to paste the image.
If the image is saved as a file, locate it and double click on it to open it on your PC’s default photo editing tool. Left-click on it to select another editing tool available to your PC. When you finish editing an image, click on the “File” option on the image editing tool you used.
Then select the format you want the image to be saved as (PNG, JPEG, GIF, and so on) and proceed to save it to a section in your PC.
