Ability to capture screen lost in PSProX

[Ken Veal]

Have suddenly lost the ability to make a screen capture..........

file- import -screen capture-start......
Right click on screen to be captured- nothing happens.
The PSPro name at the bottom of the window does not change colour.
I go to PSPro window and there is only an image of the very top right of the intended capture screen, with just the file/ edit menu there and it is a very small image. Help please ! ....................Ken

[allicorn]

By default, the Screen Capture facility is set to capture areas - not whole screens or windows. So you might need to LEFT click then drag out a rectangle showing which area should be captured. A second LEFT click confirms the rectangle. After that, a RIGHT click takes the shot.

Alternatively, File->Import->Screen Capture->Setup will show a set of radio buttons that let you choose whether to capture areas, windows, full screen, "object" (active OLE object?) or "client area" (focussed scrollable area?). Once I set that to fullscreen, everything works as expected here.

Cheers,
Alli

[Ken Veal]

Thanks for the prompt reply Ali,
Story so far:-
Chose full screen in the set up box.
Commenced capture with L click drag but it just selected it as normal as if I had not set up screen capture.
Went back to PSPro and it had captured a small image of the menus at the top of the captured screen(which I had not dragged)This captured
display had a slider bar to scroll along the image and a max + minimise
option.
Went back to the set up box and chose area.
This time I R /clicked as previously done, a + sign showed as before then I L/Clicked and dragged area.
No colour change from the PSPro box at the bottom of the window.
The area had now been captured but into a white area with no means of min or maximising it.
Selected undo and the captured print went but the white box remained
The options in the Set up Box were
Active capture R/click or hot key
Capture Area Area Full screen Client area Window Object
.....................Ken

[allicorn]

Hiya Ken,

Does sound like something a bit odd might be happening. I'll go through a complete run for getting a single full-screen capture here:

# From the menu, File->Import->Screen Capture->Setup
# The "Capture Setup" dialog appears
# In the "Capture" options, select "Full Screen"
# In the "Activate capture using" options, select "Right mouse click"
# In the "Options" box, I have neither of the two boxes checked
# Click "Capture Now" button.
# PSP disappears down to the taskbar
# We're not selecting an area in this mode, so just a single RIGHT click is all thats needed. Doing the RIGHT click makes PSP pop right back up with a new image (the capture) ready. (Sometimes it might just make PSP change color on the taskbar, and you'll have to pull it back up yourself)
# Now, it might be zoomed in/out too much which could make it have scrollbars along the side or make it too big or small to easily read. Going to the menu, Window->Fit To Window ought to zoom it in/out so that you can see the whole thing.

After that, you can save, print, edit it or whatever you fancy. If at any point there you still feel you're seeing the capture either too big (and you can't see it all) or too small, you can use the menu View->Zoom In/Out options or just select the "Zoom Tool" from the toolbar (looks like a magnifying glass) which turns your mouse cursor into a magnifying glass and when you click on the captured image with either LEFT or RIGHT buttons, it should zoom in and out so that you can see the part of it that you want to see.

If that's not working then something really has gone a bit screwy

There's another way to take a single full-screen capture which might help if the normal method isn't working at all. This should work for any computer with Windows XP, Vista, 98, 95 or whatever and you don't even necessarily have to have PSP unless you want to edit the captured image.

Set up your windows so you've got whatever it is you want to take a shot of being displayed, then just hit the "Print Screen" key on your keyboard, its usually up there just to the right of "F12" and might just be labelled "PrtScr". You won't see anything happen when you press the key, but doing it is like doing a "copy" (from cut, copy and paste) on your screen. So, if you then go to any program (like PSP or Word or PowerPoint) that can show an image or show a document with an image in it, and hit Paste (in PSP that'd be on the menu, Edit->Paste as New Image, in Word or such that'd just be Edit->Paste) you should find that the picture of the screen just gets pasted straight in there. Gives you a little less control, but it really ought to always work fine. Again, you might need those Zoom controls if you paste it into PSP and it seems too big or small.

Hope that helps!

Cheers,
Alli

[Ken Veal]

Followed your further and much appreciated advice Ali and now everthing is working like it used to! thank you very much.I followed to the letter
then went back and changed the set up to area which is what I usually use and that worked too.......great!
Under Options "Multiple Captures" was checked which I changed.
Can I ask you what this does? because unchecking this seemed to be the
only thing that was there before (apart from having area selected)
Should it allow you to make another capture without going through the screen capture workflow again? or what................Cheers Ken

[allicorn]

Aha terrific! Glad its working

Yep, you're right about the "Multiple Capture" box. If you have that checked when you actually capture an image, PSP won't pop straight back up but will stay hidden. You can snap as many shots as you like and then bring PSP back up manually to stop the process.

If you're going to do this, I'd advise maybe changing the "Activate using" option in Capture Settings from "right mouse click" to "hot key" and then select a suitable keyboard key. It works just the same but instead of right clicking to capture, you just press the key you chose. This can be a bit better when making multiple captures if you find that every time you right click to make a shot you get some unwanted right-click-menu pop up from the program you were capturing shots of

Alli

[Ken Veal]

Thanks once again, will report back if I get into more trouble ........Ken