tone: date=March 2009

A screenshot, screen capture, or screen dump is an image taken by the computer to record the visible items displayed on the monitor or another visual output device. Usually this is a digital image taken by the host operating system or software running on the computer device, but it can also be a capture made by a camera or a device intercepting the video output of the computer.

Screenshots, screen dumps, or screen captures can be used to demonstrate a program, a particular problem a user might be having or generally when computer output needs to be shown to others or archived, or to simply show off what you do on your computer to others.

All three terms are often used interchangeably; however, some people distinguish between them as follows:

Screenshot: Outputting the entire screen in a common bitmap image format such as BMP, PNG, or JPEG.

Screen dump: The display system dumps what it is using internally upon request, such as XWD X Window Dump image data in the case of X11 or PNG in the case of Mac OS X.

Screen capture (screencaps)

Capturing the screen over an extended period of time to form a video file. (see video capture)

Game screenshots

Screenshots are used on packaging video games. Throughout the history of screenshots, there have been some deceptive practices, such as using a screenshot from a computer platform with better graphics.Fact: date=March 2008 Due to complaints by consumers, software companies began putting captions below games such as "Screenshot from Amiga version" or "Actual C64 screenshot". Fact: date=May 2008

In the 1990s, when pre-rendered or filmed videos became a part of intermissions in games, some game boxes included screenshots from the in-game videos, which deceived potential buyers about overall game play.Fact: date=May 2008

There are many websites serving as online repository for videogames and mmorpg screenshots. The main are WeGame, Koinup, AvatarsUnited. Some of them are both screenshots repository and web portal for gamers and mmorpg players

Internet uses

It has become popular in the internet fandom culture to use screencaps of movies and television shows in the creation of fanart, most commonly as icons for LiveJournal, MSN Messenger, and Internet forums about those topics. Websites and various communities have been created to distribute these screencaps.

Microsoft Windows

On Microsoft Windows, pressing the Print Screen key captures a screenshot of the entire desktop area, and places it in the clipboard. Pressing the combination of Alt-Print Screen captures only the current active window. In most versions of Windows, captured screenshots do not include the mouse pointer. On some keyboards - those with an F-key lock, you'll need to make sure that the F Lock is off.