How to take screenshots and embed them in forum posts
It took me a while to work out the easiest way of taking in-game screenshots and embedding them in forum posts here, so when I found myself adding instructions to a post where I requested a screenshot, I thought I'd write this up just once so I can point people at it later. I think it would be a good idea if others added their methods to this thread, particularly for consoles (since I play only on PC), and if a mod could pin this post.
On PC, for full screen:
- Press the PrtSc key in game to take a snapshot of the screen and put it in the clipboard. (PrtSc actually copies a full screen image anywhere in Windows.)
- Bring up imgur.com in your web browser.
- Press Ctrl-V to paste the image; a new page will appear showing your uploaded image.
- On the uploaded image page, if you hover your mouse over the image you'll see a "..." button appear at the upper right. Click this and choose "Get share links" from the menu that drops down.
- From this menu, click the "Copy link" button next to the box labeled "BBCode (Forums)."
- When editing your reply in this forum, paste in the text you copied above.
On PC, for cropped and annotated images:
- Press Windows-Shift-S to start Snip & Sketch. This will freeze the full screen (though the game will not stop) and give you a cross cursor with which you can select any area of the screen. (You can select rectangular or freeform areas, or a specific window or the full screen.) Select the area you want by clicking and dragging.
- The image is now in the clipboard, and you can proceed as above or below to use it via pasting.
- Additionally, you can tap the Windows key to bring up the Taskbar, click the notifications icon at the very end of it, and click the Snip & Sketch notification to bring up the Snip & Sketch app with your image in it. This will preserve the image outside the clipboard, allowing you to immediately do another snip without the hassle of saving the first one to a file. You can later bring up that instance of the app and copy the image back to the clipboard, save to a file, or whatever.
- If you want to circle, highlight or cover up parts of the image, the pen/pencil/etc. icons at the top will let you do that. (The eraser will remove ink added with these, but not parts of the original image.) This does not offer typed text, however; for that you need to use a paint program.
On PC, for cropped and resized images (and other editing):
- Press the PrtSc key in game to take a snapshot of the screen and put it in the clipboard.
- Bring up the Start menu, type "paint", and click on the "Paint" app that appears to run it.
- Press Ctrl-V to paste the image into Paint. (For non-game images, or very small game screens, you should press "Crop" immediately after this to remove excess default background area.)
- If resizing, click the "Resize" button and use the dialogue in the obvious way. (If you resize later, you probably want to choose "Select all" from the Select menu before doing this.)
- If cropping, press the "Select" button, drag the area you want to crop, and press the "Crop" button.
- Bring down the "Select" menu, choose "Select all" and then press the "Copy" button to copy the entire edited image to the clipboard.
- Continue on with step 2 in the full screen version above (i.e., paste the image into imgur.com or whatever else you wish to use).
- For reference, here are the menus and buttons at the upper left-hand corner on the Paint app. This image was taken, cropped and posted here using the instructions above.https://i.imgur.com/wT2HMU3.png
On PC, for direct file saves (per dagrommit):
- Ensure that the Ubisoft Connect game overlay is enabled. (It's often suggested that this be turned off if you're experiencing game instability.)
- In Connect settings, under Other, Check (and change, if you like) the hotkey used to save a screenshot. (The default is F12.) If this key is also set for an in-game action, both the in-game action will be performed and a screenshot will be saved. You can also open the folder containing your image file subfolders (one per game) from here.
- Obviously, just press the button to save a capture. This is the fastest way to capture a sequence of screenshots without interrupting your game play, but you'll need to go find and open the files later for editing or upload. The files can be dragged directly from File Manager to an Imgur tab in your browser to upload.
In Windows 10, an alternative to MS Paint is the Paint 3D application. The user interface is much more difficult for beginners (though it may be easier than MS Paint if you take the time to learn it), but its resizing algorithm may be preferable, which is useful if you are running higher than 1080p. Below are 50% resizes from MS paint on the left and Paint 3D on the right. (Please start a new thread if you want to discuss which is actually better, so as to avoid cluttering up this thread with a likely long and noisy argument.)
https://i.imgur.com/Fl6nzdp.png https://i.imgur.com/H4xruSL.png