Keep up the good work on constantly investing into the site and making it better.

And a happy 4th of July to the staff and users who know what this means.

???  If staff asks for a screenshot to help them, then including a screenshot is part of a complete bug report.  Woodshover's probably already a pro at it, though, if he's using Windows-- both the Paint method and the Snipping Tool method take about 2 minutes to learn from scratch.

The Snipping Tool is faster but has the disadvantage of not being able to resize, so if someone wanted to select something large and shrink it down to paste into a forum post, Paint is the choice of the two.  The Snipping Tool is great for e-mailing screen caps.

I haven't tried Tinygrab.  It sounds quite simple, although, unlike the other two, it's not built into Windows, so there is an initial download and installation.  Also, the free version has some limitations, or maybe a better way to put it is the paid version has additional features (just like our favorite chess site  ). Is Tinygrab free of little vermin programs that sometimes sneak along for the ride with freeware and shareware?

Tinygrub does sound a little bit worrying. Who know what it will morph into: earwigs?

Hope not!  Those little suckers are surprisingly painful for their tiny size.

TinyGrab. Simple. Screenshot. Sharing.

No hassle. Just Command + Shift + 4

1.   Download for Mac or Windows

2.   Signup for a free Account

3.   It couldn't be easier to use...

1.                             Hold down the trigger keys

2.                             Take your screenshot

Select the required area using the crosshair, or tap spacebar and select the entire window.

3.                             Wait for the green light

When TinyGrab turns green, the upload is complete; and a tiny URL is copied to your clipboard. Paste it wherever you please!

...the whole process only takes a few seconds!

Watch the video...

Want some more details? head over here...

 Good luck with that - I'm sticking to Paint!

Try Sue Chastain's guide ...  http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/glossary/l/blcrop.htm - referenced from one of the topics I mentioned.

Here are a couple details that may help with Paint.

1. Make sure the window you want to capture is the active window-- you can do that by clicking on the top bar of the window you want to be active.

2.Press ALT+PRT SCRN to copy the window to the Windows clipboard.

3.Switch to (or open) Paint and press CTRL+V to paste the image onto the Paint workboard.

4.The image will have a shimmering dashed line around it, indicating it isn't yet attached to the Paint workboard.  Click once anywhere on the workboard outside the pasted image, and the dashed box disappears.  While the dashed box is there, clicking and dragging will allow you to move the pasted image around.  You have to anchor that before you can click and drag to select a sub-area within the image.

5.If you just want to save this image as is, skip to step 7.  If you want to crop out and save only a retangular portion of your image, just click and drag to draw a rectangle around the section you want.  If you don't like the area you selected, click once anywhere outside your selection rectangle to make the rectangle disappear, and draw a new rectangle.

6. While your selection rectangle is showing, on the menu bar select Image: Crop and you will be left with only the portion you selected (if you don't like what you're left with you can use the Edit: Undo command to go back a step).

7.Select File: Save As and save your image as a graphic file.  (Alternatively, if you don't care about saving a copy, you could just press CTRL+C at this step to copy your newly cropped image to the clipboard and paste it directly into some other program).

To resize an image in Paint: select Image: Resize/Skew and enter in whatever percentage you'd like for your final size compared to your current size (for a proportional shrink, use the same percentage value for both vertical and horizontal).  This is crude compared to other graphics programs, but not a major inconvenience.

What type of image?  Saving as a jpg file will generally give you the smallest file size.  For most purposes the default values are fine and you don't need to mess with them.  If you're saving for use on the web and you want to preserve sharpness of text and fine detail, choose to save as a png file, but recognize it will be larger than a jpg file of the same thing.

What if there's no area outside the image when you first paste it into Paint?  Then you don't have anywhere you can click to anchor the pasted image.  1) If the whole image still fits within the Paint window, just use the window handles at the right-hand or bottom of the image and drag outward a little bit-- it doesn't affect your image, but it increases the size of the work area under the image and gives you a little clear space to click on to anchor the image.  Now you can draw your crop rectangle. 2) If the image is large enough that it exceeds the Paint window, you can use the View: Zoom: Custom option on the menu bar and select 50% or 25% or whatever you need yo get your entire image into view.  Then drag out a little extra workboard as just described and click on it to anchor your pasted image.

(Great info- keeping for file)

Just as well; there's going to be a test on Paint! at the end of this topic. Something along the lines of: take screenshots of two different chess.com members and combine them into a single image containing just the two avatars side-by-side; write the names underneath the avatars (using the text and pencil tools). Skew the images by 30 degrees in any direction.  Draw on a moustache or sideburns - using the airbrush tool. Include your signature on the image. Resize to 400 x 200 pixels.

Is there a Setting for resizing the 'Play against the Computer' Image as it is too large for my Screen so I can't play ? ( need to scroll vertically n sideways ) Tnx.

1. If you're using a windows computer with a normal keyboard, you can use the F11 key on the top row. This removes the outer frame of the window, giving you more space. Press the F11 key to return it back to how it was

2. If you're using a mouse with a roller wheel in the centre, hold down the ctrl key and roll the mouse wheel back very slowly. To undo this, use the ctrl key and roll the wheel forward.

3. You can also try using the keyboard keys ctrl and + to enlarge, and ctrl -  to decrease the size.

Huh.  Some people look the same even after they've been skewed 30 degrees on each side.

Hey, cool avatar! Mind if I steal it?

Not at all-- I think you might be able to make a legitimate claim for it. 

Tnx .. I used the F11 Full Screen Option n this is what I got ,but with only half of the 8th Rank visible as seen below  ...

 Hallelujah!!!!!!!  F11 worked! I can see the whole board with room to spare.

That's a nice simple solution for you!  Of course, once you can see the whole board, that's one less available excuse if you make a bad move . . . 

 I do not like it that you have removed the option of choosing which colour to play as when playing on live chess. Please bring it back.

Tony Davies

That option went out the window ages ago - as discussed in these topics (among others) ...