How to Capture Photoshop Screenshots on a PC

Screenshots are helpful images to help viewers understand what you are talking about. There are dedicated software to take screenshots, but if you don't want to invest one or you don't post a lot of Photoshop tutorials or images on the web, the one built in to Windows XP and Vista O.S. is sufficient.

This tutorial is applicable to all Photoshop editions and Photoshop Elements. Capturing Photoshop screenshots is easy - here's how:

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Instructions in this article

1. 
    
   Print Screen

   Open the area you want for the screenshot in Photoshop/Photoshop Elements. Press the key: Print Screen, note that due to the variation in keyboard sizes, this key may be abbreviated (i.e. PrtSc, PrtScn). It is usually to the top right of your keyboard, near the "F" keys or in the group of special task keys.

2. 
    
   Photoshop Brushes window

   Pressing the Print Screen key will paste an image of your current screen on the Windows clipboard. The clipboard does not save the image though, so you'll need to copy-paste into other programs before you turn off your computer.
   
   This is a screenshot of my brush collection in Photoshop.

3. 
    
   New file

   To save your screenshot, return to Photoshop and go to File > New, shortcut Ctrl + N. This creates a new document; canvas. Enter preferences in the required fields, if you want to change the auto-generated settings. Press OK.

4. To access or see what's on your clipboard, go to Windows menu Start > Run > (type in) clipbrd.exe, then the clipboard screen appears. This applies to both MS XP and Vista operating systems.
   
   Now in Photoshop, Edit > Paste or access via keyboard Ctrl + V to paste the image on clipboard into your new file; canvas.

5. For some reason, if your screen can't let you see the whole image in the new Phososhop file, go to Image > Reveal All. Edit image if you wish, otherwise File > Save As. Or if you want to optimize for web use, File > Save for Web.
   
   Now your screenshot is saved.