Forum:How to properly take a screenshot

Hello, I noticed that when a new episode comes out, images are consistently updated with low quality versions or with images in the wrong format. Therefore I'd like to share some tips about how to properly take a screenshot and how to update the images when a new episode comes out.

My guess is that when the new episode comes out, people go watch it on their favorite anime streaming site, then take screenshots with the print key, paste the image in their image editor, save it and then upload it here. This method has several flaws:
 * 1. What I think people do:


 * 1) First of all, depending on what site you use, there could be logos and watermark on the image. Recently that has not been a problem, but that might not be true for the future.
 * 2) The streaming site might lower the quality of the video in order to increase the performance of the streaming and save up hosting space.
 * 3) Taking a screenshot of the video at full screen further mess up the resolution of image, because the video player artificially enlarge the image to fit your screen resolution, therefore the image will have a different resolution / quality depending on the original resolution and your screen size.
 * 4) Using extremely big resolution (of bad quality version), not only will create pixeleted/bad quality images, but it will also create unnecessary heavy file that will only slow down loading times. Increasing the resolution won't increase the quality!

Episodes generally comes in three formats: 480p, 720p (HD) and 1080p (Full-HD). Each week, the 480p version is the first to come out and after a few hours the 720p and 1080p version will be available. Keeping in mind what I said above, people usually start updating images right after the 480p version is out, leading to the problems I talked about. Here some example of the same screenshot taken from different formats:
 * 2. Which format there are


 * 480p, original resolution
 * 480p, as a screenshot from full screen
 * 720p, original resolution
 * 1080p, original resolution

And from some files on the wiki:
 * File:Germa 66 Ends a War.png
 * : 1904 × 1080 (3,81 MB) - big size, bad quality
 * : 1280 × 738 (1,31 MB) - 780p version
 * File:Whole Cake Island Infobox.png
 * : 2672 × 1084 (2,2 MB) - big size, bad quality
 * : 1022 × 456 (607 KB) - 780p version

There is no point in uploading images from the 480p version if the HD versions will soon be available. Between 720p and 1080p there is no much difference, therefore either of them are fine.

As I previously said, taking screenshot from a streaming site is usually not a good idea because the quality/dimensions will be altered by both the video player and your screen size. The best way is to directly download the video file and a perfect place to do that is from horriblesubs.info which is the group that releases the weekly episode first (and it seems that every streaming sites use their version anyway, which is the reason there are no more logos lately). Their files are good because:
 * 3. Which source material to use


 * They have each episodes in 480p, 720p and 1080p.
 * They have all episodes, even the old ones (although, for those still not in the "HD era", the image is cropped because they are taken from the DVD version which cut the image to widescreen. They have still a better quality then the old episode files, like those from kaizoku-fansub, but they have the cons of being cropped). I have downloaded all the episodes in 720p, so if you need something to be uploaded, feel free to ask me.
 * They use soft subs.
 * They don't add logos or watermarks.

You can also take a look on nyaa.si for other versions of other groups.

In order to take a screenshot without risking alteration due to your screen size is to download the previously mentioned files and open them with VLC (other players might do the same, I personally use this one). With this player you can take a screenshot with its native function (Video --> screen capture) which will save the screenshot in the original resolution, regardless of your screen.
 * 4. How to take a screenshot


 * TL; DR:
 * 1) Download the video file, don't use a streaming site.
 * 2) Use only the 720p/1080p versions to update the images.
 * 3) Use VLC's function to take a screenshot in the video native resolution.