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A Guide To Screencaps
Where to find Caps How to take Caps And other useful thingsNAVIGATION
These three sites come highly recommended, and you'll find I cite them as the screencap credit on almost all of my icon sets.
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capseroo - Dee is a staple of the community and my preferred source for caps by a long shot. All caps done by them are high quality, and pre-sorted not just by the movie/show, but by individual character! Dee also runs wikicollection, so I can't recommend their work enough.
Screencapped - This site requires a free account and hosts a variety of movie and tv shows caps for download via ZIP File.
Cap That - Capping a variety of shows and movies. All are available as galleries from which to download individual caps, some are available as ZIP Files.
capseroo - Dee is a staple of the community and my preferred source for caps by a long shot. All caps done by them are high quality, and pre-sorted not just by the movie/show, but by individual character! Dee also runs wikicollection, so I can't recommend their work enough. Screencapped - This site requires a free account and hosts a variety of movie and tv shows caps for download via ZIP File. Cap That - Capping a variety of shows and movies. All are available as galleries from which to download individual caps, some are available as ZIP Files.
Manual Capping: Browser ExtensionsWhen using snipping tools or the print key for taking screenshots, most streaming services just show you a black screen. Use browser extensions to take screencaps directly from streaming services anyway.
Example: Video Screenshot for Chrome.
This extension allows you to use its icon or a custom shortcut to take a screencap without visible player controls off most streaming sites, including youtube.
Similar extensions exist in all browser, and I recommend looking around for one you like.
Manual Capping: VLC PlayerFirst: Download VLC Player.
Second: Let your pirate flag fly. Download the movie, show or video you want to cap via your favourite method. Make sure it's as high quality as possible. I won't post links, but consider qbittorrent alongside Piratebay or RARBG.
Open VLC Player. Go to "Tools" > "Preferences" > "Video". Under "Video Snapshots", set the folder your want caps saved to. Next to the Prefix-Box, check the box "Sequential numbering". Finally, choose the format. I recommend PNG for best quality. JPG Files are smaller. Save and close "Preferences".
Define the Hotkey: Go to "Tools" > "Preferences" > "Hotkeys". Search for the action "Take video snapshot". It's bound to "Shift + S" by default, but you can change it to what you prefer. Save and close "Preferences".
Show Camera Button: Go to "View" and click on "Advanced Controls". New Player Control Buttons will show in the bottom of the player above the Play/Pause, Rewind, Stop etc buttons. One of them has a camera icon.
Open your downloaded video file in VLC Player. While the video is playing or paused, you can now use either the Hotkey or Camera Button to take caps that will be saved to your chosen folder.
Automated Capping: VLC PlayerFirst: Download VLC Player.
Second: Let your pirate flag fly. Download the movie, show or video you want to cap via your favourite method. Make sure it's as high quality as possible. I won't post links, but consider qbittorrent alongside Piratebay or RARBG.
Open VLC Player. Go to "Tools" > "Preferences". At the bottom under "Show settings" switch from "Simple" to "All" to see the Advanced Settings.
On the left side, select "Video". Under "Snapshot" > "Video snapshot directory", set the folder you want your caps saved to.
Expand the "Video" tab on the left and select "Filters" below it. In the list of options on the right, check the box next to "Scene video filter".
Expand the "Filters" tab and select "Scene filter" on the left. On the right side, you can now define the image format. I recommend PNG. Image width and height must be set to "-1" each. Define a filename prefix. Set the recording ratio. This defines the frame interval after which a screenshot is taken. Experiment to your liking. I recommend setting it between 10 and 30. Hit "Save".
You might have to close and restart VLC Player once here to make sure this works. Then open your downloaded video file in VLC Player. While the video is playing a screencap will now be automatically taken at the specified intervals and saved in your folder. You can mute the video and minimize it to do other things, just don't close it. VLC Player will do the work in the background.
If you close and restart the video, or open another video, the caps will be overwritten. Make sure to rename/move them after capping a movie/episode.
To turn Automated Capping off, go back to "Advanced Settings" > "Video" > "Filters" and uncheck "Scene video filter".
Source: VLC Help
Finding a SourceSo you want icons for your video game character, but you don't game on PC, and even there being at the ready with the Print key can be a pain. So what do you do? Why, you download video game videos, of course. Here's how!
First things first: Find yourself a source for high quality videos of video game cutscenes. I recommend Gamer's Little Playground or Game Clips. If those fail, just search on youtube for "Game Name" plus "Cutscenes" or "Movie".
Downloading from YoutubeNext, you want to find yourself a way to download youtube videos as high quality video files. I typically use either the 4K Video Downloader Program or the Save From Youtube Video Downloader Website. Note that with the latter, you have to manually change the quality setting to 1080 and higher.
Taking CapsAnd finally, you have to cap the downloaded video. For this, I'd recommend you just circle back to the section on How To Take Caps in this very post.
And there you have it - how to cap video games!
Upload OptionsOnce you've potentially sorted and definitely zipped caps, go to one of these sites to upload and share your file:
MediaFire
We Transfer
Google Drive - Change the Share settings from "Restricted" to "Anyone with the link"
Send your link to your icon maker of choice (hopefully me ;) ) for commissions, requests etc, and enjoy the fruits of your labour! Hooray!
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