How to take High-Res in-game screenshots on various systems?

[alexjames01]

I'm putting together something for print and need a lot of specific in-game shots of some 8bit/16bit era games. They need to be a bit large (Bigger than most average wallpaper size). I'm talkin 2550 x 3300px.

I know some emulators take screenshots but I've given many a try and haven't found one that takes a higher res shot. Do I need some sort of screen capture set up on my TV? Anyone know of an easier way?

One thing I have tried is converting some of the smaller shots to vector images via Adobe Illustrator, and enlarging them. This works but it gets rid of the pixel look (it smooths out edges) that I would really love to keep. Not what i want.

Ideas anyone??

[irixith]

You could definitely use video capture equipment..but it's expensive to get what you desire in terms of both hardware and software.

Just get your favourite emulator, crank the resolution up as high as it will go, turn off any filters and capture away. (i.e. screencap, not capturing through the emulator screen shot function).

[alexjames01]

You could definitely use video capture equipment..but it's expensive to get what you desire in terms of both hardware and software.

Just get your favourite emulator, crank the resolution up as high as it will go, turn off any filters and capture away. (i.e. screencap, not capturing through the emulator screen shot function).

That's just crazy enough to work

Although my video card doesn't support as high of a resolution as i want, it still gets it closer to what I need and I think i can work with that. Thanks!

[Hatta]

Why do video capture when you can get a pixel perfect screen capture from an emulator? If you're capturing 8/16 bit games, these games have a native resolution of around 256*224, maybe double that in some high res modes. Displaying them at higher resolutions adds nothing to the image.

Sounds like the problem is that a small resolution image like that at print DPI will be tiny. All you have to do is scale the image up. If you want to keep the pixelated look, just use an integer scaling factor. e.g. if you have a 256*224 image, scale it to 2560x2240. It will look fine. Do this with any tool you want, Photoshop, Irfanview, etc. I'd use ImageMagick.

[Hobie-wan]

When enlarging in your picture editing program, you have to make sure that the smoothing options is turned off. In Photoshop, ideally you want to resize in a direct multiple of 2x or 3x or whatever with it set to 'nearest neighbor'. If an exact multiple won't fit appropriately in what you need, do a multiple that's too big, then shrink, but allow it to do a smoothing resample on the shrink only.

[alexjames01]

When enlarging in your picture editing program, you have to make sure that the smoothing options is turned off. In Photoshop, ideally you want to resize in a direct multiple of 2x or 3x or whatever with it set to 'nearest neighbor'. If an exact multiple won't fit appropriately in what you need, do a multiple that's too big, then shrink, but allow it to do a smoothing resample on the shrink only.

That is exactly what i needed. I found the "nearest neighbor" option in the resizing dialog which kept the pixels as needed! Thanks.

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

Fullscreen your emulator and as it's rendering it all in hi-res press the PRT-SCRN button. Next open paint, right-click and paste the image you've just taken and save as a file.

[Hobie-wan]

Fullscreen your emulator and as it's rendering it all in hi-res press the PRT-SCRN button. Next open paint, right-click and paste the image you've just taken and save as a file.

No you shall not. You shall at least use a screen capture app and do it properly.

http://www.bcheck.net/apps/purrint.htm

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

Fullscreen your emulator and as it's rendering it all in hi-res press the PRT-SCRN button. Next open paint, right-click and paste the image you've just taken and save as a file.

No you shall not. You shall at least use a screen capture app and do it properly.

http://www.bcheck.net/apps/purrint.htm

That too, I love little apps that make everything work like it should. Now if only my keyboard had a PRT-SCRN button, damn macboard on a windows machine.....