Screen+shots

As you all probably know, the older versions of Windows mainly made use of the **Printscreen** button (PrtScr) on the keyboard to make screenshots. So, whenever you wanted to make a screenshot for yourself, you had to hit that button and then go into a photo editing program and crop it, sharpen it, etc., etc. until it finally looked the way you wanted it to. Well, in Windows Vista, you can actually bypass a lot of that work Windows Vista **Snipping Tool**. First of all, to open the Snipping Tool, go to **Start**, **Accessories**, **Snipping Tool**. (You can also access it by typing the word "snip" into the search box under the Start menu). When it opens, you'll see a box with three commands in it. Those are: New, Cancel and Options. The **New** button is what you can use to decide what part of the screen you want to capture, the **Cancel** button can be used to cancel any action after you've already started a screen capture and the **Options** button is there to help you choose which way you want your Snipping Tool to work. The box with all of these choices will come up every time you want to do a screenshot. When you are ready to take your screenshot, get the Snipping Tool open and click on the **New** button. From there, you can choose which type of shot you would like to do. The choices are: Free-form snip, rectangular snip, window snip or full-screen snip. When you've decided which one you want to do, focus in on what you want to capture. You may have a photo you want to make a screenshot for or you might have part of a Web site that you would like to send to a friend. Either way, make sure it is up on your screen so you can start to "snip" it. To snip what you want, just drag your mouse until you've captured what you want. Once you've got it snipped, you can choose from different customizing options to add certain things to your image. For example, you can use a **highlighter** to highlight certain things in whatever color you would like to use. You can use the **pen** tool to write in some colorful text and if you make a mistake, the **eraser** tool is always there to bring you back so you can start over. Now, if none of those tickle your fancy, you can click the **Options** choice to change your image around even more. This is what the Options window looks like: Now, when you are done with your screenshot, you can either save it or you can even send it to someone in an e-mail. To save it, go to **File**, **Save** and just save it to a folder on your computer. I always like to save mine to the My Pictures folder, but it is up to you. If you would like to send your screenshot in an e-mail, go to **File**, **Send To** and you can choose to send it in the body of an e-mail or you can send it as an attachment. Then just type in your recipient's e-mail address and they'll be able to see all the snipping work you did! I know this new tool might still be a little confusing to you, but you cannot really get a good feel for it until you've tried it yourself. So, my recommendation is to go and experiment with it as much as possible. Once you do that, I think you'll find that there's so much you can do with the Snipping Tool and you'll be using it all the time. It really is a cool addition to Windows Vista and it is much easier than using the Printscreen button. With it, you are able to go past all the steps of editing and do it all in one quick swoop.
 * Screen shots **