Capture, Take Screenshot from Youtube Video

A reader was asking about "how to take a screenshot from a youtube video". So I am writing this. Basically Youtube plays videos play in webpage embed and thus default screenshot programs will work fine.

I won’t go into details but the screenshot programs doesn’t work for capturing screenshots of movie frames etc, i.e. while playing in a media player. But it works fine for taking screenshots of youtube videos.

Simplest Way to Take a Screenshot :

1. Keep all parts of the youtube video inside Monitor Screen. (You can make it Full Screen if you want)
2. Press the Print Screen key on your keyboard. It is labeled [PrtScn].
3. Open an image editing program, such as Microsoft Paint.
4. Go to the Edit menu and choose Paste (Ctrl+V).
5. Use your image editor’s crop tool to crop out unnecessary portions of the screenshot
6. Save as .PNG for best quality.

Example : Screenshot pasted in Paint

Other ways of taking Screenshots :

• Cropper – Simple Screenshot Capture Software like Snipping Tool
• Chrome Extension for Taking Screenshots Inside Browser
• Taking In-Game Screenshots & Videos for Tutorials, Walkthroughs
• Take Full Page Screenshots of Blogs & Websites or URLs

Tip : Enhance Video Quality Software

Getting the Default Thumbnails in Youtube Videos

YouTube itself automatically generates four catches video to use them as thumbnails and screenshots.

If we take this video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8lq5Urj-kc

Automatic catches are:

• http://img.youtube.com/vi/t8lq5Urj-kc/0.jpg (screenshot)
• http://img.youtube.com/vi/t8lq5Urj-kc/1.jpg (thumbnail 1)
• http://img.youtube.com/vi/t8lq5Urj-kc/2.jpg
• http://img.youtube.com/vi/t8lq5Urj-kc/3.jpg

You can use these image links if you are looking for a quick screenshot or thumbnails to use in your website etc.

Tip : Can’t Download Youtube Videos ? Working Youtube Video Downloaders