Gamma-Correcting Game Screenshot Program

[xtknight]

When games initialize, they load a different gamma setting onto the desktop. Normally when you use the [Print Screen] key you are taking a screenshot without the gamma setting applied. This causes the resulting screenshot colors to be "off" from what you'd see in-game. You will usually experience the same phenomenon when using the in-game screenshot function.

I've made a program to solve this issue. It runs in the background and uses the same key [Print Screen] but writes to an image file. You can have it write lossless PNG, lossy JPG, or both. It will capture up to 10,000 screenshots (0-9999) in one run. You can also specify a naming rule for the files based on time and number. It will however overwrite files that exist with the same name.

Examples:
Game screenshot function
Windows print screen (same)
Gamma-corrected print screen (reveals more detail and corrects color tone/improves AA efficiency)

Download (Win32 exe/readme): gss 0.5 Beta

It's my hope that this will become the new standard for screenshots. Please let me know of any bugs, or features you would like added.

 

[TheRyuu]

Thanks I'll give it a try.
Your living up to your elite status

Never realized any of what you just said

 

[sodcha0s]

looks pretty cool x, I'll give it a shot

 

[josh6079]

Sweet, thanks! This might help people see the kind of image quality that SC--DA has in-game that I couldn't reflect earlier.

:thumbsup:

 

[SonicIce]

would it look differant than fraps?

also, does it basically just do a gamma increase like you could do in photoshop?

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: SonicIce
would it look differant than fraps?

I believe FRAPS has gamma correction in its screenshots, but I'm not sure.

also, does it basically just do a gamma increase like you could do in photoshop?

It reads the exact gamma setting set by the game and then applies it to the capture. The end result could be a decrease or increase.

 

[TBSN]

Originally posted by: josh6079
Sweet, thanks! This might help people see the kind of image quality that SC--DA has in-game that I couldn't reflect earlier.

:thumbsup:

You should try the program out and post some screenshots here, next to one of the old SS's. It would be a good test for the program, and we'd get to see the game in it's full glory

 

[SonicIce]

cool program how long did it take you

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: SonicIce
cool program how long did it take you

I've been working on it all this past week, so ~15 hours.

 

[CP5670]

This looks like it would be quite useful. :thumbsup: I have had that problem with the screenshots coming out too dark in many games.

 

[xtknight]

Anyone have screenshots to show?

 

[SonicIce]

http://users.ameritech.net/hemirich/gssshots.rar
gss looks more like it should. it also looks identical to fraps. both are better than the built-in F9 function.

 

[josh6079]

Where does it save the screens to?

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: josh6079
Where does it save the screens to?

By default, the current working directory (where you executed the EXE from). You'll have to extract the EXE to a directory first for it to work properly, instead of executing it right out of WinRAR or such.

It's possible the current directory got changed after you ran the EXE. I'll have to see if I can fix that. It really should not happen to my knowledge but I have not extensively tested it. Every time I've executed it the screenshots have always ended up right where I ran the EXE from. You can always specify a directory on the command line to be sure.

 

[josh6079]

It's possible the current directory got changed after you ran the EXE. I'll have to see if I can fix that.

Whoa, whoa, whoa xtknight. You don't need to fix anything. I hadn't extracted it to any place. I had only been opening it from WinRAR.

I'll extract it to a folder and see if it works out fine, then I'll let you know.

Don't want to make you try to troubleshoot something that isn't even a problem, that's all.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Wow, way cool!

 

[josh6079]

xtknight, I've ran into a bit of a hiccup in the application. It appears that sometimes it takes a screen shot and sends it to the folder I've specified, but the picture ends up being nothing but a black canvas. It doesn't happen all of the time either, just periodically.

Other than that, the utility is wonderful. That problem just kind of messes things up sometimes especially when trying to compare different screens with different settings enabled. Sometimes the picture I was wanting to compare ended up being recorded as a black screen instead of what I took a shot of.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: josh6079
xtknight, I've ran into a bit of a hiccup in the application. It appears that sometimes it takes a screen shot and sends it to the folder I've specified, but the picture ends up being nothing but a black canvas. It doesn't happen all of the time either, just periodically.

Other than that, the utility is wonderful. That problem just kind of messes things up sometimes especially when trying to compare different screens with different settings enabled. Sometimes the picture I was wanting to compare ended up being recorded as a black screen instead of what I took a shot of.

That's odd. I'll see what I can do. Did it happen when you were taking JPG, PNG screens, or both?

 

[xtknight]

josh6079: I was thinking maybe you were trying to take screenshots too fast (which shouldn't be possible), but that wasn't it. I'm unable to reproduce it. So I have made a debug version in hope that you could reproduce it and report anything you see in the console. If you see nothing out of the ordinary reported in the console that's OK, but I need to know. I've made it so that it detects if the output is black from the screen. So it's either a bug in getting the screen or saving the file.

http://xtknight.atothosting.com/tools/gss/gss_20070107_dbg.exe

 

[josh6079]

PNG format, and from what I've seen in the console from previous hiccups there hasn't been any kind of line or sentence indicating a problem, but I'll double check on that.

Thanks for the debug!

 

[josh6079]

Update.

The debug you gave me completely fixed the problem. No blank shots since.

I'd recommend that this be used as a new standard for capturing screenshots. It's a handly little tool too.

Thanks knight!!