HOW TO SCREENCAP & POST YOUR CAPS : A MOSTLY COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE
i got an ask about this, and it felt like it was too long of an explanation to answer in an ask so i made this guide. i am definitely not the expert (as proven by the fact that my VLC tutorial is two links to better tutorials than i could ever make) , but i hope this is helpful!
TABLE OF CONTENTS - finding stuff to cap - capping 101 - storage
FINDING STUFF TO CAP the less "crime" you do while doing this the better honestly. make someone else do it for you and if you absolutely must sail the seven seas ๐ดโโ ๏ธ for the love of god use a good vpn and anti-virus. the safest way to find downloads is to find pages who post them for you to use - on tumblr that is hdsources ! we love hdsources here - there are also pages on instagram (and apparently the site formerly known as twitter, but i don't use those) who post downloads of stuff. my favorites on insta are megaawrld_ , logolessfiles2.0, djatsscenes, sadisticscenes and elyse.logoless . to get into these pages you do have to have an instagram account, but once you get in you can get links to them posting shows and movies. this is significantly safer than p*racy. the next step if these pages don't have what you want is to get them yourself through other ways. if you have to do that, GET A FUCKING VPN.
CAPPING 101 now that you have something to cap, it's time to actually make screencaps. you're gonna wanna download a program to do that. most people use VLC, i use adapter for the most part but it can be fickle so i'm learning to use VLC too.
adapter doesn't require much in depth so here's a quick tutorial: - have file and drop it into the window (it can read mp4 and mkv files) - select where you want your screencaps to end up, i make a folder for them - select your frame rate (how many images you want to generate per second of video. i tend to do 1, and anything over 5 creates so many pictures that its too much to deal with, but if you're making gifs you want more pictures) - select your file size and image quality.
i could not explain VLC to you if i tried, i am still figuring out how to use it. this tutorial & this tutorial have been very helpful though !
STORAGE
honestly this should have probably come first, but i didn't want to scare people. there are two types of storage, physical and cloud storage. to run a resource blog you need both.
physical storage comes in the form of space on a hard drive. your computer has a limited amount of space and i truly do not suggest keeping every screencap you've ever made on your computer's hard drive. screencaps take up A LOT of space. get an external hard drive and get the beefiest one you can afford. ssds (solid state drives) are fast as fuck. depending on how much content you make (and how much you can afford) get at LEAST 2 tbs but maybe get more. i like this guy cause it's fast and small!
if you just came here to learn how to screencap you can stop here unless you want to learn how to back up your files because that's really what cloud storage is for.
cloud storage is storage that is not on your actual computer. you cannot touch it but it's important if you want to make your screencaps available for other people to use.
i'm a big fan of dropbox, mega, mediafire and if you absolutely must use it google drive. (my preferences are in that order) unfortunately, cloud storage gets really expensive really fast and there's kind of no way to avoid it. compress your files when you upload them so they take up less space in whatever form of cloud storage you do get, and pray.
that's what i got for ya! if you have any questions feel free to send an ask or join my discord server!