Guild Wars 2

Please add keyboard shortcut for high quality .BMP screenshots. Such as SHIFT+PRINTSCREEN. So we can easily alternate between .BMP vs .JPG—for quality vs file size.

Why not use an easy-to-use application like Paint? convert to .BMP/.JPG easily.. and why would you want to convert from .JPG to .BMP anyways?

You can force GW2 to default to BMP instead of JPG.

Right click your GW2 startup icon and select PROPERTIES. Find the TARGET path. It may or may not be in parentheses. Either way, put a SPACE after it, and then add -BMP to the line. (That’s a minus sign in front of BMP… the forum font is a little weird).

That’s it! Your game should now save pics as BMPs.

If you need the ability to save in BOTH formats, you can always make 2 different startup icons, one with and one without the -BMP parameter. Whichever one you use to start the game will determine how your pics are saved. Not terribly convenient, but a workaround until they add the feature you want.

(nagr … JPGs are compressed. Picture info is removed to save space. The more you save and re-save as JPG, the more picture detail you lose. BMPs are uncompressed. They retain their clarity no matter how often you edit and re-save them. But their file size is bigger.)

As you might have noticed I clearly have no idea what I’m talking about.. lol. Well, consider me informed.. that BMP has higher quality/resolution than JPEG. At least I was right in my notion that JPEG is preferred for web use.

^
that is because you’re okay with seeing blurry pictures by only “paying” 5~10% of the cost.
Btw, it’s not the resolution, but the detail. BMP isn’t really good in terms of quality either, but the most basic format without any compression/ loss of pixels.

http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/difference-between-bmp-and-jpg/

this is one of the links I got my sources from, I trust it. Are you saying that its wrong? That .BMP does not have better quality and resolution than JPEG.

Bitmap can only store 8bits per pixel per color. So it’s resolution within a pixel is fixed at the current minimum (for desktop PCs). If you want to manipulate pictures (2D designers), 8 bits might not be enough (due to rounding).
That number isn’t fixed for JPEG (or TIFF).

The resolution of pixels doesn’t change between BMP and JPEG. A 1920×1080 picture says a 1920×1080 picture, regardless of the file format.
So saying “3. BMP formatted images have a higher resolution than JPG images.” is either wrong or just interpretable in various ways. The one saying “better quality” is the one they tried to explain in other words.
So if you really “the sources, I trust”, you wouldn’t try to get my comment, but quietly thinking that I’m wrong. Now you unfortunately have to decide.

nagr.1593:

http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/difference-between-bmp-and-jpg/

this is one of the links I got my sources from, I trust it. Are you saying that its wrong? That .BMP does not have better quality and resolution than JPEG.

The difference impacts people who are editing images in their art programs. A .BMP and a .JPG will look alike initially, but after multiple edits the .JPG will lose quality to the point where there’s a noticeable difference.

A .BMP will not lose any information in saving. You can reopen and edit it as often as you like without losing any sharpness/quality.

Whenever you reopen and re-save a .JPG, it loses at least 1% of its quality due to compression. The results are like a copy machine. The original images are of good quality. But a copy of a copy of a copy gets blurrier and blurrier over time.

This does NOT impact you if you are just copying and pasting the file. Only when you actually edit and re-save it as .JPG. So feel free to use .JPGs if you aren’t editing your pictures. They will not lose any quality, and will save storage space.

i rather use .PNG, high quality yet compressed.