What’s the best way to capture a photo from Google Maps? When I’m in street mode, and I zoom in on a building or a house I’d like a photo of, I can’t figure out how to make a copy. Help, please?
What type of computer do you have? The easiest way is probably to take a screenshot, but the instructions on how to do that vary by operating system.
I was afraid you’d go all technical on me.
I never know how to answer the computer question: brand? model number?
If you are using a PC I would recommend downloading Greenshot.
It’s completely free, no spyware or adware or any of that (open source software), and remarkably full featured and easy to use.
Using it you can take a “picture” of anything on your screen (screen capture).
And if you are using Windows then it has an inbuilt snipping tool. Just click the start button and type ‘snip’ - you should see an entry for ‘Snipping Tool - App’
You can then capture a freeform area (click/drag mouse), a rectangular selection (same except it’ll be a regular rectangle) or a full window.
Available at least in Win 10 - no idea about 11)
I will sometimes do screenshots at work when I am writing a report. My technique is pretty lo-fi, and I’m sure there are better or more efficient ways of doing it:
Press the PrtScr button on keyboard.
Open Microsoft Paint.
Press Ctrl V. It is now pasted.
I then crop it in MS Paint.
Cropping in Paint:
Selection the thing you want crop using the rectangular Select tool. There’s a trick to doing that. When drawing the rectangle using the Select tool, start at the far lower right part of the screen in Paint (somewhere outside the area you want to crop), and end at the upper left, precisely where you want to crop for the latter. The upper left corner is now precisely cropped, but not (yet) the lower right corner.
Press Ctrl X.
Move vertical scroll bar fully up.
Move horizontal scroll bar fully left.
Press Ctrl V.
The thing you want to save is now in the upper left corner.
To precisely crop the lower right corner, grab onto the lower right corner of the screen in Paint and precisely move it to the lower right corner of the area you want to crop.
File
Save As
I usually save it as a png file for normal stuff. If I want the best resolution I will save it as a tif file.
I’ve never heard of Greenshot, but if you’re using Firefox, just right click and hit “Take Screenshot”.
Also, while not a photo, Google Maps also gives you the option to grab a link for exactly what you’re looking at. You can email the link to someone who will then be able to put the camera back in exactly the same place, turned the same way, zoomed in the same amount etc, as you.
That’s actually what I typically do as well, but the “Take Screenshot” button works pretty well.
Sometimes, if we’re talking about a website, I’ll pull it up on my phone and take the screen shot that way.
Try Greenshot (see my post above). Hit PrtScr button but have so many simple options after that to do what you want (save the pic, copy to clipboard so you can Ctrl-V, share to numerous sites like Twitter or Imgur, open a picture editor so you can crop or put in arrows or any annotation…and more).
I use it all the time. It’s really great. Super easy to use. Lightweight program too (doesn’t hamper your PC much at all).
Yea, I’m aware that there are probably better and simpler ways to do it. But I’ve become so efficient at it that I’m hesitant to change. 
Thanks, all. I’ll give it a (screen) shot.
PC, btw, Windows 10.
If you’re going the PrntScrn route then something not mentioned in the thread is you can use Alt-PrntScrn to capture the active window only, not the entire screen
Snipping tool is my go-to useful tool. You can select just what you want, rather than the whole screen or window and then having to crop later. Same as with printscreen, just be sure the image you want is visible (or on top) when you begin the capture. Whatever you “snip” is automatically put on the clipboard so you can just paste it wherever images can be pasted. I have pinned it to the bottom taskbar for quick and easy use.
I have also built montages of higher resolution by tiling multiple shots of say, a map from Google Earth into MSPaint.
(anything in the start menu or that you find by using the search option, or the icon of an open program - right click on the icon and select “pin to taskbar” then it’s always along the bottom, one click to launch it next time)
The only “gotcha” for everything discussed, is that these will produce images, not text that can be edited.
I have the snipping tool pinned to my taskbar and typically use it several times a week. Works great.
Does MSPaint have a stitching tool now? That sounds like too much work when there are apps that can handle it automatically so easily these days.
It’s easier to crop in paint by hitting Ctl-A, which selects the entire image. Then move the image up and left until you have the top and left borders where you want. Then you can drag in either the right bottom corner or separately the right side and bottom side by clicking on the little “handles” down there.
I don’t think we’re talking apples and apples here. md-2000 was talking about taking multiple captures from Google Earth. ie. screencap the image. Scroll around until he’s over a new area with a shared edge from the original capture and screenshotting that. Rinse and repeat until he’s gotten the entire area he wants to see. Then pasting all the smaller images together into on large poster.
It’s a pain in the butt to get the edges lined up on the exact pixels so there’s not a visible seam in the finished image.
No need to search for the Snipping Tool in Win11, hold down “shift Windows S” in Win 11 ,much easy than the previous version.
On Edge, you can right-click and hit “Web capture”, which allows you to select an area in the window to take a screenshot of.
For general windows, you can also hit Alt-PrintScreen. This saves only the current window (though it includes the title bar, which you may not want).
I’ve been doing the same in Windows 10. I think the tool itself received an update at some point in the past (prior to Windows 11 release) that provided this function.
That’s what I get on my desktop when I search “snip.” Snip & Sketch is the newer one.
TIL. Thanks!