So, I was playing Zenless Zone Zero the other day, you know? The art style just pops, really vibrant stuff. Got into this really cool fight sequence, animations looked sick, and I thought, “Man, I gotta grab a picture of this.” Like, right now, before the moment passed.
My first instinct? Just slam the Print Screen key on my keyboard. That’s the old reliable, right? Well, sometimes. This time, I pressed it, finished the fight, alt-tabbed out expecting to paste it into Paint or something… nothing. Just a black screen, or my desktop. Classic game capture issue. Some games just don’t play nice with the basic Print Screen.
Alright, plan B. I started digging around in the game itself. Paused the game, went through all the menus. Settings, controls, interface options… looking for anything that said “Screenshot” or “Photo Mode”. Took me a bit, clicking through everything. I remember thinking, “They put so much effort into the visuals, there has to be an easy way, right?”
Figuring Out The Built-in Way (If It Exists)
Eventually, I stumbled upon it. Sometimes games hide this stuff. Maybe it was a specific key combo mentioned deep in the controls settings, or maybe they actually did have a dedicated Photo Mode I just scrolled past too quickly the first time. Let’s just say I found a way the game intended. It wasn’t super obvious at first glance, at least not to me.
Here’s what I ended up doing mostly:
- Finding that specific key combo the game uses (Could be something like F12, or Alt+F1, varies by game).
- Or, if there’s a Photo Mode, activating that. Those usually freeze the action and give you camera controls, which is way better for getting the perfect angle. You can pan around, zoom, maybe add filters. Much fancier.
- Then, just snapping the picture using the button shown in the photo mode UI.
Where Did The Pictures Go?
Okay, so I took the shot using the game’s method. Now, where the heck did it save? This part can also be annoying. It wasn’t just dumping them onto my desktop. I had to dig again. Usually, they end up in a few common places:
- Deep inside the game’s installation folder. Something like `C:GamesZZZScreenshots` or similar.
- Sometimes in your `DocumentsMy GamesZZZScreenshots` folder.
- If using a launcher like Steam or Epic, maybe their own screenshot manager took over (like pressing F12 in Steam).
Took some poking around in File Explorer to actually find the folder where ZZZ decided to stash them. Once I found it, I made a shortcut, because I knew I’d be taking more and wouldn’t want to hunt for it every single time.
Alternative: The Graphics Card Software
Another thing I sometimes do, especially if the in-game method is clunky or I forget it, is use my graphics card’s software. Like NVIDIA GeForce Experience or AMD Radeon Software. They usually have an overlay you can pop up (Alt+Z is common for NVIDIA).
Using that is pretty straightforward too:
- Make sure the overlay feature is enabled in the graphics card settings first.
- Press the hotkey to bring up the overlay while in-game.
- There’s usually a clear “Screenshot” button right there.
- Bonus: These tools often let you record video too, and you can configure where they save screenshots, which is handy. Usually defaults to a folder in your Videos or Pictures library.
Honestly, sometimes using the graphics card software is just easier. Fewer hoops to jump through than finding the game’s specific folder or dealing with a weird keybind. Depends on the game, really. For ZZZ, once I found the built-in method and the save folder, it was okay, but having the graphics card overlay as a backup is nice.
So yeah, that was my little adventure in just trying to take some simple pictures in ZZZ. Started with a cool moment, hit a small snag, did some digging, and eventually got my screenshots sorted. Now I have a folder slowly filling up with cool action shots and stylish character poses. Worth the initial hassle, I guess.
