How Does Steam handle screenshots?

[Soylent_Brown]

I've noticed that in some games there's the ability to take "pictures" or screenshots using in-game methods. I've noticed that they are often fairly different from how Steam's screenshots are output. I'm wondering if someone could help me figure out what post-processing Steam does to images when it screenshots them, if any and any tips for finding the code for games so I can find out how they handle the images so I can compare them?

Sorry, I'm autistic and this is making it hard to rest or even sleep. I need answers, please help me. (Also, if this isn't the right forum section to ask, please just go "Ah, no. Go to [place] instead. Sorry my guy.")

[matt]

Screenshots taken using the client can be put in the community "screenshots" section. You can configure the Steam client to save an external copy (Settings -> In game -> Screenshots -> Save an external copy of my screenshots). Using that file (or a screenshot taken from the game itself instead of the Steam client), you could edit the image and upload it as artwork. For example, if you wanted to put a circle around some option to make it stick out in a guide.

There's little reason to care about all this. If you disable the Steam overlay, which some people insist on doing, you could still take screenshots, I guess.

[Realigo Actual]

If the overlay has grabbed the game properly, then when you take a screenshot, Steam will save the contents properly even if it's coming from the GPU, and then it will generate a few images and save them in certain locations. It just grabs whats on the screen and saves it to an image, and creates some metadata in some other files, when the key combination it watches for is pressed.

Developers with photo modes usually design them around the consoles, so if they had their own screenshot function ported for PC, it would usually save the image off somewhere in an arbitrary place that had nothing to do with Steam. Nowadays, some developers set up the photo mode, but do not specifically provide an image-generation subroutine, instead expecting you to use Steam's when you are finished with the photo mode.

It's up to the developers as to how exactly they will implement the image-generating phase. Steam provides an interface to Steam's system that developers can use from their game -- https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/screenshots

Not sure what you're trying to figure out? Steam overlay can take screenshots and it saves them to a file. Games can also take screenshots and save a file. Exactly how it goes down is a mix of developer choice, and Steam function. Steam always uses the one filetype. A few years back, when HDR started to become more prevalent, Valve or developers collectively started implementing some kind back-convert layer to the screengrab system to make HDR caps display normally on SDR screens. Before that, any screens grabbed from HDR games were distorted because, at that point, there was no standard HDR image format, even if somebody had their PC desktop running in HDR.

[Soylent_Brown]

Originally posted by Realigo Actual:

Not sure what you're trying to figure out?

When I take a screenshot using Steam's screenshot function, and compare it to the exact same screenshot captured using in-game image capturing, the colour and lighting can vary significantly, I was wondering where I'd be able to find out exactly the method Steam uses for identifying those colours. Often, a Steam Screenshot will have vastly different lighting quality compared to what's being shown on screen. (Much darker, for example.)