Black TGA images...

[Kamakazi1591]

All my TGA images that I have "print screened" from Warcraft 3 are black. I have
read the help manual, FAQ, and searched around this forum for some answers, but nope, nothing, nada.

But I doubt that its something wrong with InfanView, becouse I have tried other programs to and they also shows my image totaly in black.
I gotta feeling that its a problem that is easy to fix if you know the program well.

A gigantic thx to everyone who helps me

[Sam_Zen]

I suppose Warcraft 3 is a game, so having changing pictures all the time.
It could be possible, that some protection is build in, to avoid screenshots.
The same is done in some movies in the Real Player format.

[Leif]

All my TGA images that I have "print screened" from Warcraft 3 are black. I have
read the help manual, FAQ, and searched around this forum for some answers, but nope, nothing, nada.

But I doubt that its something wrong with InfanView, becouse I have tried other programs to and they also shows my image totaly in black.
I gotta feeling that its a problem that is easy to fix if you know the program well.

A gigantic thx to everyone who helps me

Try:
Right click on Desktop
Properties
Settings
Advanced
Troubleshooting
Acceleration --> None
Then you can make your screenshots. But remember to restore the settings after.
The above is a rough translation from Swedish so ...

[matera]

I looked up this problem once. It has to do with how video is displayed. The hardware is the key to it. The video is shown in a special layer, the "video overlay" - it looks the same to you as any other item on the screen, but it is invisible to Windows or any other programs.
This page has a fairly detailed explanation of it.

Apparently disabling the hardware acceleration will allow normal screen captures, but if you have a lot going on with other programs at the same time there could be video quality problems. It's probably better to use the video software's built-in capture features, they usually have some way of snagging a shot.

[TheOS]

All my TGA images that I have "print screened" from Warcraft 3 are black....

There is a shareware tool fraps that allows you to make captures within games and even movies! The free version only makes BMP and simple AVI (without sound) captures. You can use IrfanView to convert the BMPs. The paid version has more capture options such as other output formats. As a bonus fraps gives the frame rate of your game.

[Sam_Zen]

Nice tip. Fraps looks promising.

[Frank]

V4.23

In order to show tga pictures correctly, you must consider the following settings:

• The option "Show TGA/DDS alpha/transparent color” must be disabled!
  (see program menu: \Options\Properties/Settings...\Viewing\)
• If selection for "Main windows color" is black by default settings, then it's possible you think that you see a black picture but in truth it's only the background!
  (see program menu: \Options\Properties/Settings...\Viewing\)

I've forwarded these realizations to the producer!
In his answer Irfan say, this is a not a bug!


PS: see also these german bugreport: "IrfanView zeigt einige Bilder im TGA-Format plötzlich schwarz an!"