Have you ever wanted to capture what was on your iPad screen? Show off a high score in Angry Birds Space or capture a masterpiece from Draw Something?

Capturing your iPad screen is easy to do, and is built right into iOS. With the touch of two buttons, anything you see on that big Retina display can be saved right to your Camera Roll and, from the Photos app, quickly shared via email, Twitter, iMessage, and more. It's a great trick and can really come in handy any time you want to remember or pass along something you see on your iPad.

How to capture your iPad screen

In the image above, look at the two buttons: the one on the front, below the screen, is the Home button. The one on the top, on the backside of the bezel, is the Sleep/Wake button. Press both buttons at the same time and you will hear the Camera sound and see the screen go white for just a second.  That’s all there is to it – your screen is now captured.

If you have trouble getting the timing just right, simply hold down one button for a second and, while holding it down, quickly click the other. For example, hold down the Sleep/Wake button and quickly click the Home button (or vice versa).

Here is my Home screen which I want to capture in a screenshot

How to find your iPad screen shots

Start your Photos app and go either to the Photos tab at the top or to your Photo Stream if it is turned on in iCloud. You will see your images right at the bottom.

In the bottom left-hand corner of the Camera roll, I see my screenshot

You can also start up your Camera app and touch the Camera Roll at the bottom left to see your screenshots.

How to use and share your iPad screenshots

iPad screenshots behave just like any other photo. You can Edit your photo, Email it, send in via iMessage, assign it to a Contact, Use it as Wallpaper or Tweet it. If you were in the Facebook app, you can also upload it to show the world you new high score or whatever it is you captured on your screen.

Capturing your screen is easy, fun and a great way to quickly share what you are looking at on your iPad with others.

Do you use the screenshot feature often? Share your experiences in this forum thread.

Although Apple is planning to include control over individual photos within Photo Stream in iOS 5.1, jailbreak developer Evan Coleman was able to whip up a useful tweak that keeps iOS screenshots from being added to your iCloud Photo Stream.

Keeps screenshots out of your Photo Stream. This tweak prevents screenshots from being uploaded to your iCloud Photo Stream.

This is personally great for me, as I frequently capture screens from my iPhone for Tips and How-To posts for TiPb but often find my Photo Stream clogged up with a bunch of screenshots I don't need after I'm done. Even though the mod doesn't allow full control over individual photos in Photo Stream, this is a good stopgap until iOS 5.1 is released to the public.

Check it out!

[Free - Cydia Link]

Source: Evan Coleman

If the iPhone is your first smartphone, then you won't fully appreciate the lack of a means to send contacts or files via Bluetooth or IR (infra-red). What if you want to send your Google map to a friend to show him or her the way? What about sending a website link of your winning team to your buddy to rub it in? The iPhone is lacking in some of the more conventional methods of sending data to someone else, but the built-in screenshot capability can do wonders! Read on for more!

If you haven't tried it already, just hold down the power button and home button at the same time and presto, your iPhone will capture a screenshot and send the image to Photos. Just about every other smartphone I can think of requires a third-party app to pull off this neat little trick, but fortunately the iPhone makes it easy as pie. There's a lot of things you can do with this feature, and here's just a few.

Send Contact Information

If you haven't noticed, there's no button or tab to send contact information to someone else via email or otherwise. Therefore, you have to be creative. Use the screenshot feature to snap a photo of the contact you want to send, go find it in Photos, and email that sucker to the one you want to have it. Easy peasy!

Send SMS Conversation

Maybe you have some important information in a text message that you need to send to one or more people, like movie times, an address, directions, etc. Since the iPhone has no copy/paste and no means of forwarding a text message, take a screenshot and email it. Starting to get the picture? Pun. Ugh.

Send Your Stock Quotes

Yeah, I know, why would you want to send the bad news to anyone? But hey, if there's a reason to send stock quotes, it's easy to do with screenshot and email. Maybe you want to send some stock ideas to a family member or friend. Maybe someone you know doesn't have an iPhone (gasp!) with it's easy access to stock quotes, so you can be helpful and send the bad news via email!

Send A Web Site Screenshot

Did your Celtics take your friend's favorite team to the woodshed? Now you can do a little taunting of your own by taking a screenshot with your iPhone and emailing it to your friend to rub it in a little. Yes, it's gloating. But hey, you have an iPhone - license to gloat, baby!

There are lots of possibilities - take screenshots of Google Maps, your new high score on a favorite iPhone game (again, send to a friend for some gloat-ness), and just about anything else that you can display on your iPhone. Be creative!

If you have a tip or how-to that you would like to share, drop by the forums and/or email us atbrian.hart@tipb.com.

While this might be iPhone 101 to some, Apple pretty much snuck this feature into their 2.0 firmware, and while we're now at 2.1, not everyone may yet know that they can capture their iPhone screen contents with just the touch of a button -- well, two buttons actually.

To take a screenshot with your iPhone or iPod Touch, just press the Home and Sleep buttons at the same time. On 2.0, the screen will flash white, while with 2.1, you'll also get the camera shutter sound, and your screen will be captured.

To access your screenshots go to Photos and on the iPhone, look in Camera Roll, while on the iPod Touch, check out Saved Photos. (see, poetically, screenshots after the jump!)