Ripping Sprites

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Depending on what console, what game, and how the game stores its files, ripping sprites may be different between each console. There are many different formats that store images, and many different ways to extract those images from the format.

Via ROM Extraction

Every system has a different way of storing graphics data, and often times there exist many, many alternative graphics encoding formats even on the same console.

For systems like Atari 5200, NES/Famicom, and Game Boy/Game Boy Color, most or all graphics can be viewed alongside the ROM data in a Tile-Viewer.

But for more advanced systems like Wii, GameCube, DS, and 3DS, the game files are stored specifically as a filesystem. These filesystems can be extracted with certain programs, notably Dolphin Emulator has this feature, to reveal files like texture.bfres. Some of these file extensions / formats are heavily documented. Some file types are mostly unknown however, so some games' sprites are not able to be easily extracted this way without reverse-engineering the file format more. For information on a specific filetype, try searching on Google or a forum like GBATemp or The VG Resource.

Via Texture Dumping

A few emulators, notably Dolphin Emulator for GameCube and Wii, have features to dump textures in PNG format into a folder as the game uses them. For 3D games, some of this may fit better on The Textures Resource.

Via Screenshot

Reverse engineering file formats is not always necessary to rip sprites however. Some rippers use programs like ScreenGet and AnimGet (https://spritedatabase.net/download) to automatically take screenshots and crop sprites out of them.

Some rippers swear by Microsoft Paint, but some say its colors are not always accurate and instead recommend programs like Adobe Photoshop, GIMP, and Paint.net. Further, some rippers use SpriteTracer (https://spritedatabase.net/download) or other tools specialized for sprite sheets.