The most rudimentary way to capture screenshot is to print screen. However there are a number of software tools that can help capture screenshot with much better capabilities. These programs help a great deal in when you need to capture screenshot to
- Share with your colleagues over an email,
- Send it for debugging a certain problem
- For posting a picture on your website or blog.
We take a look at some of the best capture screenshot programs available.
Print screen
We start with a screen capture tool that is free and requires no install on a windows PC.
All you need to do is look for print screen button on your keyboard and press it. This however has limitation that there is no capability to modify the screenshot. In order to make modifications you need to use a different software. One program that is available on windows PC for free is Paint (Under Programs->Accessories). All you need to do is paste (control + p) your screenshot in paint and then modify and save as a JPG/PNG/GIF etc before sending.
FireShot Plugin for Firefox, Chrome and Internet explorer
If you are looking for a tool to capture screenshots from a website in a browser along with an inbuilt editor then using FireShot plugin might be the best option out there.
First download and install the FireShot plugin. In case you use Firefox download it from here. From that point it on it becomes quite easy. Open any webpage and then from browser tools select and launch FireShot. This will open a new window. Here you can do all sorts of nice stuff to your screenshot such as annotate , create pointer, add watermark and even upload to Facebook, Flickr or any other custom website or blog.
Only drawback here is that it works only for websites that are opened in the browser and not for other screens.
MWSnap
MWSnap is a great tool to capture screenshots and editing them with click of an hot key. The software is extremely light (few hundred MBs) and does not try to sell you a Pro version. The free version is the Pro version.
Download the tool from here. Once installed run it in the background by double clicking on it. You will see a camera icon in your program tray. Now whenever you need to capture a screenshot use the hot keys (E.g: control + Shift + A) and select the area. The editor will then open automatically and allow you to make many modifications like adding cursors, adding frames, creating buttons from images, auto save the screenshots etc.
PhotoScape
PhotoScape is more of a image editor tool with capabilities to capture screenshots. This is an excellent software tool for those who want more picture editing capabilities than just a screenshot.
You can download this software from here. The capabilities of this software includes adjusting the size, brightness, color, white balance, back light correction, frames, adding text, drawing pictures, cropping, and even red eye removal. Think of this tool more as a whole image editing tool with screenshot capability than a mere screenshot tool with minimal image editing capabilities. In order to capture a screenshot go to screen capture option and pick whether you would like to capture full screen or a specific region and if you would like to save the picture to clipboard or open it in an editor automatically.
Photobie
This is another community developed fully free tool that would be recommended for amateurs as well as professionals who want to capture as well enhance their screenshots.
One option is to click on the icon in notification tray and select the type of screenshot you need. The second way which is more handy is to set up hot keys. 8 hotkeys can be set up easily. Simply click on main menu >> Screen Capture >> set screencapture hotkeys.
Photobie has a huge list of attractive features such as Photoshop plugin support, animation editing, layer support etc . For complete list and download go here.
If there is a screenshot capture tool you would like to recommend please leave a comment below and we will test it out.
