Freeware Friday: Screenshot Captor

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A good screen-capture tool has got to be my hands-down favorite type of freeware – In this case, Screenshot Captor. Oh, sure, the built-in Snipping Tool in Windows Vista and Windows 7 is great for quick-and-dirty capture – it’s the capture tool I use most – but not everyone is running Vista or Windows 7.  Sometimes I want something that has more flexibility and a bit more capability. And if it works great on a TouchSmart PC, even better.

The other day I needed to send somebody a screen grab, but I wanted to highlight a particular section of the image. The MS Snipping Tool doesn’t offer that kind of functionality, but Screenshot Captor does. It’s a snipping tool on steroids, with a built-in editor that boasts enough features that you may not need another image editor. Besides highlighting, you can blur parts of the image, insert an arrow to direct someone’s attention, or add any number of special effects to your image. Maybe you want to draw a word balloon and enter some text. You can do that. Think of all the Internet memes you could easily kickstart with this app!

Screenshot Captor supports multiple screens, full screen, window, rectangular area, and fixed area captures, and can acquire images from a scanner as well. Once you’ve captured your image and tweaked it to your liking, you can save it to a file (PNG, JPG, BMP, GIF, TIF, PDF, etc.), save it to the clipboard, print it, email it, and upload it to a variety of image hosting services (think flickr and imageshack). Sure, you could use the keyboard and mouse on any computer, but you can also get a good degree of fine detail on a TouchSmart PC. We actually tested Screenshot Captor on a TouchSmart 520 and a TouchSmart 610 and it was a little easier to pinch-and-zoom around screenshots. 

The developer admits to the one negative with an initial pop-up message at launch: “This program is FREE for personal use, and can be used forever, without payment, but you must request a freeware license to continue using it without nag messages.” But like it says, registration is free – you just have to do it if you don’t want to be “nagged.”

Another tip: If you’re gamer using an HP’s Pavilion HPE Phoenix h9 or an HP ENVY 17, you might want to try Fraps. Technically, it’s an old-school shareware  capture tool, favored by Darren Gladstone (a.k.a., GizmoGladstone). In his words, “Fraps has been around for ages, a classic tool great for video and screenshot capture.” Fraps is a universal Windows application that can be used with games using DirectX or OpenGL graphic technology. Take a screen shot, or record video while playing your favorite game.

Have you found any other great screen capture apps – or any other great freebies for that matter?  We’d love to hear about them! Share the wealth in the comment box below.