Two Killer Free Alternatives to Commercial Screen Capturers

Screenshot Captor is a Windows software you don't need to spend a dime to use for, yet its features offer sophistication of some of the commercials have. Sure it still can't beat the excellence and completeness of the features of the giant SnagIt, but it is the best choice for a user with the need of more than "screen capturing" yet can't afford the SnagIt's or other similar sharewares's price.

So, what can you get from this screen capturer?

Beside standard capturing features, it has some notable instruments. The first reason I use this is its ability to capture scrolling windows, a feature that even some sharewares don't have. Next is the possibility to use delayed capturing--meaning that the capturing begins after a pre-defined delay period, and automatic capture timer to capture several images repeatedly without user intervention.

Screenshot Captor comes equipped with autosaving capability. Still, try to activate the option Show Post Capture PopUp Options. It pops up a resizable small preview window every time an image captured. After checking how an image looks like, you can do an appropriate action from this dialog, including saving, printing, giving a name instead of the automatic name or creating the image thumbnail.

In its main window, several effects can be applied to the image such as giving shadows or borders. The most interesting effect is probably what you can do with the blur options. See the pictures below to see what I mean.



Adding objects like arrow in conjunction with caption or embedded text is good to serve as additional explanatory element. Other shapes are available as well. Furthermore, it lets you to enhance the look of an image by giving frames or masks.

PicPick, still for Windows user, on the other hand, offers portability with its small size and its presence as a single file that doesn't require any installation.

This elegant application is a good choice for anyone who only need to do a little editing after capturing, or for they who demand simplicity in operation and interface so that the work can be done faster. Speaking about fast, user can do all the capturing actions and launch the tools provided by using customizable keyboard shortcuts.

Despite its simplicity, you have eight capturing modes available: full screen, active window, a user defined rectangular region, fixed region, freehand capture, capture window control, web page, and repeat last capture.

Every screenshot taken can be saved as BMP, JPG, PNG, or GIF. The saving process itself can go through four different ways for usage flexibility. Edit the image before saving, copy to clipboard to be pasted on another application, automatic saving, or it can be set to manually give a name for saving.

What about the image editing tools? Don't expect for a great list. It has only some basic instruments, including three shapes (rectangular, ellipse, and rounded rectangle), ability to insert text and images, to polish an image using several effects, resizer, cropper, rotater, brusher or pencil.

Almost everything works fine when I try this software. Everything but the web page capturer. It works only for IE. I really hope Firefox will be supported on the next version.

And by the way, before I forget, both softwares reside in the tray area and support dual monitors.