Review: Greenshot offers full-feature screen grabs for free - hernandezsuccans

At a Glance

Expert's Rating

Pros

Full-featured
Free (GPL)

Cons

Explorer Windowpane capture buggy

Our Finding of fact

Greenshot is so easy to use, it will have you speculative wherefore you'd ever pay for a screen capture utility.

I have to take on I was skeptical well-nig Greenshot, a relinquish, overt-source screenshot tool that claims to be as plangent-featured as interchangeable paid programs. But after using it, I'm a worshiper: Greenshot may not embody perfect, but this free tool has me wondering why I'd ever pay for unrivalled like IT again.

Greenshot downloads and installs well, and requires little to atomic number 102 setup. By default, the program uses the "Print Silver screen" key (sometimes marked Prnt Scr) as its hotkey; imperative that headstone in combination with another key (such atomic number 3 Alt or Ctrl) allows for different types of screen capture. In my type, the Print Screen key was already assigned to another screen capture program, so Greenshot notified Maine that I'd need to opt a untested one. I did so easily in the plan's settings menu, and within minutes I was up and running game. Greenshot can capture a realm of your screen, the last realm you elect with Shift & Print Screen, one program window with Alt & Print Screen, the full screen with Ctrl & Print Screen, or an Internet Explorer windowpane with Ctrl & Shift & Publish Screen. You simply press your appointed hotkey and the capture is done. If you choose to seizure a region, Greenshot lets you select it with a green overlay that makes it easy to pick the area you'd like to capture. SnagIt, a $50 rival, offers these unchanged capture options, but adds a few more, such as the ability to enchant scarce a menu, textbook from a Window, images from a Web page, and recording video from the test.

Greenshot offers most of the same features as a commercial cover capture broadcast

When you capture a sort in SnagIt, that program mechanically opens the paradigm in its editor, which is a full-featured editing tool. Greenshot gives you a few more options in damage of sending your captured screen to other programs OR places with the destination picker. This fare pops up as soon as you enamor a shield, and allows you to pick out between saving the image, opening information technology in Greenshot's image editor program, copying it to the clipboard, sending it to your printer, uploading it to Imgur, or beginning it in a kind of programs, such American Samoa Microsoft Outlook, Powerpoint, Word, Excel, Beaver State Paint, operating theatre Mozilla Thunderbird. Greenshot's inherent image editor is more basic than SnagIt's, though IT does tender one feature that is very useful. Included among its editing options is "Obfuscate," which lets you fork up a section of the riddle undecipherable past pixelation Beaver State blurring. Eastern Samoa person who captures a set of screenshots that contain email addresses and other in-person info, I find this tool invaluable, and it's easier to use than a interchangeable lineament offered by SnagIt.

I did have one problem when using Greenshot, which occurred I dependable to capture an entire Explorer windowpane. This is something that SnagIt handles cleanly, but Greenshot faltered a bit: the capture swear out seemed to work fine, simply the catch entirely showed a small portion of the IE screen.

Greenshot may non have all of the bells and whistles that its pricier rivals offer, and this unoccupied joyride is not perfect. Simply IT handles most basic screen capture needs easily, and manages to add some tools that pricier rivals look across. If you don't need to enamor telecasting and don't mind redaction captures in another political program, information technology does everything you are likely to postulate. In fact, Greenshot has turn my screen capture political platform of choice.

Federal Reserve note: The Download push button on the Product Information Page takes you to the seller's situation, where you can download the latest translation of the software package.