Filed under: Photo, Utilities, Windows, Open Source, Windows x64
Open Source Greenshot does screenshots and annotations
by Lee Mathews Mar 24th 2009 at 3:30PM
For a while now I've been using ZScreen to handle my screen capturing chores on Windows. Brad touched on Greenshot back in December, and after being urged by one of my Twitter followers the other day I decided to give it a try.
Since Brad's post, the author has responded to calls for the creation of an installer though Greenshot is still less than a half-megabyte download. The three key capture types are supported - region, window, full desktop, though there is no handling for scrolling regions like length web pages. For repeated captures of the same area, the last region tool is very handy. Images can be copied to the clipboard, sent directly to your printer, and saved automatically with your defaults or with settings chosen from a dialog box.
Common screenshot-related tools are included in the editor. Use them to draw circles, lines, and boxes, or add arrows and text. All objects can be resized and edited, including text. I'd like to see the developers add a few more tools, like the ability crop and resize images, but it's still a very handy editor as-is.
Greenshot is Open Source and runs on all varieties of Windows. There's also a portable version (which weighs in at only 160k) available for on-the-go screenshots from your USB flash drive.
Thanks, @seanharrison!
Since Brad's post, the author has responded to calls for the creation of an installer though Greenshot is still less than a half-megabyte download. The three key capture types are supported - region, window, full desktop, though there is no handling for scrolling regions like length web pages. For repeated captures of the same area, the last region tool is very handy. Images can be copied to the clipboard, sent directly to your printer, and saved automatically with your defaults or with settings chosen from a dialog box.
Common screenshot-related tools are included in the editor. Use them to draw circles, lines, and boxes, or add arrows and text. All objects can be resized and edited, including text. I'd like to see the developers add a few more tools, like the ability crop and resize images, but it's still a very handy editor as-is.
Greenshot is Open Source and runs on all varieties of Windows. There's also a portable version (which weighs in at only 160k) available for on-the-go screenshots from your USB flash drive.
Thanks, @seanharrison!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Adam said 3:57PM on 3-24-2009
How about providing a link to what you are talking about
http://greenshot.sourceforge.net/
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Lee Mathews said 3:58PM on 3-24-2009
The giant image at the top is linked, FWIW.
Adam said 4:12PM on 3-24-2009
arg..must have missed that...thanks for the textual link tho!
NemX2 said 4:47PM on 3-24-2009
For screenshots I still prefer a free tool from Debugmode called Wink
http://www.debugmode.com/wink/
Mostly because it has options that I have not seen in other free products. It allows you to cap screen or active windows, then manipulate the images into a swf if you want. The active mouse is actually a movable object that you can move around in the image and easily create very small walkthroughs on how to do certain tasks.
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Dodot said 7:50AM on 3-25-2009
I wanna second the recommendation for Wink. It's not as accessible as other screenshot/screencasting tools during the first 30 minutes - there is a bit of a learning curve - but this is due mostly to the plethora of features that Wink has. For making interactive tutorials, Wink is the best freeware out there. (IMHO)
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Dagur said 8:47AM on 3-25-2009
I just downloaded Wink and I can not for the life of me figure out how to create screenshots with it. Sure, I can capture a frame but I can't save it as a jpeg or gif or whatever.
Michael Wexler said 12:31PM on 3-25-2009
I'm very pleased with Greenshot; SnagIt (for pay) is impressive but I keep finding that most of what I need can be done with Greenshot. Worth giving it a shot, esp. the portable version.
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shravan kumar said 4:49PM on 3-29-2009
I have been a SnagIt user for 2+ years and I see Greenshot does all the things for free. Great tool
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DionV said 7:45PM on 4-22-2009
I have had a lot of success with Donation Coder's "Screenshot Captor" (http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/screenshotcaptor/index.html)
It's donationware. Free to use, but a donation would be appreciated. When you start the program, a popup reminds you of this. You can get rid of the popup by donating to get a license.
All that aside though, the options available for Screenshot Captor are amazing:
* Built-in editor with callouts, annotations, text, and more
* Capture the whole screen, the workspace, the active window, a selected region, a scrolling region, and probably a couple other ways I forgot
* Quick naming template for multiple shots that are related. Set the name to start with "Program-A", and it will appended a timestamp to the end for each shot, so you get files like "Program-A-20090417-1114.png" and "Program-A-2009-0417-1115.png" and so on
* Blur the region outside the selected area, good for masking the unimportant/private stuff
* Sits quietly in your system tray after launch
* And a lot more
Wink is good too, but it's focus is more on developing tutorials or screencasts, than simple screenshots, which was the target of the original poster's review. One issue I've had with Wink is trying to record audio while capturing the screen. Every mouse click or screen change caused a new audio clip, which resulted in lots of split-second audio files, and just a big mess. It's likely just a config issue, but I didn't have time to play with it more.
Sometimes it's just better to record the audio after the fact, regardless of the program, that way you get exactly what's needed, and it's relevant to what's on the screen.
DionV
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