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Filed under: Photo, Utilities, Windows, Open Source, Windows x64

Open Source Greenshot does screenshots and annotations


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!

Filed under: Design, Utilities, Windows, Freeware

PicPick is a powerful, free way to take and edit screenshots


I've been using Faststone Capture portable for ages to handle my screenshot tasks, but PicPick is a very capable alternative.

PicPick provides the usual capture functionality and Windows hot key replacements (print screen and the control + and alt + variations), but it doesn't stop there. The integrated editor is packed with features, and can easily handle any quick edits I need for creating documentation or blog posts.

The editor's tabbed interface makes working with multiple images easy, especially when working with the repeat function to re-capture the same region for, say, a step-by-step installer tutorial.

Since most of my screen captures have to fit into a 500 pixel <div> tag, I was eager to test PicPick's ability to scale images. Resizing is very good, producing reductions that are on par with those created by CS4.

Read more →

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

How to extract images from PDF files without using copy and paste

PDF Image Extract
PDF Image Extract is a free Windows utility that does exactly what the name suggests: it extracts images from PDF files. Sure, you could save pictures one at a time the old fashioned way by hitting print screen and pasting the image into an editor or using a screen capture program. But PDF Image Extract saves you a lot of time if you want to save multiple images because it will save every single image in a PDF file for you. In fact, you can create batch jobs to save images from multiple documents.

The only down side? I'm not kidding when I say PDF Image Extract saves every image. You'll likely wind up with a folder containing hundreds of images, only a few of which are the ones you were looking for. That's because the program will save all sorts of segments of the original PDF as image files, including the background.

[via gHacks]

Filed under: Blogging, Freeware, Browser Tips, Browsers

FireShot Does Browser Screencaps One Better

The FireShot extension for Firefox is a powerful capture utility
Anyone that blogs about websites and has tried before knows that getting a decent screencap of a web page can be tricky. Enter FireShot, a Firefox extension that makes quality captures child's play.

Install the add-on and you're given FireShot creates a tiny menu on your navigation toolbar that gives quick access to full-page and visible area capture functions. It does a great job at rendering pages, even those with Flash animations. Support for saving as PNG, JPEG, GIF, and BMP is built-in, as well as exporting to just about any editor.

What really sets FireShot apart, though, is the integrated upload feature. Select it, and you can resize your image on-the-fly and post it to FireShot's free image hosting repository with minimal effort. If there's one feature that helps sell a piece of software to us, it's how much time and effort we can save by using. FireShot makes putting browser screencap online so easy we almost feel lazy doing it. Almost.

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Web services, web 2.0

Super Screenshot: Web based tool for creating an image of any site

Super Screenshot
Want to take a screen capture of a web site? Not just the part you can see on your screen, but the whole page, even the parts you have to scroll for 20 minutes to find? Super Screenshot is a web based tool that will let you capture any page and save the output as a JPG or PNG image file.

You get a few options with Super Screenshot, like the ability to capture a whole page or just the top of the screen. You can also select the size of the final picture, but you don't get to set pixel heights and widths. Instead you get some rather unhelpful options like X-Small, Small, Medium, Large, and Full. So you might need a little trial and error time to find the right size.

If you want more control over your screenshots, you can always use a desktop application like Snagit. But if you're using a friend or coworker's computer and need to make a quick screenshot, Super Screenshot could come in handy.

[via Life Rocks 2.0]

Filed under: Photo, Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Capture arbitrary parts of the screen with ScreenJot

screenjotA crafty AOL developer has created a little app called ScreenJot, which pretty successfully imitates the behavior for taking screenshots in OS X. I know there are lots of screen cap tools out there (feel free to suggest your faves in the comments), but this one I'll be using just because it's so close to the OS X method. With ScreenJot, you can hit Ctrl-Shift-5 and get a little crop tool, so you can grab just a section of the screen. This will drop a BMP into a folder called "scraps" on your desktop. While I wish it would save something more useful (like a JPEG), that problem is easily solved with any of the dozens of batch conversion tools out there...

[Thanks dave!]

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