Wow! Win7: Capture Custom Screenshots in a Flash

[George Tyndall]

If you, like me, are frustrated by the hassle of using Paint to crop a screenshot for emailing, saving and/or posting on the internet, then you are going to ADORE this gem of a technique that I found on p.93 of the June 2011 issue of PC World magazine.

Assuming you have Win7 "and some versions of Vista":

--On the Start menu, type snip and then click Snipping Tool
--On the dimmed screen, click and drag a box around the desired area
--Release the mouse and the desired area appears in the Snipping Tool window
--Using the menu above the window, do what you wish with the snipped area, including adding notations with the pen and highlighter

For example, here's a snip of Ron's smilies:

Smilies.JPG

[RJ Johnston]

I take it that you don't have Snagit?

[George Tyndall]

I take it that you don't have Snagit?

Yes, Mr. Johnston, I've never heard of it.

Please, tell me more, specifically, does it do something that the Snipping Tool does not?

[RJ Johnston]

You never heard about Snagit? Oh my. Neither did I for many years.

I don't have Win7 to try out the snipping tool. I'm saving up to buy Win7, though.

If you want to read about TechSmith's Snagit or try out the demo, it is here: http://www.techsmith.com/products.asp. TechSmith is the one that does Camtasia. It's not free, but it's certainly not as expensive as Camtasia.

Besides being able to capture screen images under all sorts of scenarios, including preserving web links and scrolling windows, Snagit installs a virtual printer that I use a whole lot for printing to PDF files instead of printing to a regular printer in order to save on ink and paper.

[Steve Grisetti]

A great tool, Robert!

[Peru]

I use FastStone Capture:
http://www.faststone.org/

[Chuck Engels]

I've used Paintshop Pro 7 for years now only for screen captures.
It has always worked and I've often wondered why Photoshop Elements or Pro does not do this.

[RJ Johnston]

I've used Paintshop Pro 7 for years now only for screen captures.
It has always worked and I've often wondered why Photoshop Elements or Pro does not do this.

Does PaintShop Pro 7 maintain hot web links? I don't want to start another big application just to capture a screen.

[Bob]

There are a number of these screen capture type programs out there, each with it's own fan base. Use the one that appeals to you and has the features you need.

The Snipping Tool in Window 7 is pretty basic, but the price is right (free) and it's built-in. Snagit does things that the Snipping Tool doesn't, but at nearly $50 it better do that. Personally, I don't do that many screen captures and I never want to capture hot web links. Between the Print Screen key and the Snipping Tool, I'm pretty much covered.

Incidentally, the Snipping Tool, by default, writes snips to the clipboard so you can paste them into your favorite image editor for further annotation or editing. That's not just the initial capture but also after you've marked it up in the tool. I'll sometimes snip an image, use the highlighter on it and then paste into photoshop to add text using the type tool or do further processing.

If you use it often, you can pin it to the taskbar or the start menu for easy access.

[Chuck Engels]

Does PaintShop Pro 7 maintain hot web links? I don't want to start another big application just to capture a screen.

I use version 7 and that is probably 10 years old now. Not sure what the newest version does.
Version 7 lets me start the program and then go to screen capture mode. I can make multiple captures just by pressing the F12 key. The image is captured to Paintshop Pro and then I can edit, add text and or graphics, and save it in many different file formats.

[Jayell]

I love the snipping tool .. I use it constantly .. and have it pinned to my taskbar. I know it isn't fancy, but it does everything I need it for because I can either copy and paste into a document .. or save it as a jpg.

[RJ Johnston]

Chuck, PaintShop Photo Pro X3 still has the screen capture feature. Probably similar to what was in version 7. The workflow is very comfortable. I think I paid less for Paintshop than I did for Snagit.