Potato Screen Capture

Potato Screen Capture is a tool that facilitates multiple methods for taking snapshots on the computer. It enables you to capture the full screen, selected window or object, or rectangle region. The application also includes a color picker, which comes in handy to web designers or other types of professionals who work with graphics.

Once launched, it creates an icon in the systray and sits there silently when unused, so it doesn't interrupt your regular PC activity. By default, it autoruns at every Windows startup. However, you can disable this option.

Double-clicking the tray icon brings a small panel to the screen, where you can choose the capture mode between full screen, rectangle region, and selected window or object.

Moreover, you can specify the course of action after capturing the screen. For instance, it can be sent as an email attachment, uploaded to ImageShack or FTP, saved to file, opened with the default image opener, edited with the default photo editor, or copied to the Clipboard. The shots can be saved with the BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG or TIF format, while their thumbnails can be previewed in the small configuration panel.

As for the color picker, it records the RGB and RGB hex code of any color you select on the screen, enabling you to copy these values to the Clipboard. There's also a large magnifier bundled with Potato Screen Capture.

It's possible to check for software updates, configure SMTP email settings (Google account or custom email client), include the mouse cursor in the screenshots, convert GIFs to greyscale, as well as check out a history list with pics uploaded to ImageShack.

No error dialogs popped up in our tests and the tool didn't freeze or crash. It captured pics swiftly, without hogging system resources. Although it's dated, it still runs smoothly on newer Windows editions.

To sum it up, Potato Screen Capture provides you with several modes for taking screenshots, backed by intuitive customization preferences. Too bad it doesn't support hotkeys.