Screenshot Captor Review: One of the Best Graphic Screen Capture Applications

excellent
key review info
application features
  • Preview and resizing options
  • (11 more, see all...)

Screenshot Captor is an advanced graphic screen capture application able to grab, edit, annotate, and share snapshots of your work. You can rest assured that you will not miss a single region of your screen thanks to the support for different capturing modes.

Other features that you can rely on are optimized for improving your workflow and deal with automatic or on-demand uploading of screenshots to image hosting servers, emailing options, scrolling capture tool, autonaming of files, and built-in file browser.

The editing tools vary from simple annotation features to watermarks and special effects such as pixelation, blurring, and color adjustments.

Account settings

The application is free for personal use and you may purchase a commercial license in case you run a business with more than four employees. The free version of the utility displays a reminder nag screen. In order to get of rid of it, you simply need to create an account on the official website of the tool and grab a free license key that is available for 6 months.

After six months of using Screenshot Captor for free, the nag screen is shown again. You can generate a new license key, which is available for another 6 months. After one year from your initial setup, you are given a permanent free key.

Quick capture bar and different capturing modes

Screenshot Captor places a small quick capture bar on your screen, which integrates a set of smart commands. You may place the pane anywhere on your screen or dock it to the top or bottom center of the screen (it automatically hides itself when it’s out of focus and reappears when you hover your mouse).

You can work with one of the following capturing methods: full screen, active window, user-defined region, or fixed-size area. Moreover, you may take another screenshot using the last settings (size and position), grab an object embedded in a window (the object is bordered with red so you can quickly spot the preferred one), or capture a scrolling window. A special mode for capturing multiple monitors is also on the feature list.

This is what the quick capture bar looks like.
This is what the quick capture bar looks like.

Other handy features that can be activated from the quick capture bar help you acquire an image from the scanner, grab a screenshot from webcam, set up post-capture options and actions, open up the configuration panel, as well as toggle on or off the image preview and editing window.

Configure post-capture options

Screenshot Captor allows you to capture the cursor, delay every capture, and print or upload the image. In addition, you may play a sound, show a popup notification in the tray or launch an external editor upon taking snapshots, copy image, file path, or file to the clipboard, as well as pick the action applied after grabbing a snapshot, namely save and show main window, save but keep main window minimized or prompt for asking what to do.

Saving and uploading features

After taking a new snapshot, the utility lets you choose between several saving and uploading options. It also offers a small preview window and lets you discard the image, save the file on your disk to a preferred file format, print the item, send the photo via email to a preconfigured address, upload items, save the screenshot to the clipboard, as well as insert a comment/caption.

You may export photos to JPG, GIF, TIF, PCX, PNG, BMP, TGA, PXM, PPM, PGM, PBM, JP2, DCX, or PDF file format. Screenshot Captor lets you merge multiple files into a PDF item, create thumbnails from image or region (you may also adjust the size, border, and shadow position), as well as save all selected screenshot files to GIF file format.

The built-in uploader features a multi-tabbed layout that helps you monitor the files that are placed in the queue list, copy the selected URL of the uploaded photo to the clipboard, as well as drag and drop files in the window in order to be uploaded.

With the help of some general options, you may automatically copy the URL to the clipboard upon successful uploads, show popup notifications for confirming copying of the link to the clipboard, allow cookies, select the image hosting service, as well as view the log for possible errors. You may also set up authentication parameters for the online hosting services.

Preview panel and built-in editor

All taken screenshots are displayed with the aid of thumbnails in the main window. Right-clicking on the thumbnails reveals the usual Windows context menu.

The zooming function is so accurate that it is able to dig up each pixel in a photo. You can perform several tasks with the files, such as rename, edit the comments (e.g. date of the capture, window title, browser URL), make the current photo fit the view, sort items by modification or creation date, perform searches for quickly identifying a screenshot in the list with thumbnails, as well as easily move items to different predefined folders and go to the saving directory or other preconfigured directories.

You may undo or redo your actions, work with several selection modes (e.g. rectangle, freehand, circle, magic wand), crop to the selected part, and resize files. The image can be manually rotated to different angles (you can specify the angle or use the buttons for the rotating it), or you can make the app automatically detect the correct skewed inclination.

You can preview each screenshot and zoom in or out of it.
You can preview each screenshot and zoom in or out of it.

You are allowed to paste clipboard image as new object in the current snapshot, alter image properties (e.g. color depth, DPI), as well as use the slicing mode for removing a vertical or horizontal section of the image (either at an edge or from the middle) and apply gap effects (ragged edge, fade in/out, blur).

Screenshot Captor lets you add captions at the top, bottom, left, or center part of the file, adjust the caption font, size, and color, and insert borders for the caption.

There’s support for hotkeys for various actions, including taking screenshots and applying editing features. You may also send objects to the front or back, expand canvas to fit objects, flatten all objects, use a color picker for identifying the RGB and HEX data, and copy the info to the clipboard, work with a built-in magnifier for exploring photos in detail, as well as configure external tools.

Other editing features give you the power to insert lines and text boxes with custom text (you may adjust its transparency, color, size, and alignment and insert borders), use a paint brush for drawing freehand designs, and embed various clipart objects (e.g. arrows, callouts, numbers, road signs, numbers) and colorful frames.

Color enhancements

The utility displays a dual panel where you can compare the original and processed image. Adjustments can be made to contrast, brightness, hue, saturation, value, luminosity, RGB, equalization, gamma correction, and sharpening options.

Several automatic modes can be used for fixing various problems that may exist in your photos, such as auto sharpening, gain offset, color enhancement, and border cropping options. The advantage of these parameters is that you can enable them using a single click.

Personalize images using an abundance of special effects

You may highlight the selected area and adjust the transparency, shape, shadow, border color, and line width of the highlighted region. The area outside of the selected region can be blurred, dimmed, interlaced, or greyed.

Moreover, you can use the Fourier Transform tool for decomposing an image into its sine and cosine components. Each of the aforementioned features comes with its own set of parameters for fine-tuning.

Blurring, interlacing, glow, and pixelate effects can also be used. The tool lets you embed watermarks, attach different types of borders around pictures, and add shadow.

Configure each feature thoroughly

Basic settings help you run the utility at Windows startup, change the thumbnail size, pick the saving directory, automatically save the changes made to files, automatically move old screenshots to subdirectories, reassign hotkeys, and set up file naming rules.

Simple capturing parameters enable you to use an automatic timer for grabbing screenshots at a given time interval and define post-capturing actions, such as automatically print, add caption to image, upload files, and insert a custom watermark file.

Advanced configuration options allow you to pick the default image file format and compression level, tweak the quick capture bar, enable or disable several toolbar buttons, adjust the mouse wheel speed, capture Aero Glass transparency effects, alter the position, transparency, and size of the watermark, and show crosshairs in the region capturing mode.

Last but not least, you may build up a list with email addresses, use the built-in uploader (which stores photos to ImageShack), ShareX’s uploader, or a custom one, automatically display captions on every printout, and set up the scanner mode, such as pick the device, adjust color and resolution, choose the file format, invert colors, and scan specific areas.


The Good

Screenshot Captor delivers an impressive number of ways for helping you retouch screenshots, as you may embed watermarks, clipart objects, text boxes, and suggestive lines, apply special effects, frame pictures or add just borders, highlight or blur areas, generate thumbnails and animated GIF files, upload files to online services, and opt for automatic saving options.

There’s support for a portable version of the utility, which you can store on a USB flash drive or other portable devices. It can be installed or run on any Windows version out there.

It doesn’t eat up too much CPU and memory. Moreover, the uploading process to image hosting servers does not take too much time.

The Bad

For a first-time user, the multitude of options may be too much. The GUI of the editor cannot be described as intuitive. You may need to invest some extra time and effort in getting used to working with the comprehensive collection of editing parameters. The configuration panel is abundant in tons of settings, which may scare off inexperienced users.

The Truth

Screenshot Captor is just not another average screen grabber. It stands out thanks to its multitude of editing tools and file management options.

It can be used for simple daily tasks up to complex jobs where you need to take lots of screenshots and edit them in detail. The advanced feature pack and comprehensive suite of configuration settings make it a serious competitor to other software programs that are not free, and place it in the category of one of the best screenshot capture utilities on the market.

user interface 4
features 5
ease of use 3
pricing / value 5


final rating 5
Editor's review
excellent
 

Screenshot Captor (50 Images)

This is what the quick capture bar looks like.You can enable several features right from the system tray.The highlighting and other editing tools can be activated from the right side of the GUI.You can preview each screenshot and zoom in or out of it.You may combine multiple images and save them to PDF or GIF file format.
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