Magic Screen

If you ever want to explain a specific method of performing certain activities on a computer, tutorials are the way to go, and these are greatly enhanced by images. A regular keyboard is already fitted with a dedicated function to capture the entire screen, but for more images it becomes time-consuming. Luckily, Magic Screen can help automate the process.

The application quickly gets you up and running, taking a little of your time to install it. However, before you can fully enjoy what it has to offer, it’s best to make sure that .NET Framework is installed on your computer, because it’s a mandatory feature for proper functionality.

Once the application is ready to run, you can find it in the tray area, without any notifications, or balloon tooltips to let you know it’s there. Interacting with the corresponding icon is how capturing is triggered, but there’s also a hotkey command (Ctrl + P) to speed up the process. You might want to be careful where you use this hotkey command, because it’s a common key for the print function.

There’s a high chance you end up scratching your head before you figure out how the application captures pictures, and where it saves them. For instance, pressing “Capture” requires you to select a custom area on your screen, but again, with no hints, or notifications about what needs to be done.

You only get to benefit from this single method of taking screenshots, without the possibility to capture the entire screen, or a specific window. When successful, you’re notified that the picture got saved, and it can be found in the app’s source directory under a JPG format.

Taking everything into consideration, we can safely state that Magic Screen comes with good intentions, but fails to deliver expected set of features, with only a single capture option, and rather ambiguous, and confusing overall experience. Picture output path can’t be changed, nor the capture key, which is already a common one in the majority of editors, and viewers.