Recommend screen-capture software (inexpensive or open-source)?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rick
  • Start date Start date
R

Rick

I'd like to be able to take a snapshot of only a certain
area of my screen such as the active window, and save it
to a .JPG or something similar. I know Snag-It does
this but it's $50. Is there something in the public
domain or less expensive that someone can recommend for
this?
 
I'd like to be able to take a snapshot of only a certain
area of my screen such as the active window, and save it
to a .JPG or something similar. I know Snag-It does
this but it's $50. Is there something in the public
domain or less expensive that someone can recommend for
this?
Click to expand...


First of all, note that no special software is required to get just
the active window. PrtScrn captures the whole screen, and Alt-PrtScrn
captures the active window.

It captures it to the clipboard, but if you want a .jpg file, just
past it into a program like Paint, and then save it as a .jpg file.

If you want a part other than the active window, you need special
software. One free choice is the gadget called "Snaper" that goes on
the sidebar. But I haven't used this and can't comment on how easily
or how well it works.
 
Rick said:
I'd like to be able to take a snapshot of only a certain
area of my screen such as the active window, and save it
to a .JPG or something similar. I know Snag-It does
this but it's $50. Is there something in the public
domain or less expensive that someone can recommend for
this?
Click to expand...


By design, as it has always been with every version of Windows,
pressing the <PrtScn> key copies the entire display, including the
Desktop Wallpaper, to the clipboard (iow, into RAM). Pressing
<ALT>+<PrtScn> copies only the active Window to the clipboard. To view
the screen capture, open a graphics program, such as MS Paint, and press
<CTRL>+V. This will paste the contents of the clipboard (your
screenshot) into the open file, and allow you to view it or save it as a
file for later use.

How to Capture Screen Shots in Windows Using the Print Screen Key
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;173884

If a particular screen shoot contains more of the screen than you like,
you can always use Paint to crop it. No need for a 3rd party
application, unless you're going to be doing extensive manipulations of
the resulting images. A somewhat more advanced, free graphics program
that you might find useful, should Paint prove to be too rudimentary, is
IrfanView, http://www.irfanview.com.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:


http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

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safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

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killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot
 
Once you've pasted the image in Paint you can then select the part you want
and make that a new image, or open in another imaging software package and
crop the jpg to just the part you want.
 
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