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Oh PrintScreen how well you have served us over the years; always there, willing and able, when the need arrived to capture that very special moment in our computing lives. So simple, yet so empowering: press PrintScreen, paste into Paint and go. Life was grand with your help. However your days are numbered.
Lets take a quick count: How many people have taken, or have had the need to take, a screenshot (of a program, window, chat, text, etc.) in the past? How many anticipate taking, or needing to take, a screenshot in the future? How many people have used a method besides pressing PrintScreen and pasting it into an image editor like Paint? I am sure there will be more Vista users that answer in the affirmative to the previous question then other users because of a built-in feature for Vista that Microsoft was generous enough to include: Snipping Tool. Snipping Tool is/was a step above the orthodox PrintScreen method. With Snipping Tool, in addition to the traditional capture-the-whole-screen, one is able to capture individual windows or define specific areas of the screen to capture. After the desired region is captured, it is placed into the Snipping Tool editor where one could use a pen tool to manually write on it or use a highlighter tool to highlight something specific. After the desired edits are made, one can save the snip into JPG, GIF or PNG format. However, being able to do all that with Snipping Tool is good and all, but why stop there? And what about the people who don’t have Vista? Must they suffer and stick to the PrintScreen method? Nahhhhhhhhhh. Ladies and gents, FastStone Capture is here to save the day (actually it has been saving the day for a while now):
FastStone Capture, in my opinion, is the best free screen capture/screenshot tool out there. In fact FS C is the screen capture/screenshot tool that I use to take screenshots of programs for use on this blog. Yes it is the program I use to make those awesome arrows, write text, and outline areas with boxes.
FS C is feature filled, has a very small footprint computer resource wise, and is extremely easy to use. With FS C you can take a screenshot of the current active window, capture a window (does not have to be the active window – you get to chose), capture a specific region (via rectangle or free form tool), capture the full screen and capture a scrolling window (like in a web browser if you have to scroll up/down or left/right on a webpage, FS C will capture the whole webpage). You can do all that by either clicking on the respective buttons on the “capture panel” that you see above, use hotkeys to active a feature, or right click on the FS C system tray icon and chose what you want to do.
Once you make a screen capture the image is sent to the FS C “image editor”:
From this editor you can highlight and select specific parts of the screenshot and save just them instead of the whole image:
You can crop the image:
You can add captions to the image:
You can add a watermark to the image:
You can resize the image:
If you hit 
you will be able to do all the fun things that I do for my screenshots:
When all is set and done and you are happy with everything, you can save your image by clicking the 
button:
You have the choice of choosing multiple different formats and you since FS C applies a naming scheme to all your screenshots, you don’t have to enter a custom name for the screenshot if you don’t want to; however you can if you want.
Now of course if you are the busy type you may just want to take screenshots and skip the whole “send-to-editor- process. No problem…FS C can do it all:
Now there are still more features to FS C (such as automatically add a watermark, hotkeys support, etc.); so I have not done full justice to this program but I think you get my point: FastStone Capture is awesome. I truly recognized how much I rely on FS C when I had to take screenshots for this post. I obviously could not use FS C to take screenshots of itself, so I used Snipping Tool. I felt like crying.
Before I give you the download link to FastStone Capture there is an important thing to note: FastStone Capture used to 
be a free-for-home-use program; it is now a shareware program ($19.95 for lifetime license). However you can still download and use the last free version (v5.3) without having to purchase a license. I wrote this review discussing the features of v5.3; newer shareware versions have more features – such as video capturing capabilities – that I did not discuss in this review. I like FS C so much, and I use it so much, that I would buy the latest version if it was within my price range ($20 is too much for me…).
Update: I went ahead and purchased the latest version of FastStone Capture. It is one of the best $19.95 I have ever spent.
Anyway, I am sure you just want me to stop talking and give you the download link now:
Version reviewed: v5.3
Supported OS: Windows 98 and higher
Download size: 1.3 MB
Price: $0 for v5.3 and $19.95 for the latest version with a lifetime license
Freeware-limitations: The latest v5.3 is free for home and non-commercial use only
[FastStone Capture v5.3 download - installer]
[FastStone Capture v5.3 download - portable]
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Hi Ashraf!
How does this compare to Irfanview’s screen capture, in your opinion?
Thanks,
Janet
This link is for version 5.3 that is OVER TWO YEARS OLD!
Go to the faststone.org website and get the latest 6.3 release dated 18 Oct 2008.
It may be old but its free. v6.3 costs $19.95.
West Coaster … you [Removed by Ashraf. Reason: Lets play nice =)].
Janet,
FastStone Capture is undoubtedly the better software for screen capture/screenshot.
Hi Ashraf. First off let me say I love your reviews! In regards to this section on screen capture utilities, I was wondering how you rate PicPick (another freeware offering)? I use this one and find it a great little program. Is Faststone a better tool? I’d love to hear what you think.
Ozzie,
PicPick is an excellent tool. The differences between PicPick and FastStone Capture are really only in the ‘bells and whistles’ category.
In my opinion, it just comes down to personal preference. If you use PicPick and are used to it, by all means stick with. I personally like the floating window of FS C thus I use it.
Thanks Ashraf! Much appreciated! I guess I’ll stick with PicPick then. Better the devil you know, as they say ….
I use PrintScreen and Paint.Net :D Seems to be good enough for me. I’ll try this out if I get around to it.
@liam K:
I use PrintScreen + GIMP.
GIMP>>>>Paint.NET!
Jean,
I disagree. I find Paint.NET to be much better, and more lightweight, for more simple tasks. GIMP I reserve for more advanced work (which I usually never do anyway).
Hi there guys:
Here it is a really free, improving-all-the-time alternative to the above:
http://picpick.wiziple.net/
Hope you like it or that it somehow suits your needs of such a tool.
Regards from Brazil
MCHAL
Ashraf, you are a little wrong with your statement that only Vista is able to take screen shots of single Windows without need of an external program. In Windows XP (and some previous versions of Windows I believe), you can hold Alt + Print Screen to only copy a single window to the keyboard. However, it only copies the active window, so is still inferior to the various programs you have recommended.
Typo: “keyboard” should be “clipboard”. Lack of sleep does that to you.
Anonymous,
I am not going to lie: I did not know holding Alt + PrintScreen would take a SS of your just active window.
However I don’t recall making any such state about Vista being able to take screenshots of a single window without an external program while XP can’t. I did, however, talk about Snipping Tool which is Vista only.
I have been using PicPick for a wee while now and love it -
- Does everything I need
- Does it very well (hard to think of any needed improvements)
- Has Tabs (see below)
- Can minimize to Taskbar or the Sys Tray
- Does not require installation
- And is free (FastStone is $20 US)
It just grabs image, when you press the Print Screen key of your keyboard, and can be set to save as jpg (and remembers it). And can be told where to Save (a default that it remembers). Those last two were my main major irritation with Paint.
Lately I am using it as a reference tool.
When I am programming, I often have to look up other parts of the program, or into the DB design (using MS Access). AND I have to get back to those, to get the names or spelling, etc of things.
Now I am just hitting the Print key, and merrily proceeding with what I was doing. Then when needed, I can just bring up PicPick, and choose the relevant Tab
Regards,
Rob
Ashraf,
I agree completely. I’ve been using Fastone Capture 5.3 for a couple years now and love it.
And thanks so much for the work you do. I just discovered your site a couple weeks ago and really appreciate your reviews and tips.
Ashraf,
Got 403 Forbidden at your link for Fastone Capture 5.3. Maybe it changed? I found it at:
http://www.aplusfreeware.com/categories/mmedia/FastStoneCapture.html
Also here is a link to more info on the portable version:
http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=775
Taz
I currently have both Version 8 and version 9 of Snagit. Version 9 was a major upgrade and it has not been well received – by me and many others. Interface is completely changed, it is very complex and hard to work with and is a resource hog. I mostly fall back on version 8. I’m sorry I paid 20 bucks to upgrade.
Even Version 8 is probably overkill for someone like me. It’s probably a great tool for professional use though.
I’m going to download FastStone Capture and try it out. I really like the idea of the portable version. I’m just starting to build a USB drive with portable apps I can use when I help out friends/family on their PC’s. (not that I’m some sort of expert – probably just a little above the “average” PC user).
Taz
Thanks Taz; I think they dislike me linking directly to the download link.
Did someone link to this review somewhere? Insane amount of traffic to this page today.
Ashraf
First of all, I have to congratulate you on the work you have done commenting on GOTD giveaways and reviewing software applications – much appreciated! I’ve clicked through some of the Google ads, so I hope they add a few cents to your account!
Up to now I have been using snippy (http://www.bhelpuri.net/Snippy/default.htm), a free, portable utility to capture areas of a screen. However, based on suggestions here, I’ve tried FastStone and PicPick and I have to say that for me the feature in PicPick that makes it win for me is the ability to take multiple snapshots, each on their own tab in the viewer. This means that you can do all of your snapshoting, then work on your documentation pasting as you go instead of having to keep switching back and forwards.
Robert
Robert,
I admit I really wish FastStone also had that new-tab-for-each-screenshot feature. Great feature imo.
Robert,
I agree 110%
PicPick is fantastic.
It does everything that I could want, and it does it so simply.
I can be doing something(s), and can merrily be hitting the Print keyboard button, and continuing with what I was doing.
Love it.
PS One wee enhancement I would like is the ability to save all, and exit. It would ask for a prefix eg dog, and just automatically save -
dog_image1 dog_image2 dog_image3 etc.
i use horizon33 , i find it easy and fast capture tool , http://horizon33.weebly.com/ .