FreewareGuy and freewareoftheday.com

As I sit here trying to write about the most awesome free screen capture software ever created.. a bird across from where I am sitting keeps on distracting me with its wing flapping.. no seriously, this bird is on a mission to distract me from the task at hand!

That aside, I must inform you of several free tools to replace that “Print Screen” key and the limited functionality it has. It is today that you will learn about several programs that will allow you to capture, customize, crop, title, and save screen images to many different formats. In fact, the author of this website uses a couple of them to produce all the images found in this place.

Before I begin let me just say this: MWSnap is one of the best screen capturing tools I have ever used. Very simple, no frills, light, to the point, and uses very few resources. That being said, it appears to have some quirks running under Vista and (I assume) Windows 7.

FastStone Capture 5.3

http://www.aplusfreeware.com/categories/mmedia/FastStoneCapture.html

A highly recommended tool for all your screen-capturing needs. I currently use this tool and works excellent on Vista. Please notice that the current version from the author website has become shareware, therefore I provide a link to the latest freeware version.

Features:

• A small floating Capture Panel that can be dragged anywhere or minimized to the Windows tray area
• Resource friendly – uses a very small amount of memory, especially when minimized to the Windows tray area
• Global hotkeys to activate the program’s capture capabilities anytime, anywhere
• Efficient tools to capture windows, objects, full screen, rectangle/freehand-selected regions and scrolling areas
• Capture web pages in Microsoft Internet Explorer, FireFox and Opera
• Option to specify destination (internal editor, clipboard, file or printer) where the captured image will be sent
• Text/Arrowed line/Highlight/Watermark annotation
• Drop-shadow, torn-edge effects
• Add caption
• Resize, crop, zoom in/out
• Undo/Redo
• Save as BMP, JPEG, JPEG2000, PNG, GIF, TIFF, TGA and PDF
• Send e-mails
• Screen magnifier, Screen color picker
• Multi-monitor support
• Option to run when Windows starts

ScreenHunter 5 Free

http://www.wisdom-soft.com/sh/sh_free.htm

Ability to customize hotkeys for screen capture, auto saving and more, make this program an easy to use tool for many.

ScreenHunter can capture a full screen, an active window, the client window, or a rectangular area. It automatically saves captures in BMP or JPEG format, so you don’t have to stop each time you capture, and you can capture as many as you like. It also can save captures to the Clipboard to be copied to other programs, such as Motion Studio and Word. ScreenHunter has a selectable hot-key capture (F1 to F10) and delayed capture, and uses virtually no system resources on standby. ScreenHunter freeware version has no expiration date and can be distributed free of charge

Screen Print & Capture

http://download.cnet.com/Screen-Print-Capture-32/3000-2384_4-10135610.html

Screen Print & Capture 32 allows you to print the full desktop, active window, predefined area, or user-selected area of the screen with a single key press. You can add user-defined headers and footers with date and time stamps, resize the printed image, convert to grayscale or negative image, and fade or resize the image to reduce toner or ink usage. You can capture screen images and save them to a user-selected local or network folder in either GIF, BMP, JPEG, or PNG formats with user-configurable file naming.

PicPick Tools

http://picpick.wiziple.net/features

This is more than a simple screen capturing tool. It includes many useful utilities, such as a ruler, a color palette, an image editor, a color picker, the ability to zoom in order to see what you are capturing up close and personal, etc.

Captures

• Full Screen (Support for Dual Monitors)
• Active Window
• Window Control (Scroll a page automatically)
• Region, Fixed Region
• FreeHand

MWSnap

http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html

A small yet powerful Windows program for snapping (capturing) images from selected parts of the screen, capable of capturing the whole desktop, a highlighted window, an active menu, a control, or a fixed or free rectangular part of the screen. MWSnap handles 5 most popular graphics formats and contains several graphical tools: a zoom, a ruler, a color picker and a window spy. It can be also used as a fast picture viewer or converter.

Bug Shooting

http://www.bugshooting.com/web/

free screenshot utility that was developed for software testers who use bug tracking systems including FogBugz, Gemini, Ontime, BugTracker.NET and Mantis Bug Tracker. Screenshots can also be sent to Skype or a default E-Mail application

Enjoy! :3