Need a better way to capture the images on your desktop? Now anybody using Windows for more than five minutes can tell you that this is what the “Print Screen” button is for, right? Well true - that does get the job done but some of us need a little more. Here are my best suggestions for desktop image capturing and web site image capturing.
…for the Desktop
MWSnap - this is a powerful free tool that puts your screen capturing ways on steroids. If Microsoft ever released a power toy for screen captures, I have a feeling this is what it would look like.
Here are five MWSnap features I like the most (in no specific order):
- 5 snapping modes
- Support for BMP, JPG, TIFF, PNG and GIF formats
- System-wide hotkeys
- Clipboard copy/paste
- Auto-start with Windows and minimizes to system tray
…for the Web
WebShot - By far, WebShot is the best web site screen capture freeware package you can get. You can capture full size or thumbnail screenshots in a number of different image formats. Wish the documentation was a little better, but it really isn’t that hard to figure out.
Here are some of the features WebShot provides that I really enjoy a lot:
- Automatic determination of page width and height that captures the whole page accurately. Does a great job every time.
- Browser size specification allows you to capture the whole page or part of it.
- Image encoding to JPG, GIF, PNG, and BMP with image quality control to save on disk space. Everybody should have a format to love.
There are a few other options out there too but these seem to far out weight their alternatives from head to toe. So next time you need to grab an screenshot of something on your desktop you should be more than prepaired to meet that chore head on with these freeware goodies.
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