A screenshot is a captured image or snapshot of what is displayed on a computer or device screen at a specific moment. It is a visual representation of the contents visible on the screen, including any open applications, windows, documents, web pages, or images. Screenshots are commonly used for various purposes, such as illustrating software features, reporting issues or errors, sharing information, providing visual instructions or guides, or documenting a specific screen layout or design. They are a convenient way to capture and share visual information from a computer or device screen.
There are several excellent screenshot apps available for Windows that offer various features and functionalities. Here are five of the best screenshot apps you can consider:
- Snagit: Snagit is a popular and feature-rich screenshot and screen recording software. It offers a wide range of capture options, including full screen, specific windows, regions, scrolling web pages, and more. Snagit also provides powerful editing tools to annotate and enhance your screenshots.
Snagit also lets you easily apply special effects to an image (like grayscale, text, arrows, and borders) without aspiring to be a super-tool like Adobe Illustrator. In addition, its video-recording feature lets you include an audio track from either a microphone or Windows’ own audio output—for example, from an MP3 recording on disk or a YouTube video. TechSmith’s related, and free, Fuse mobile apps for Android and iOS let you export images from your smartphone to a desktop running Snagit (or Camtasia) if the devices are on the same Wi-Fi network. To get past this Wi-Fi restriction, you’ll need to sync your files across an outside cloud storage service, and then open that storage to access those files on whatever device you want. That’s pretty easy to do, but Droplr does a better job putting all your files into one easy cloud ecosystem for all devices. Snagit’s editor serves two purposes: it opens captured images and houses all of your screencaps. One great thing about Snagit’s image saving is that any screenshot you snag is accessible from the program cache, even if you don’t explicitly save it. Screencast-O-Matic and Ashampoo Snap do the same, although Snap’s interface is far too busy, with menus running across the entire perimeter.
- Greenshot: Greenshot is a free and open-source screenshot tool that offers a simple and intuitive user interface. It allows you to capture screenshots of specific areas, windows, or the entire screen. Greenshot provides basic editing features, such as adding text, shapes, and arrows to your screenshots. Greenshot is an on-premise photo editing tool, which enables technical writers, software developers, project managers, and other professionals to capture screenshots of a selected area and entire web pages. Users can utilize a drag-and-drop interface to add images and graphics to screenshots according to individual requirements. Greenshot helps managers set up time lags and customize hotkeys to create screenshots. Professionals can import images from the clipboard and use the image editor to add shapes, annotations and text to captured screens. Additionally, software developers can save screenshots within files and draw shapes using various tools to highlight specific sections.
- LightShot: LightShot is a lightweight and easy-to-use screenshot tool that enables you to capture and share screenshots quickly. It offers customizable capture options and provides basic editing tools like highlighting, cropping, and adding annotations. LightShot also allows you to upload and share your screenshots online.
- ShareX: ShareX is a powerful and feature-packed screenshot and screen recording tool. It supports various capture methods, including full screen, active windows, regions, and scrolling captures. ShareX provides extensive customization options and offers a comprehensive set of editing tools. It also includes features for capturing screencasts and sharing files online. ShareX is a robust and versatile screenshot app that goes beyond simple capture functionality. It offers multiple capture methods, including full-screen, active window, active monitor, region, web page, and text. After capturing, ShareX provides a wide range of post-capture tasks such as adding image effects or watermarks, annotation, copying, printing, saving thumbnails, and uploading. It also supports image uploading and includes screen recording features, including the ability to create GIFs.
- PicPick: PicPick is a versatile screenshot tool that offers a combination of screen capture, image editing, color picker, and other useful utilities. It provides flexible capture options and supports various output formats. PicPick includes basic editing features like cropping, resizing, adding text, and applying effects. PicPick is a free software only for private use, which quickly generates screenshots from your computer screen and allow you to modify them according to a variety of purposes, in the same comfortable interface. This program has a wide range of graphic editing features. You can choose from a rich set of tools such as Color Picker (which allows you to choose a color on the screen and then use it in the image), a magnifying glass, a pixel ruler, a whiteboard, viewfinder, goniometer, blackboard and much more for creating the perfect shot.