# Please recommend a great but cheap piece of Screen Capture software **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 22, 2005, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-recommend-a-great-but-cheap-piece-of-screen-capture-software/300683 "2005-04-22T23:10:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BarnOwl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e95f7d/32.png) [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2005, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-recommend-a-great-but-cheap-piece-of-screen-capture-software/300683/1 "2005-04-22T23:10:29Z")
I won’t use it much so I want it cheap. But if I can get great **and** cheap **and** easy to use, well wouldn’t that be a helluva deal! ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2005, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-recommend-a-great-but-cheap-piece-of-screen-capture-software/300683/2 "2005-04-22T23:21:45Z")
I don’t think you need any special software to do a screen capture. Just hit cntrl and Print Screen on your keyboard. Then you can paste that image into any software that allows you to paste an image such as paint or word. ---
**Author:** ![Waterman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b2d939/32.png) [@Waterman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waterman)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2005, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-recommend-a-great-but-cheap-piece-of-screen-capture-software/300683/3 "2005-04-22T23:21:55Z")
How about the “PrintScrn” key on your computer? At least on Windows machines if you press “Shift” + “PrintScrn” you will copy the entire screen including background etc. If you press “Alt” + “PrintScrn” you will copy the active item on your screen. In either case you will copy to the clipboard where you can paste into Windows very own Paint Program or insert it into a Word document or another graphics program as a “.bmp” (Windows bitmap) file. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2005, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-recommend-a-great-but-cheap-piece-of-screen-capture-software/300683/4 "2005-04-22T23:26:49Z")
The capability is built-in on Macintoshes, too. It’s quite nice in OS X Panther. If, however, you’re looking for something that can do partial screen grabs, timed captures (to allow menus and cursors to be set right), and other more sophisticated stuff, take a look at Paint Shop Pro. I don’t know if they still have a shareware version, but it’s been my screen capture of choice for years in the Windows world. ---
**Author:** ![BarnOwl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e95f7d/32.png) [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2005, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-recommend-a-great-but-cheap-piece-of-screen-capture-software/300683/5 "2005-04-22T23:27:58Z")
Wonderful! Cheap, easy, and great as far as I’m concerned. Ctrl Shift and Alt all seem to work with the print Screen key. Thank you both very much. ---
**Author:** ![Jon\_the\_Geek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@Jon\_the\_Geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jon_the_Geek)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2005, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-recommend-a-great-but-cheap-piece-of-screen-capture-software/300683/6 "2005-04-23T01:25:31Z")
If you want something for editing/saving/etc once you get your screen capture, and Paint doesn’t suit your needs, a friend at [Tucows](http://www.tucows.com) swears by [Irfanview](http://www.irfanview.com/). It’s freeware, so you can’t beat the price… ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2005, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-recommend-a-great-but-cheap-piece-of-screen-capture-software/300683/7 "2005-04-23T04:42:08Z")
I looked into this awhile back to help folks in our department do screenshots for bug reporting. Since they did this often, the old combo of PrintScreen and then Paste into Word was tedious at best, and it made pretty bulky files. The most pleasing free one I found was [MWSnap](http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html). It’s lightweight, and you can set it up so that whenever you hit a designated hotkey, a screenshot is taken and saved to your desktop as a .gif file (or .jpg if that’s your preference). Very simple to use. (The searching was quite painful since it is an area infested with dodgy software, popups, “link farm” pages, and the like. Kind of like searching for MP3s) ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2005, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-recommend-a-great-but-cheap-piece-of-screen-capture-software/300683/8 "2005-04-23T08:25:52Z")
Can you save a .avi frame paused in your player in either Paint or IrfanView to a .bmp or .gif or .jpeg? Once you do that, is it possible to edit the image: increase its sharpness, resize, etc.? I want to get all CSI using this freeware, yo. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2005, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-recommend-a-great-but-cheap-piece-of-screen-capture-software/300683/9 "2005-04-23T08:52:04Z")
Okay – never mind. Figured out how to do it in Paint. Easier than I thought. Wow. ---
**Author:** ![racer72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/racer72/32/3075_2.png) [@racer72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racer72)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2005, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-recommend-a-great-but-cheap-piece-of-screen-capture-software/300683/10 "2005-04-23T11:41:17Z")
A much more user friendly program than MS Paint is [Paint.NET.](http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/) I have used it instead of Paint Shop Pro many times. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2005, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-recommend-a-great-but-cheap-piece-of-screen-capture-software/300683/11 "2005-04-23T15:24:08Z")
I keep a freebie capture program called grabber2k around. “Lite” is free for personal use, and does what I expect a screen capture program to do - you can capture the entire screen, windows or arbitrary areas. You can capture after after a delay, a keypress, or both, and choose one of several keys. You can control whether the mouse pointer is included in the capture or not. You can print the results, or save them to the clipboard, a JPEG or a bitmap. Irfanview is then a fine utility for doing basic manipulations of the image and converting it between a gazillion formats - I keep that around, too. I don’t know what “heavy” does that “lite” doesn’t, and the latest version number I know of is 0.99. Unfortunately the company doesn’t seem to exist anymore - it was put out by “[rad2k.com](http://rad2k.com)”, and that address appears to have been parked. A few download sites I googled up had broken links to the no-longer-existing rad2k site. ---
**Author:** ![BarnOwl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e95f7d/32.png) [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2005, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-recommend-a-great-but-cheap-piece-of-screen-capture-software/300683/12 "2005-04-23T15:37:14Z")
> [@minor7flat5](#): > > I looked into this awhile back to help folks in our department do screenshots for bug reporting. Since they did this often, the old combo of PrintScreen and then Paste into Word was tedious at best, and it made pretty bulky files. > > The most pleasing free one I found was [MWSnap](http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html). > It’s lightweight, and you can set it up so that whenever you hit a designated hotkey, a screenshot is taken and saved to your desktop as a .gif file (or .jpg if that’s your preference). > > Very simple to use. > > (The searching was quite painful since it is an area infested with dodgy software, popups, “link farm” pages, and the like. Kind of like searching for MP3s) I just downloaded MWSNAP and gave it a try. It seems to be clever as hell!!! I hope I can figure the thing out. It’s delightful. Thank you, **minor7flat5** , and if you want to tell me how to just do a quick adjustable rectangular capture that I can save and email, I’d owe you one - no, two! My email address is available, but you could post it, and that’d be ok too. ---
**Author:** ![BarnOwl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e95f7d/32.png) [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2005, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-recommend-a-great-but-cheap-piece-of-screen-capture-software/300683/13 "2005-04-23T15:43:29Z")
> [@yabob](#): > > I keep a freebie capture program called grabber2k around. “Lite” is free for personal use, and does what I expect a screen capture program to do - you can capture the entire screen, windows or arbitrary areas. You can capture after after a delay, a keypress, or both, and choose one of several keys. You can control whether the mouse pointer is included in the capture or not. You can print the results, or save them to the clipboard, a JPEG or a bitmap. Irfanview is then a fine utility for doing basic manipulations of the image and converting it between a gazillion formats - I keep that around, too. > > I don’t know what “heavy” does that “lite” doesn’t, and the latest version number I know of is 0.99. Unfortunately the company doesn’t seem to exist anymore - it was put out by “[rad2k.com](http://rad2k.com)”, and that address appears to have been parked. A few download sites I googled up had broken links to the no-longer-existing rad2k site. Maybe you’d want to give MWSNAP a go. Seems to be pretty good. If nothing else, it might do nicely as a backup to your grabber2k. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2005, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-recommend-a-great-but-cheap-piece-of-screen-capture-software/300683/14 "2005-04-23T15:55:38Z")
> [@E = mc²](#): > > Maybe you’d want to give MWSNAP a go. Seems to be pretty good. > > If nothing else, it might do nicely as a backup to your grabber2k. I long ago learned to hang onto the installers for shareware. It recently got installed onto my new lap top, whether it officially still exists or not. If I really did a lot of capture, I might consider looking around for something else, but this one does what I expect. ---
**Author:** ![BarnOwl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e95f7d/32.png) [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2005, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-recommend-a-great-but-cheap-piece-of-screen-capture-software/300683/15 "2005-04-23T18:05:49Z")
It’s the sweetest damned thing, and after reading just a couple of introductory things in Help, I got the gist and Bingo! Went to an online art museum, captured Vermeer’s **View of Delft** , Ctrl+V-ed it to a blank email, and then sent it to my daughter. The capture itself knocks me out. Try it. You’ll love it! It’s free but so rewarding, I’m going to send the guy a few bucks. ---
**Author:** ![freakstasy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c57346/32.png) [@freakstasy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/freakstasy)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2005, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-recommend-a-great-but-cheap-piece-of-screen-capture-software/300683/16 "2005-04-23T21:10:44Z")
[FastStone Capture](http://www.faststone.org/FSCaptureDetail.htm) A thing of beauty, and completely free. I first downloaded it with the expectation of handling screen captures (without having to paste the image into anything and crop it with difficulty) but now use it for anything picture-related. And probably the best part is its economical size; it makes even IrfanView look like a clunker, though I still use that program for a picture viewer. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2005, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-recommend-a-great-but-cheap-piece-of-screen-capture-software/300683/17 "2005-04-23T22:25:50Z")
> [@racer72](#): > > A much more user friendly program than MS Paint is [Paint.NET.](http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/) I have used it instead of Paint Shop Pro many times. Fantastic! Thanks for think link. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2005, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-recommend-a-great-but-cheap-piece-of-screen-capture-software/300683/18 "2005-04-25T00:28:49Z")
If you want to capture moving footage (say, for creating tutorial videos or converting a powerpoint show to a video file), there’s a rather nifty bit of freeware called [CamStudio](http://www.swftools.com/tools-details.php?tool=8162413051) to do the job. (NB, the linked page above has a rather annoying talking flash object on it) ---
**Author:** ![BarnOwl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e95f7d/32.png) [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2005, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-recommend-a-great-but-cheap-piece-of-screen-capture-software/300683/19 "2005-04-25T00:52:37Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > If you want to capture moving footage (say, for creating tutorial videos or converting a powerpoint show to a video file), there’s a rather nifty bit of freeware called [CamStudio](http://www.swftools.com/tools-details.php?tool=8162413051) to do the job. > (NB, the linked page above has a rather annoying talking flash object on it) You actually do collect photos of gloves!! Okay. Gotta go watch Mystery with wife. Thanks for the link but I don’t do moving stuff.