Review of Screen Capture Tools

By Matthew Ellison

Contents

Click a link below to jump to a particular section; click any "CONTENTS" image following a section heading to jump back here.

• Introduction
• What You Should Look For in a Screen Capture Tool
• FullShot 9
• HyperSnap-DX 6
• MadCap Capture 1
• Paint Shop Pro 9
• RoboScreen Capture 2
• SnagIt 8
• TNT Screen Capture 2
• Comparative Feature Table

Introduction    

Almost all of us need to include screen captures in our user assistance from time to time. It can be very useful, for example, to include an annotated capture of the entire window in order to familiarize users with the layout of an application screen or dialog. Even if it's not your policy to include captures of entire windows, you may still find it useful to include images of specific drop-down menus, toolbars, individual buttons, or cropped regions that highlight key elements of an application interface.

Of course, it's possible to do almost all of this by pressing <Alt>+<Print Screen> to copy the active window to the clipboard, and then pasting it into your favorite image-editing application. However, for each screen capture this requires you to go through the same set of actions in order to crop, set the color depth, add borders or edge effects, and finally save it. If you only take the occasional screen capture, then this is fine. But it can become extremely tedious and time-consuming if you have a large number of screens to capture.

This is where screen capture tools come into their own—they are designed to speed up the process by automating the tasks that you would otherwise have to complete using your regular imaging editing application.

In this article, I look at four of the leading screen capture tools for Windows, in addition to the screen capture utility included within Paint Shop Pro 9. There is a short review of each of the tools, including my view of each tool's three key strengths and weaknesses. Finally, I have provided a table that compares the key features of all five of the tools side by side.

What You Should Look For in a Screen Capture Tool    

In order to consider which features of a screen capture tool are the most important, it's worth thinking about the procedure you would go through if you were not using a tool, and had to rely on <Alt>+<Print Screen> and your regular image-editing application.

Let's look at the typical process of capturing a specific region of the screen. Here are the steps that you might go through:

1. Press <Alt>+<Print Screen> to copy the entire window to the clipboard.
2. Paste the contents of the clipboard into your image-editing application as a new image.
3. Use the cropping tool to crop the image to the required region.
4. If required, use the appropriate features of the image-editing application to add a border, feathered edge, or torn paper edge effect.
5. Reduce the color depth to 8 bits per pixel (256 colors) using the required palette and dithering method (you will want to ensure that all your captures use the same palette).
6. Save the image to the required file format.

To make this process quicker and easier, it would be useful if the screen capture tool would do the following for you:

• Enable you to select the required region with precision at the time of capture.
• Automatically add a predefined border or edge effect.
• Automatically set the required color depth and palette.
• Automatically default to the required file format during Save As.

If you weren't too concerned about the final file name of the captured image, you might even be happy for the tool to handle all these tasks for you without your intervention. This would effectively give you instant automatic screen captures.

In addition to these basic requirements, I'd also ideally like a screen capture tool to do the following:

• Provide the option to show or hide the cursor in the capture (all the tools reviewed in this article enable you to do this).
• Support the capture of multiple cascaded menus in a single operation. This would otherwise require very fiddly and time-consuming image-editing to isolate the menus from the window background.
• Support the capture of non-rectangular regions, such as ellipses and polygons. Although screen captures I usually take are rectangular, it is nice occasionally to have the flexibility of being able to capture different shapes. All the tools in this article provide an option for capturing rectangular regions, but the support for non-rectangular shapes varies greatly.

The following reviews discuss each of the tools with particular reference to the key requirements identified above. If you'd like to check which of the tools support a specific feature, then refer to the Comparative Feature Table at the end of the article.

FullShot 9 (Inbit Inc.)    

As indicated by its relatively high version number, FullShot is a well-established capture tool. It was introduced in 1991, and has been widely used within the documentation industry since then. Version 9 has a more contemporary looking user interface than earlier versions, and apparently contains a redesigned screen capture engine under the hood.

FullShot 9 user interface

FullShot is available in three different editions: Standard, Professional, and Enterprise. Since the average pricing of the other screen capture tools reviewed in this article is matched most closely by FullShot's Standard Edition, this is the edition on which I will base most of my comments.

FullShot takes a rather different approach to the capture mechanism from the other tools reviewed in this article—when you open it, a set of special capture buttons is added to the active window of all your applications. Here is an example:

Buttons added by FullShot to the active window

Each button represents a different type of capture: S is the entire screen, W is window, O is object, R is region, etc. These buttons persist even when FullShot is minimized as a taskbar button or hidden in the system tray.

You start a capture by clicking on the appropriate button for the required capture type, or by using the appropriate keyboard shortcut. Using the buttons means that it's impossible to capture the cursor unless you set FullShot's countdown delay option. For this reason, it's usually easier to use the keyboard shortcuts—however, since there is a different key combination for each of the different capture types, these can be quite difficult to remember.

If you select the O button for capturing a specific object, FullShot highlights the region, toolbar, or control that will be captured as you move the pointer around the screen—this ability to capture objects was introduced in version 8.5 and brought FullShot into line with all the other tools reviewed in this article.

When you select the R button for capturing a region, you must then click and drag the mouse pointer in order to define the region. FullShot gives you the option to display the coordinates (in pixels) of the pointer as you move it around the screen, but it does not provide a magnified view of the screen area around the pointer as most of the other tools do. As a result, it can be a little difficult to select the required screen area with absolute precision.

A nice feature of FullShot is the ability to take multiple screen captures, and have each captured image represented within a separate window in the FullShot workspace (in the same way as you can have multiple documents open in Microsoft Word). This means that you can capture all your required screens outside of FullShot (you have the option to prevent FullShot coming to the top after each capture) before switching to FullShot in order to annotate and save the images. You can even take advantage of the "Save All Images" command, which enables you to save all your captured images in a single operation. The combination of these features makes for a highly streamlined and efficient process for capturing and working with large numbers of screens.

FullShot has a fairly complex interface with a number of different menus, depending on which edition you have installed. The majority of the most fundamental options are available from a multi-function Capture Settings dialog. You select the category of settings that you want to change from the list on the left, and then the controls for that category are displayed. The following image shows the controls for the Capture category of settings:

Capture Settings dialog

Most of the categories contain options for a specific capture type (such as region) but the capture category contains general settings that affect all captures. This takes a little bit of getting used to, and altogether I initially found the operation of FullShot to be a little less intuitive than some of the other tools. However, I know that many FullShot users enjoy being able to initiate a screen capture by clicking a button within the actual window to be captured—they find this method to be direct and simple.

FullShot enables you to minimize the size of the image by reducing colors in the FullShot window, or during the Save process (by setting the Automatic Color Reduction option within the "FullShot Save As" dialog). However, it does not enable to you set a specific color depth or palette explicitly.

Through the appropriate combination of settings, FullShot enables you to automate fully the process of optimizing and saving each image to a specific file type. In this way it can be a real time-saver. However, the Standard Edition does not allow you to specify a resolution for the captured image—for this feature, you need to upgrade to the Professional Edition. This is not a major issue since most users will be happy to accept the default of 96 dpi.

FullShot 9 supports a range of special effects that can be added to captured images at capture time. These include a useful 3D drop-shadow that can be applied in any one of four directions. There is also a tear effect that is comparable to the torn edge effect in both SnagIt and TNT Screen Capture. This tear effect can be added to any combination of the top, bottom, left, and right edges of the captured image.

There are several post-capture image-editing functions available in FullShot. For example: you can crop the captured image, and blur selected regions of the image. There are also annotation toolbars for adding vector-based text and graphics to screen captures. In the Standard Edition, the toolbars enable you to add lines, basic shapes, and text—the Professional and Enterprise Editions supplement these features with a range of tools for callouts and numeric labels.

Strengths

• Easy capture using buttons on the window title bar, even when FullShot itself is hidden
• Supports concurrent editing of multiple screen captures
• Minimizes file sizes by optimizing the color palette

Weaknesses

• Won't enable you to set the color depth of a captured image to a specific value
• No magnified view of the pointer location for precise selection of screen regions
• No support for capturing buttons in the Standard Edition

Summary of FullShot 9

A popular tool with a good track record, FullShot Standard Edition automates the screen capture process very successfully. The tool uses a different capture mechanism and workflow from most of its competitors, and it is a matter of personal preference as to whether it is any more or less easy to use than the other tools. The interface is fairly complex.

For further information or purchase, see http://www.inbit.com.

HyperSnap-DX 6 (Hyperionics Technology)    

HyperSnap-DX 6 is a mature and popular screen capture tool. It contains an impressive array of features, matching many of the most useful options available in the other tools reviewed in this article. HyperSnap-DX 6 provides a high level of control over the final image file in terms of color depth, palette, and compression. A highlight of the tool, in my view, is its mechanism for defining the target area of the screen for "region" captures—this seems to be rather more intuitive and to offer more precise control than the methods used by the other tools reviewed in this article.

Generally I found HyperSnap-DX 6 to be a fairly intuitive product—the user interface is well organized, and it has a useful and comprehensive Help system.

HyperSnap-DX user interface

HyperSnap-DX provides a wide range of different types of screen capture, including entire screen, window or control, region, button (very useful), and freehand shape. There is also a TextSnap^TM feature that enables you to capture editable text from most windows and dialogs. A nice little refinement for button capture is a setting that enables you to specify a fixed number of extra pixels to be included around the captured button. Freehand shape does not mean quite the same thing as it does in FullShot and SnagIt, and it would be more accurately described as a polygon-shaped region. There is a keyboard shortcut for each of these capture types, and useful keyboard shortcut (F11) for repeating the last screen capture.

When you start a screen capture (either by using a keyboard shortcut, or by choosing one of the options from the Capture menu), HyperSnap-DX minimizes and enables you to select the required target for the capture. If you are selecting a window, control, or button, HyperSnap-DX highlights each screen element as you pass your mouse over it. If you are selecting a region, then HyperSnap-DX requires you to click the left mouse button once to indicate the top-left corner and then again for the bottom-right corner. Whichever type of capture you are making, HyperSnap-DX overlays a useful Help panel on the screen that provides information on the available mouse and keyboard actions for making the selection. It also enables you to control the selection region pixel-by-pixel using the left and right arrow keys, which enables you to select a region with great precision.

HyperSnap-DX contains a comprehensive set of options and settings for standardizing the color depth, color palette, resolution, and file type of each capture automatically. Uniquely, it also gives you the option of setting parameters for automatically cropping each capture to a specific width and height, which can be very useful for creating a series of captures with identical dimensions.

HyperSnap-DX 6 enables you to save your options and settings to a named external file—this can be read in again when the same configuration of settings is required. I was pleased to see this new feature (added in version 5.60), but did not find it quite as "user-friendly" as the profiles that are provided by both SnagIt and TNT.

HyperSnap-DX has a number of built-in image editing controls that enable you to crop, resize, annotate, or highlight areas of the captured image. These raster-based editing actions are available from a floating Drawing Tools toolbar that, by default, is docked on the left-hand side of main HyperSnap-DX window. So all the pre-and post-capture operations can be completed within a single window.

Strengths

• Wide range of capture options
• Well-organized and easy to use interface
• Support for precise selection of capture region using arrow keys

Weaknesses

• Limited support for edge effects such as torn paper
• No built-in vector-based image editor
• No support for true freehand region selection

Summary of HyperSnap-DX 6

Overall HyperSnap-DX offers a well-designed package that enables easy and very precise capture of regions, buttons, and other screen elements.

For further information or purchase, see http://www.hyperionics.com/.

MadCap Capture 2 (MadCap Software)    

MadCap Capture is the newest of the tools reviewed in this article. It was released in October 2006 as a companion product to MadCap's Flare authoring tool, and its interface is very similar to that of Flare's. Although it lacks some of the advanced features of the more established tools, MadCap Capture does include a number of unique innovations that offer very practical benefits to its users.

MadCap Capture is heavily based on "profiles" (named collections of capture settings). To specify your require capture settings, you must use the Profile Editor to create or edit a profile and then ensure that required profile is selected as the "Current Profile" at capture time. By switching profiles, you can quickly and easily change to different collections of capture settings.

MadCap Capture interface showing Help pane and Profiles Editor

My favorite feature that distinguishes MadCap Capture from other products is its support for "recapturing" regions using precisely the same screen coordinates as used by the original capture. This is not the same as the "Repeat Last Capture" option available within HyperSnap-DX and RoboScreen Capture because MadCap Flare enables you to recapture a region that was originally captured perhaps days or months earlier. It does this by saving an additional file (that has a .props extension) with each captured screen—this file contains the coordinates of the original region capture.

Another capability of this tool is that, if used in conjunction with MadCap's Flare authoring tool, it enables you to "single-source" different two different image files (one suited to onscreen presentation and the other optimized for print) from the same capture. You optionally specify a Print Format (including file format, color depth and DPI) within your capture profile, and this information is stored alongside each captured image in the same .props file mentioned in the previous paragraph. But what if you happened to require a higher resolution or greater color depth in your printed version than you had stored in your captured image file? MadCap Capture caters for this by creating at capture time a lossless version of the captured image as TIFF code. It embeds this TIFF code within, yes you've guessed it, the .props file . MadCap Flare can then use this to generate the required print file format when building print-oriented output (such as a FrameMaker document).

MadCap Capture also excels at annotating and editing captured images. It provides a comprehensive range of vector-based drawing tools and objects, and even enables you to combine two different bitmap images while keeping each of them on a separate layer so that they can be independently edited or replaced. Somewhat oddly, MadCap Capture does not allow you to include the mouse pointer in your images at capture time—however, it does provide an editing mode that enables you quickly and easily to add a mouse pointer (in a wide range of designs and highlighted in a variety of possible ways) post-capture.

On a more mundane level, MadCap Capture does not provide a magnified view of the area around the mouse pointer during region captures, and cannot be minimized to the system tray as can most of its leading competitors. An additional consideration is that, to get the most from this tool you will also need to purchase its companion product, MadCap Flare.

Strengths

• Ability to reproduce the position and dimensions of previous region captures
• Integration with MadCap Flare, and support for "single-sourcing" screen- and print-oriented image formats
• Multi-layered vector-based image editor

Weaknesses

• Can't be minimized to the system tray
• No magnified view of area surrounding mouse pointer during region capture
• Reliance on Flare to exploit certain features fully

Summary of MadCap Capture 2

A very interesting and innovative screen capture tool that has focused on streamlining the screen capture workflow rather than competing on feature-count.

For further information or purchase, see www.madcapsoftware.com/products/capture/.

Paint Shop Pro 9 (Corel Corporation)    

Of course, Paint Shop Pro is not just a screen capture tool, but a feature-rich image-editing tool that happens to have a built-in screen capture capability. Paint Shop Pro was developed by Jasc Software, a company that was acquired by Corel Corporation in October 2004. It is a fine product that has been used by user assistance specialists to good effect for many years. My only concern is that, since being repositioned as a photo-editing application and a competitor to Adobe PhotoShop, it now has more features than most technical authors would ever need—this makes for a somewhat unnecessarily complicated-looking interface (and also means that the evaluation download for version 9 is nudging 100 MB).

Paint Shop Pro 9 includes a fairly basic screen capture facility that has not been enhanced in the last four major releases of the product. The question is, will this satisfy the screen capture needs of most Paint Shop Pro users, or is it still worth spending the extra money for a specialized screen capture tool?

The Capture Setup dialog (shown below) provides a limited set of options for capturing screens.

Capture Setup dialog

Unless you have a need to capture individual buttons, cascading menus, or non-rectangular regions, these options may be sufficient to meet your needs in terms of defining the capture input. The more significant shortcoming of Paint Shop Pro compared to the other tools in this article is that it contains no options for automatically standardizing at capture time the resolution, color depth, or edge effects. This means that, every time you make a capture, you are likely to have a number of post-capture tasks to complete before saving the image.

Having said that, one of the new features of Paint Shop Pro 9 is its support for scripts that enable you to automate a sequence of image-editing tasks. By using a batch process to execute the same script on multiple image files, it's possible to standardize the color depth and resolution of multiple captures in a single operation.

Strengths

• Capture utility is simple and easy to use
• State-of-the-art vector- and raster-based image-editing features
• Scripts and batch processing enable fast post-capture standardization of files

Weaknesses

• Limited options for capturing
• No magnified view of area surrounding cursor during capture of regions
• No automatic processing of image on capture

Summary of Paint Shop Pro 9's capture utility

Probably sufficient for anyone who makes only occasional screen captures—others will save time and money in the long-term by purchasing one of the specialized screen capture tools (not as a replacement for Paint Shop Pro, but to complement it).

For further information or purchase, see the Paint Shop Pro home page on Corel's web site.

RoboScreen Capture 2 (Adobe)    

RoboScreen Capture 2 is based on the code for version 5 of HyperSnap-DX, which was licensed in 2003 to eHelp Corporation. RoboScreen Capture 2 is now included by Adobe in its RoboHelp 6 authoring tool and is not available to buy separately.

RoboScreen Capture user interface

RoboScreen Capture 2 is therefore very similar to HyperSnap-DX 6, and provides an impressive array of useful features. These include the ability to add captions and "stamps" to a capture image. However, RoboScreen Capture 2 lacks the enhancements that have been added to HyperSnap-DX since 2003. For example, RoboScreen Capture 2 does not enable you to save capture settings for future use.

Strengths

• Wide range of capture options
• Support for precise selection of capture region using arrow keys
• Integrated with Adobe RoboHelp 6

Weaknesses

• No support for edge effects such as fade or torn paper
• No built-in vector-based image editor
• Doesn't enable you to save capture settings for future use

Summary of RoboScreen Capture 2

Overall RoboScreen Capture 2 offers a well-designed package that enables easy and very precise capture of regions, buttons, and other screen elements. It is included free with Adobe RoboHelp 6 and is not available to buy separately.

For further information or purchase, see www.adobe.com/products/robohelp/.

SnagIt 8 (TechSmith Corporation)    

SnagIt is, in my view, probably the most full-featured of the capture tools reviewed in this article. However, it's also very easy to use thanks to a well-designed interface and workflow.

The workflow at the heart of the tool supports the author's needs at every stage of the capture process. It enables you to select capture settings (including a wide-range of standardization options and effects) capture the image, preview it, and optionally use a range of vector-based editing tools to add callouts, arrows, stamps, etc.

The capture settings over which you have control are logically organized into four groups: Input (screen, window, region, etc.); Output (file, email, catalog, etc.); Effects for standardizing on image resolution, adding edge effects, etc.; and Options. The current status of each of these settings is displayed graphically in the SnagIt window, which is a really nice touch—you can quickly check the current settings without needing to use any menu options or dialogs.

SnagIt user interface showing current settings

SnagIt supports almost all the capture options available in the other tools in this article. Of all the tools, it has the widest selection of options for the shape of the capture region, and its Effects options enable the automatic creation of a variety of edge effects including drop shadow, fade, and torn paper. Like TNT, SnagIt supports profiles that allow you to save and reuse specific combinations of capture settings.

Among its unique features are the following:

• Text capture: this enables you to capture editable text from screens such as file listings, error messages, and status pane information.
• Printer capture: this enables you to capture an image of what is sent to the printer, and is activated by printing to the SnagIt printer from any application that can print.
• Catalog Browser: this makes the management of captured images easier, and enables you to apply conversion filters to multiple image files in a single operation.
• Links/Hotspots feature: this new feature in version 8 enables you to add interactivity to your captured images easily.

You activate a capture by clicking the Capture button within the SnagIt interface, or by pressing <Ctrl>+<Shift>+<P>. This keyboard shortcut can be used even when SnagIt is minimized, at which time it resides in the system tray.

To specify a capture region, you click and drag the left-hand mouse button to form the region—a magnified view of a small area of the screen surrounding the cursor is displayed for greater precision (see the image beside this text). As soon as you release the left mouse button, the capture is complete.

You have the option of first displaying captured images in SnagIt's Preview Window, which contains a wide range of vector-based editing and annotation tools. My favorite of these tools is Resize Image, which supports smooth scaling and previews immediately the effect of the resize as you change the percentage values for width and height.

The final captured image can be sent automatically to one or more of the following outputs: printer, clipboard, file, email, Catalog Browser, FTP server, Instant Messenger, or any external graphics editor.

Capturing files from the Internet

In version 7.2, SnagIt's ability to capture files from the Internet was enhanced—you can now automatically capture a range of file types (including images, audio, and video) from a web site, specifying a limit for the number of links that it will traverse from the home page while searching for these files. In addition, SnagIt 8 enables you to capture a Web page and have all of the links remain clickable.

Strengths

• Exceptionally well-designed interface and workflow
• Comprehensive options for capturing, standardizing, and adding effects to images
• Bundled tools include powerful vector-based image editor and file management utility

Weaknesses

• Rather lame capture sound effect
• May offer more features than required by some users

Summary of SnagIt 8

A full-featured package with a logical workflow that is likely to address the needs of most user assistance developers.

For further information or purchase, see http://www.techsmith.com/snagit.asp.

TNT Screen Capture 2 (EC Software)    

TNT has the least extensive and simplest interface of all the tools reviewed in this article. However, it is very well designed, and despite its simplicity, offers a range of features and options that will satisfy the needs of most authors.

TNT user interface

Although relatively new to the screen capture market, TNT has introduced some innovative new features. For example, it was the first screen capture tool to offer a torn paper edge option, although this option is now also available in SnagIt 8. Another very nice innovation is the capture wizard, which is implemented using WinHelp 4's Training Card functionality. This enables you to set the capture options and make the capture from the Help itself—it's a very effective demonstration of how online Help can actually be used as an extension of the user interface, and incidentally is the only implementation of Microsoft's Training Card Help that I ever remember seeing (outside of its token usage within the UA for Microsoft Help Workshop).

TNT's capture options are all presented within the main screen. These options, although relatively small in number, are well chosen. They enable a high degree of capture flexibility and they automate all the tasks of a typical screen capture. In addition to the standard options for capturing windows and rectangular regions, TNT supports the capture of fixed-size regions (useful for making a series of screen captures that all have the same size). It also enables you to set the capture region to a variety of different shapes—these include rounded rectangle, ellipse, and a selection of predefined shapes with "torn paper" edges, such as in the example below:

Example of torn paper capture

When you minimize TNT, it is not displayed on the Taskbar like a regular minimized application, but instead becomes an icon in the system tray. When TNT is present in the system tray, pressing the <Print Screen> button activates a TNT capture using the current settings.

Each time you initiate a capture, an information window appears that tells you how to select the required capture region—there is an option to prevent this window appearing again. To specify a capture region, you click and drag the left-hand mouse button to form the region—a small window appears showing the coordinates of the current cursor position, and a magnified view of a small area of the screen surrounding the cursor. This enables greater precision in defining the region. You complete the capture by clicking inside of the rectangle. This method is intuitive, and has the benefit of enabling you to tweak the region until it's correct before confirming the capture.

There is an option for applying an automatic zoom factor at capture, and this includes a number of different smooth-scaling algorithms from which you can select. In practice, however, it's always best to make screen captures without resizing (i.e., using a zoom factor of 100%). TNT 2's main screen incorporates a toolbar for adding raster-based images and annotations to your screens after capturing them.

A useful time-saving feature of TNT is the ability to save a set of capture settings as a named profile. You can set this profile to load automatically when you start TNT in the future, and it is also possible to load a specific profile at any time while using the product.

Strengths

• Ease of use
• Wide range of capture types and settings
• Online Help that uses Training Card functionality to operate as a wizard

Weaknesses

• No support for capturing individual buttons
• No support for capturing multiple cascading menus
• No direct support for capturing the desktop—instead you must drag the selection frame to include the entire desktop

Summary of TNT Screen Capture 2

An innovative and streamlined capture tool that is exceptionally simple and easy to use.

For further information or purchase, see http://www.ec-software.com/tnt.htm.

Comparative Feature Table    

This table is not intended to contain a comprehensive listing of each of the tool's features. It is, instead, a side-by-side comparison of the tools' support for some of the features that I have identified as being of highest priority.

Matthew Ellison has 20 years of experience as a user assistance professional in the software industry. He has been a popular speaker at WritersUA events throughout the world since 1997, and is now Director of Online Help Conference - Europe. Matthew holds a B.Sc. in Electronic Engineering and a Post-Graduate Certificate of Education from Bristol University in the UK. He is also a certified instructor for a range of Help Authoring Tools.