What is PicPick?
If you don’t want to use the built-in screen-capturing tools of Windows due to their limited features, you are now available with a list of third-party software applications that offer more features and better use. PicPick is also one of those applications. The application was first launched on June 2018 by NGWIN, a software development company with expertise on Windows platforms.
Right now, PicPick can be used both as installed software and as a portable application. It is available for both Windows 7 and Windows 10. The latest version of the application was released in November 2019 that fixed capturing issues users were facing on the Windows 10 devices. You can download this screen-capturing tool and viewer and editor from here.
PicPick has become one of the most popular screen-capturing tools among Windows users. Since its launch, it has been downloaded over two million times across different online platforms.
How to Install PicPick?
It is better to go to the PicPick’s official website instead of any other platform to install it. Go to its website. As you open this link, you will see a download tab right in front.
Click on Download and you will end up on the below page.
As you can see, you have two options to choose from. If you want to use PicPick for personal, non-commercial use, you can download it for free. Click on the blue Download button in the Free column. As you click on it, it will automatically download an executable file of over 15 MB on your computer.
Double-click on the file and it will start the installation process. Just follow the instructions and click through the windows and the program will be eventually installed on your computer. The installation of PicPick is pretty similar to regular Windows programs.
When you click the executable file in your Download folder, the above window will appear, click on Next.
Click through the License agreement.
Choose the location where you want to install the program. Like a good screen-capturing tool, PicPick is not heavy-duty software. All you need is 35 MB free space on your system to install it.
After clicking the Install button, you will end up on the above window within a fraction of a second. For the free version, you don’t need any license or serial key to activate the software. As the executable file installs the free version of PicPick on your computer, it is ready to use.
Uses of PicPick
PicPick has become popular among users because it offers more functions than a regular built-in screen-capturing tool. Let’s have a quick rundown of the uses of PicPick that you can have with your everyday computing.
- Screen Capture: Capture full screen, active window, scrolling window or any region of your desktop display.
- Edit: Edit your captured shots and other images with a built-in editor that offers a range of editing tools in the latest ribbon-style menu.
- Effect Enhancement: Besides regular editing, you can drop shadow to the images, add watermarks, create mosaics, introduce motion blur and fiddle with many other effects on the captured shot.
- Graphic Design Accessories: PicPick also offers a list of graphic designing accessories (we will discuss them in detail in the subsequent section).
- File-Sharing: PicPick also lets you share the captured, edited and enhanced screenshots across different platforms.
How to Use PicPick? (Quick Tutorial)
To fully understand how to use PicPick, we are going to break down its home window in different sections.
If you see the above window (home window of PicPick), you can see three main columns: the left sidebar in blue, the Screen Capture and the Graphic Accessories. Let’s first discuss the latter two.
Screen Capture Menu
The Screen Capture menu of PicPick is really simple to use. You have all the screen capturing options lined down in a vertical bar. You have a full-screen option that captures the entire desktop screen. The Active window captures the visuals of the window that is in front.
Scrolling Window lets you capture the screenshot of a file or page that comprises more than one screen. Here, PicPick outshines many screen-capturing tools including Greenshot that only offers scrolling Window capture on the Internet Explorer. You are not bound with such restraints in PicPick. Whether you are using Chrome, Firefox or Safari, you can take the screenshot of the scrolling window on any web browser with PicPick.
You can also use PicPick to capture the fixed and selected regions on the window. You can also use free-hand capturing with the application to take screenshots in different shapes and sizes.
The third option on the list “Window Control” opens a floating widget of all the screen-capturing options on the window you are working on. You can also retrieve the last captured image by using the last option on this menu bar.
Graphic Accessories
As mentioned earlier, PicPick is not a mere screen-capturing tool. It can also offer you features related to image editing and graphics. Case in point: its Graphic Accessories menu. Let’s have a look at what features are available there.
Color Picker: It works like a color picker of MS Paint with the exception that you can use it anywhere (on a web browser, files, folders, etc) and it features a built-in magnifier. This color picker works with RGB color model and compatible across different programming languages including C++, HTML, and Delphi.
Color Palette: This feature allows you to pick the color through the Color Picker to find out their exact coding in HTML, C++ and Delphi.
Pixel Ruler: This is literally a ruler that lets you measure the size of objects and icons on the screen in pixels, inches and centimeters.
Crosshair: Developing HTML image maps? This feature will allow you to find out the relative coordinates of the position of a picture/symbol/icon on the screen.
Protractor: You can measure the angles on the screen across different axes. From photo editing to illustrations and online geometric problems, you can use this feature wherever you have to find an angle on the screen.
Whiteboard: You can transform your entire screen into a whiteboard. You can draw arrows, lines as well as geometric shapes along with free-hand writing through this feature in dozens of different colors.
Image Editor
When you capture anything from PicPick, it automatically opens it in its Image Editor. This is how the PicPick’s Image Editor looks like (we have screen-captured the home page of PicPick).
If we look at the ribbon menu of the editor, it looks pretty similar to that of MS Paint. You can draw, fill and add a text box to the captured images. Then you have the options of resizing, rotating and selecting. The color palette also looks the same.
Effects and Stamps are the two options that make PicPick’s editor menu different from that of Paint. From the Effects drop-down menu, you can invert, blur, sharpen, and pixelate the image. You can also transform it into grayscale graphics and adjust its color balance, brightness, contrast, hue and saturation.
Stamps drop-down includes different symbols that you can affix on the captured shot. It includes arrows, cross and numbers.
The Left Sidebar
The majority of options on this sidebar are self-explanatory and you have used them across different Windows applications including Office Suite. However, the two selections on this sidebar require further discussion: Share and Options.
Share Menu
When you click on Share, the below menu will open.
As you can see, you can export the image from PicPick to MS Office and your email attachments. You can also upload the file directly to Facebook, Twitter and Skype. You can also transport the file to any cloud storage or directly to any location on the web.
From there, you can also send the image on the local intranet server or any external program other than the aforementioned applications. This share/send variety makes PicPick quite a functional screen-capturing tool.
Program Options
From changing default program mode to open the captured file and hotkey selection, Options is actually the setting menu of PicPick. Image quality, capture delay, FTP server settings and other relevant details can also be set and changed from this menu.
PicPick Alternatives
If you look online, you will find dozens of PicPick alternatives. However, every option is not a true alternative of PicPick with exceptions such as ShareX, Snagit, Greenshot, Camtasia and FastStone Capture. PicPick and ShareX are considered closed competitors of each other and therefore we are going to have a comparison of these two.
PicPick Vs. ShareX
Pros of PicPick and ShareX
- It is free for personal use
- It also comes as a portable app where you can use the application without installing it
- It features a lot of graphical measuring tools (pixel ruler, protractor, etc) that can help graphic designers as well as web developers
- Its Scrolling Window capture option is available across all web browsers
- You can share and send the captured image across a host of Windows and non-Windows platforms
- It is a free-for-all and open-source software with the GPL license
- It can capture bits of video files as well
- It also lets you create GIF files
Cons of PicPick and ShareX
- Doesn’t work on video files
- The scrolling window capture is not that good
- Too much of customization makes it a rather complex application
You can read our ShareX Review here.
The Final Verdict
For still captures and especially of scrolling windows, PicPick is a better option.
Special Mention: Scrolling Window Capture of PicPick
This feature truly makes PicPick stands apart among its peers. You won’t get such an easy-to-use and comprehensive scrolling window capture option that also works on all web browsers in other similar applications.
Pricing of PicPick
PicPick is free for personal use. However, you have to get the paid version if you are looking for commercial use. The features of both versions are more or less the same. Let’s try to understand the difference between the two versions from the below chart.
| Free | Paid |
| Needs manual updating | Auto updates to the latest version |
| Technical support is not given | Technical supports included in the package |
| Contains ads | Ad-free |
| Lifetime upgrades |
The Paid Version further branches out into three options
- Single: Comes in $29.99 and can be installed on two machines
- Team: You can buy the application for the machines of an entire team with a cost of $29.99 per member.
- Site: This option is available for large organizations and can be used on unlimited machines on a single network. It costs $1,950.
All of these paid versions are a one-time purchase and include licenses that entail unlimited updates for all the future versions of PicPick.
Download PicPick for Free: https://picpick.app/en/download
Buy PicPick Paid Version: https://picpick.app/en/buy
Summary
PicPick proves to be a great screen-capture tool for all those users who are looking for more than standard screenshot options of the built-in Windows tools. The best thing about PicPick is its Scrolling Window capture. The variety of file-sharing that comes with PicPick is also quite impressive. It allows you to share and send files on Windows programs, social media platforms as well as local servers
We also find its UI quite uncomplicated and user-friendly. The application is not heavy and even if you have space constraints, you can use its portable version that only occupies over 15 MB. The graphics accessory and image editing also add value to this screen-capture application. The paid version of PicPick is also worth its price since it doesn’t require any recurrent payments and comes with lifetime upgrades.
Overall, PicPick is a valuable screen capturing tool for Windows users.
| Price | ★★★★★ |
| Ease of Use | ★★★★★ |
| Features | ★★★★★ |
| Overall | ★★★★★ |
