What is Screenshot Captor?
Screenshot Captor is another third-party screen-capturing tool designed to substitute the Windows built-in screenshot applications. The tool allows you to take screenshots in different ways (e.g., regional, fixed, scrolling windows) while providing a list of editing features. The minimalistic UI and non-intrusive presence on the system make it a better option, among many other similar third-party software.
Developed and hosted by DonationCoder, Screenshot Captor is just over a year old. Its first version was launched on February 04, 2019. The fourth and latest version of the program v4 36.1 was dropped in January this year.
Screenshot Captor works on Windows XP, 7, 8, and 10 and is also available in a portable version. It is free for personal use, and even the paid version offered to commercial users doesn’t have a high price point like other third-party software applications. Screenshot Captor is available on the DonationCoder website. You can download it from here.
How to Install Screen Captor?
Downloading the setup file and installing Screenshot Captor on your device is pretty simple. Go to the Screenshot Captor’s page on DonationCoder. You will see the above window with the interface heavily influenced by the early web designs. On the left side of the page, you will see an entire vertical menu outlining information about the program.
From the Latest Official Release option in the menu, you can download Screenshot Captor Version 4. Click on the Download v4 36.1 tab, and a setup file that is around 8 MB in size will be downloaded on your device.
Click on the link, and the installation process will start.
Click Run.
Click Next.
Select the location where you want to install the program on your device. By default, it will be installed in the Program Files folder in the system drive.
Select if you want to create a Start Menu folder of the application and click Next.
Select if you want to create a desktop icon or want to reset the program settings (if not using it for the first time) and click Next.
Click Install.
Click Next.
Click Finish and remove the check if you don’t want to use the program at that moment.
As soon as you finish the installation, the Screenshot Captor icon will start appearing in the bottom-right task menu. Also, the application overrides the function of the Print Screen key. After the installation of Screenshot Captor, the Print Screen key will take the screenshot and open it in the application instead of copying it on the clipboard.
Screenshot Captor is a free screen-capturing application for personal use. However, you still need to request a freeware license from the DonationCoder website if you want to have continuous and uninterrupted use of the tool.
Uses of Screenshot Captor
Apart from using Screenshot Captor to take full and active screen or regional screenshots, you can also use it for:
- Taking scrolling window screenshots
- Taking pixel-precise snippets while picking the color codes
- Customizing the taken screenshots with a host of editing and annotating features
How to Use Screenshot Captor?
It takes some getting used to when working on Screenshot Captor initially. The key to using Screenshot Captor is to understand its right-click menu. When you right-click on the Screenshot Capture icon in the taskbar, you will see the below menu.
As you can see, you can use most of the Screenshot Captor features from here. The first option from the menu lets you have a floating quick capture bar on your screen.
This floating widget has the look of a classic Windows application. At first glance, it seems the bar only features a couple of basic tasks and functions. However, that’s not the case. This quick-capture bar of Screenshot Captor offers everything that you expect from any comprehensive third-party screen-capturing tool for Windows. These include:
- Taking full-screen, active window, selected region, fixed region, and scrolling window screenshots from the bar.
- Grab and export images from the connected scanner and webcam.
- Change capturing and post-capturing settings. For instance, you can introduce a 1000ms time delay in the captures
If you want to use the Captor’s screen-capturing options more directly, you can get it going with the hotkey shortcuts. The main keyboard shortcuts are as follows:
- Capture full/current screen: Print Screen key
- Capture active window: Alt+ Print Screen keys
- Capture fixed size region: Ctrl+Alt+Print Screen keys
- Capture selected region: Shift+ Print Screen keys
- Capture scrolling window: Shift+Ctrl+Print Screen keys
When you use shortcut keys to take screenshots, they open the below window.
It is important to mention here that the selection cursor of Screenshot Captor offers pixel-level measurements of the selection region.
Screenshot Captor Main Window/Editor
Screenshot Captor’s main window has all the features and functions that this screen-capturing tool offers. Its interface also looks like something grabbed from Windows 98. Let’s have a quick rundown of its different menus and taskbars.
The Vertical Taskbar
Besides saving, printing, and uploading the captured shots, you can use the vertical taskbar for several editing options. These include:
- Resize and add edges and borders to an image.
- Draw arrows.
- Include clipart objects on to the screenshot.
- Add a text box to the grabbed images and also label and annotate it with a paint brush from an entire palette of colors.
Every editing and annotating feature provided in this taskbar comes with a lot of customization options. For instance, you can add the text from various font style and size options as well as adjust the border width and text alignment. Similarly, you can add an arrow while picking different colors for its head and tail and can also add a text label at its end.
See the below example of a couple of editing and annotation tasks that you can run from the vertical taskbar of Screenshot Captor’s main window.
Screenshot Captor Special Effects
Screenshot Captor also offers some advanced screen-capturing features. You can find them in the top bar of the main window and in the drop-down menu of Special FX1 and Special FX2.
Special FX1
From here, you can blur, interlace, pixelate, and delete the content on the captured screenshot. You can also dim and transform parts of the screenshot into grayscale.
Special FX2
This menu allows you to add watermarks to the images. You can also change the border and edges in more detail from there. The color adjustment is also part of this menu. You can change brightness, contrast, and hue setting of the screenshot taken via Screenshot Captor from the color adjustment menu.
Color Picker
You can also pick colors from the captured screenshot with their RGB and Hexa codes from the Tools option. This option comes in useful for anyone trying to produce any content/image with the same thematic as that of the taken screenshot.
Apart from these notable editing tools, there are a host of other editing options that you can use from the Screenshot Captor’s main window.
Screenshot Captor Alternatives
Like any other software, you can find many Screenshot Captors alternatives online. Since Screenshot Captor is primarily a free application, we will compare it with the other two free and popular third-party screen-capturing tools for Windows: ShareX and Greenshot. You can also read our detailed reviews of Greenshot and ShareX.
ShareX | Screenshot Captor | Greenshot |
Free and open-source | Free for individual users | Free and open-source |
Captures entire scrolling webpages | Captures entire scrolling webpages | Takes scrolling captures but only on the Internet Explorer |
Records screen in mp4 and GIF formats | Doesn’t offer screen-recording | Doesn’t offer screen-recording |
Shares and uploads files and folders | The sharing and uploading options are quite limited | Shares and uploads file only |
Designed for Windows and also available in portable versions | Designed for Windows and also available in portable versions | Designed for Windows and only available in the installed program version |
The editor is quite basic | One of the best editors available in free software | The editor is quite basic |
If your work involves taking screenshots and sharing them on the fly, ShareX and Greenshot offer better value than Screenshot Captor. However, if you want to carry out extensive editing and annotation on the captured shot, Screenshot Captor is the better pick.
Pricing of Screenshot Captor
Any individual user can use Screenshot Captor for personal use for free with its freeware license key. You can, however, make donations (strongly recommended) to support the developer community working at DonationCoder.
For commercial users, Screenshot Captor is available at a reasonable price plan. There is no difference between the features of paid and free version except that you get continuous technical support when you opt for the commercial license. This is the pricing breakdown for the commercial license.
Number of devices | Cost (USD) |
5-9 | $5 plus $20 per device |
10-99 | $125 plus $8 per device |
100-499 | $525 plus $4 per device |
500-3,000 | $1,525 plus $2 per device |
Download Screenshot Captor for Free: https://www.donationcoder.com/software/mouser/popular-apps/screenshot-captor
Summary
If you are used to the classic Windows UI and looking for a free screen-capturing tool that offers supreme editing features, Screenshot Capture is a perfect choice for you. It can capture all sorts of screenshots and lets you play with them with a range of editing and annotation features.
Price | ★★★★★ |
Ease of Use | ★★★★ |
Features | ★★★★ |
Overall | ★★★★ |