The best screen­shot tools at a glance

Apow­er­soft Free Screen Capture is available for both Windows and Mac. With this tool, the image sections can be freely selected (even non-rec­tan­gu­lar image sections are possible), screen­shots can be edited directly and in a lot of detail, saved locally, printed, sent, saved in a free cloud, or shared via social media.

The screen­shot tool, Duck­Cap­ture, is es­pe­cial­ly im­pres­sive due to its auto scrolling feature: the software allows you to save the entire screen or a selected area as an image. The actual highlight is that the tool can also capture the area that would only become visible by scrolling down, meaning that you can make screen­shots of longer websites. With multi-captures being possible, it means that image pro­cess­ing is also somewhat ahead of the com­pe­ti­tion: you can combine several screen­shot sections into one image. You can also comment on the screen­shots in the form of arrows, boxes, and text.

Greenshot is free of charge and is dis­trib­uted under the open source license. To create a screen­shot with this screen­shot tool, you can either use the icon in the taskbar or simply press the print key on your keyboard. Scrol­lable web pages can also be fully captured in the same way as with Duck­Cap­ture. Simple image editing is able possible: in addition to the standard reper­toire (comments, arrows, or speech bubbles), you can also use the high­lighter tool to highlight places and make certain areas un­rec­og­niz­able by using a blur filter.

The Icecream Screen Recorder enables its users to make video record­ings and screen­shots of any image section. The screen­shot tool is available in a free and premium version. With the free version, you can enhance your screen­shots with your own an­no­ta­tions and extend your screen­casts with a si­mul­ta­ne­ous recording from your webcam. If you choose the paid version, you also have the option of zooming during recording, which records only a specific area around your cursor or displays your personal watermark. The premium version lets you cut unwanted parts from your video, and lets you display shortcuts that you can use during your screen­cast e.g. to create tutorials.

LightShot is a light-weight tool for many platforms. The image sections can be freely selected and small edits can be carried out directly in the program. To edit the image files more ex­ten­sive­ly, LightShot offers online image editing: with one click, you can upload the file and then change it in your browser. Another in­ter­est­ing feature is that you can use Google Image Search to find similar images.

Screen­shot program Monosnap is quick and easy to use. You can freely select the image you want to copy, with simple image editing and a comment function also included. The screen­cast feature enables you to record videos of your screen, which can be enhanced with a picture from your webcam and audio com­men­tary via mi­cro­phone.

The in­con­spic­u­ous Screen­shot Captor for Windows has it all: With this screen­shot freeware, you can pho­to­graph complete websites thanks to the auto scroll function. You can also use this tool to save a freely se­lec­table area or the entire screen as a snapshot. There is also a feature than enables you to capture multiple screens in­de­pen­dent­ly of each other. The main aim of the image editing functions is to mark certain areas or places on the image i.e. with ClipArt. It’s also possible to enhance your screen­shots using the different frames available. An add-on allows you to record videos. The program is rounded off by built-in file man­age­ment.

The open source software ShareX offers every­thing you need when creating screen­shots. You can take pictures of different sections: the entire screen (or different monitors, if you have several connected), a freely selected area, entire web pages through auto scrolling, or certain windows. Screen­casts are possible in this screen­shot program as well as GIF-file gen­er­a­tion to display processes better. Once you’ve made your screen­shot, you can add labels and wa­ter­marks to it. ShareX also provides text recog­ni­tion (OCR). The upload options are also im­pres­sive: Simply save your snapshots as a file on your hard drive or upload them to a cloud service, social networks, an image or text hosting server, or upload them to your own server via FTP. Al­ter­na­tive­ly, you can send the file as an e-mail.

If you want to make screen­shots on your iPhone and not just have to rely on Apple’s limited pos­si­bil­i­ties, you should try Skitch from Evernote. Orig­i­nal­ly, the screen­shot app was also available for many other platforms, but now it’s only available for iOS. The app allows you to create custom screens, which you can then insert markers into, such as arrows. Other photos can also be edited later using the app. You can either save the images directly on your phone, send them by e-mail, or upload the screen­shots to Evernote’s server and then share the link.

Snagit combines the ability to take screen­shots and screen­casts in one single ap­pli­ca­tion. When you create a screen­shot, you can crop and customize it, add graphic elements such as stamps, arrows, and speech bubbles, or blur certain sections. If you want to capture a web page, you can save it as a PDF file with all links included. With the panorama function, you can create a large image by scrolling (e.g. in a large online map). Recording a video file is quite simple and you can ad­di­tion­al­ly record your com­men­tary for the video by mi­cro­phone. When you’re done, crop the file as you like. You must purchase a license for the screen­shot software. Before that, you have the pos­si­bil­i­ty to test the program for 15 days free of charge.

The screen­shot app Stitch & Share: big screen­shot from the developer company Glitch is available to all users of Android smart­phones. The app not only makes it possible to create simple screen­shots, but also enables you to capture longer Messenger con­ver­sa­tions or web pages in one image using the scrolling function. Af­ter­wards, you can use the image editing function to select specific areas or adjust the format of the image. You can save or forward the screen­shot – either by sending the file directly via different Messenger apps or by sending a link to the image. To do this, the app loads the image onto a web space and provides the URL.