MendoClick™
A Picture Beats a Thousand B-B-B's

Screen pictures can come in handy - for your own notes, to show someone else, or to include in training or reference materials. Do you need a special image capture program? Maybe.

In Windows 95 and above, you can copy the entire screen to the clipboard by pressing the PRINT SCREEN (PRNT SCRN) key. Then go into a program which can handle graphics - even Microsoft Paint² or Word - and paste the picture from the clipboard. Now you can edit, save, or print the screen image. Since so many programs can edit and convert bitmap files, cropping your picture to just the portion you want is not a problem, but you can save yourself a step if you only want the active window: press ALT + PRINT SCRN instead. You can even get drop-down menus in the picture with PRINT SCREEN, though not with ALT + PRINT SCREEN. All that is missing is the mouse pointer.

If you copy many screen images or need some fancier features, read on. (If all you need to do is send shots to a printer without saving them, check out the very simple shareware ScreenPrint32 by Provtech - http://surf.to/provtech (Win 95/98/ME/NT/2000, $20 or free for home or charity).)

I compared seven screen capture software programs. All of them will save you keystrokes once you have them set up to suit your preferences. Unlike the Windows utility, all can print the image capture directly and most have the capabilities below, summarized by product in the table following. I compare them in greater depth and discuss their fancier features following the table.

Basic Features

1. Show the mouse pointer
2. Allow you to select a rectangular area of any size and screen position before you capture the shot, in addition to the options for whole screen and active window
3. Allow you to crop it further after the shot
4. Shrink and enlarge the picture
5. Save it in several different file formats
6. Manipulate colors in one or more ways. In table: B=converts to a different number of colors (16-bit, 24-bit, etc.), C=can change color values, G=converts to grayscale, W=can use default Windows colors (regardless of user's current Windows settings), N=no color manipulation possible.

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SD Capture and PrnScreen failed my first test: they could not show the mouse pointer. SD Capture seemed so simple, I was surprised that it allowed resizing, but then I discovered the quality of reduced images was much worse than that of any of the other programs. The software has not been updated to run with newer versions of Windows, and, unless it is dramatically overhauled, I doubt it has a future.

PrnScreen offered the strangest features, taxing my mind to come up with probable reasons for why a person might want to buy it. However, now that it is free, I have a more favorable opinion of it. It is the only program that allows you to warp a screen picture into a fish-eye view. You can also exchange the component screen colors - red for green or green for blue, for example. Other features seemed more commonly practical, like the ability to fade the picture, which could turn it into a useful background image. Still, it makes more sense to use a better graphics program than this for these types of alterations. PrnScreen was the most difficult to figure out primarily because it had so many unexpected and not particularly desirable features, although once I accepted that they were there, it was not very complicated.

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Capture by George! was the simplest to use, partly because there was not much to it. Nevertheless, it impressed me because what it did do, it did well. It would certainly save time and keystrokes, and it can even show the mouse pointer. (The pointer in my screen tests was the default Windows pointer, however, rather than the "3D" one I actually display on my screen - a minor quibble.) You cannot crop shots after you capture them, but it is very easy to decide on the screen beforehand just what to include, and you can always crop with other software later. The software can reduce and enlarge the image capture, and does not do a bad job of it.³ It can save files in bitmap (BMP), JPEG (JPG), GIF, and PNG formats. Capture by George! may be all that you need.

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I found HardCopy Pro almost as obvious to use as Capture by George!. You can show the mouse pointer only if you capture the whole window, but then you can immediately crop the screen image within the software. You can set up a default action in advance so that with each shot the program saves time by immediately going to the next step - save, save as, copy, edit, print, or adjust, depending on your predefined choice. It also has a sequential save feature, where you pick the name once and it appends the name with a number in sequence as you take shot after shot - great for a series of related pictures. You cannot shrink or enlarge the impression, but you can quickly jump to another editing program from within this software, solving that need. It also has a feature called "autocrop," good for cropping right around an icon or another area where the change in colors signals a boundary line. Finally, it allows you to save in bitmap (BMP), JPEG (JPG), GIF, and PNG formats.

SmartCapture, also by DeskSoft, has all the features of HardCopy Pro (above) and more (see table above), but they are arranged in a more standardized menu format. Partly because there is more to it and partly because some functions are only reached through the "Profile" option, I found it a bit confusing at first, though not difficult. You can set up multiple profiles, enabling you to switch quickly between the capture modes you use regularly. Besides being able to capture a screen, window, or rectangle of any size, you can also fix the size of the rectangle in advance - good for documentation where you want all the shots the same size - or fix particular screen coordinates for capture. The shareware goes beyond image captures to work directly with scanners and cameras as well (TWAIN devices), but I did not evaluate these features.

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Paraben's Screen Capture is in a league of its own. It does almost everything you could want, as well or better than the other software I reviewed. I was surprised to find that it could not set up profiles like SmartCapture and T.N.T., but it has plenty of other virtues.

I discovered that it can capture a window too big to fit on the screen, automatically scrolling from top to bottom before your eyes as it takes the shot. Although I had no immediate use for such a feature, I was so excited I tried it on my Microsoft Outlook window of emails received - a brutal test, to be sure. Well, it failed to capture all 63 windows worth, but it did get the first 20, so I'm still impressed. Then I challenged it further by trying out the "append" function on the same scrolling window, this time starting where it left off so it only had 43 windows to go. I crashed my system (Windows 98). Oh, well. Paraben's "help" file does say that the scrolling feature does not work with all software, after all. To be fair, I had no trouble with the rest of it, and for all I know, the trouble could lie with Windows rather than Paraben.

Paraben's Screen Capture can be set to save each shot automatically, incrementing a number tagged onto the file name just like DeskSoft's two programs. It has editing functions that are as full as many graphics programs, allowing all sorts of color adjustments, and even includes basic drawing tools and a highlighting function. It can handle more file types than the others, including the common types plus DIB, TIFF, LEAD (CMP), TARGA (TGA) and WPG. Like SmartCapture, it can also work directly with TWAIN devices - your scanner and camera. The documentation mentions the ability to capture images from multimedia, including DVD and games, something I did not try. None of the other shareware reviewed here can do that, though I have heard of others that can - SnagIt by TechSmith Corporation (www.techsmith.com), for example.

Like SmartCapture and T.N.T. Screen Capture, you can specify a region size in advance. You have two choices for methods: "crop image" and "scale image." For the former, if you pick an area too big, it simply cuts it to your chosen size, but you do not get to see where it will crop it until you have already taken the shot. This is a disadvantage compared to T.N.T. and SmartCapture. However, if you select the "scale image" option, it reduces or enlarges the image to fit (while maintaining the aspect ratio if you so desire), a unique feature I admired.

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T.N.T. Screen Capture, which I had already reviewed last month, has some nice features not found in any of the other shareware, though it lacks some of the virtues of DeskSoft's and Paraben's programs. A choice of background colors and shading for behind the screen image make it stand out on the page. The mouse pointer also can be emphasized with shading or a red mark behind it. These features - along with other options like the ability to crop your shot into an oval shape with or without faded edges - make your documentation look that much more professional (but Paraben can give your screen pictures rounded corners, too). T.N.T. is designed to focus your reader's attention where you want it.

Choices for shrinking and enlarging the shot are limited to 25, 33, 50, 75, and 200 percent - probably adequate the vast majority of the time. Like SmartCapture, you can save profiles of settings. It only saves in bitmap format, but most graphics software can convert this, so it is probably not important. T.N.T. cannot save pictures automatically in sequence, a time disadvantage in many situations. It also lacks the ability to jump straight to a more sophisticated graphics program. All in all, I consider T.N.T. Screen Capture to be the equal of SmartCapture unless you care about SmartCapture's scanner and camera features. Which you choose depends on what you need it for.

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In summary, then, if you want simple and quick and can pay about $20, choose HardCopy Pro. It offers a little more than Capture by George! at the same price (though you might try both of them yourself). If you need to make very pretty documentation quickly, consider T.N.T. Screen Capture for the easy shadowing effects that make the screen picture and cursor look like they are floating above the background. But try out Paraben's Screen Capture as well, because it has highlighting and other capabilities that may work better, depending on your needs. If you want to make a large number of image captures quickly, consider SmartCapture or Paraben, unless HardCopy Pro has enough features for your needs. Finally, if you want to handle scanner and photo input, consider SmartCapture or Paraben because they may save you (or future staff) from having to learn and run one or more additional programs for these other functions.

Footnotes: (Click number to return to paragraph)

²Start Menu->Program->Accessories->Paint

³Some distortion is inevitable. If you want absolutely clear text within a shrunken image, you need to "cheat" by cutting out that part of the image and using a graphics program which allows you to type text in directly at whatever size fits. If you use Paraben's Screen Capture, you can type text without leaving the software.

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