Screen capture and annotation software

Draft

In addition, updating is needed here

See also:

• Screen capture tutorial

Introduction

(to do ....)

See also:

• Screen capture tutorial for more conceptual aspects of just the capturing

Free screenshot capture programs

MacOS, Windows

• Jing
  • widget that hides in the corner until clicked
  • image or video capture of selected area on screen
  • sound or mute
  • save to clipboard, locally or share
  • some simple annotation features for images
  • basic version free, added instant sharing and screencasting features for pro version

Windows

• SnapDraw (not tested so far)
  • Includes screen annotation

• Greenshot
  • Can capture Adobe CS6 pointers
  • Includes a screen annotation tool and basic image manipulation
  • As of sept. 2018, still recommended as the most useful free Windows program.

• LightShot
  • One click capturing area screenshot to Clipboard
  • Saving as files
  • Uploading to web, Editing picture after shoting

• ScreenPresso (free edition)
  • Not yet tested

• MwSnap (nice tool for Win XP, not longer updated)
  • It has 5 capturing modes and is fast (minimizes to the tray)
  • Supports several file formats for saving but no support for mouse pointer capture.

• Screen Hunter (the free basic version can save screen, active window or rectangle, save the mouse pointer (not in all cases), save to clipboard and file, supports gif/jpg/bmp format). I didn't manage to get the timer working.
• Autoscreenshot Takes pictures in regular intervals (not tested yet !)
• Autohotkey + a screen capture script.
  • One of the only useful tool I found for XP and that could capture the cursor(see a "how to" above). It's a free tool and works exactly as I want it to. Don't know if it still works for Win7
  • See also Irfanview below which generally does a very good job of capturing most everything.

MacOS X

• SnapNDrag
  • Basic version is free and supports several formats. The Pro Version can crop.

Linux

• Shutter. It comes with a Ubuntu PPA and a debian installer and probably others ... (ok on dec 2012)

Specific to applications (i.e. use within)

• Fireshot (Firefox extension). I recommend this.
• Pearl Crescent Page Saver, extension for Firefox that saves in JPEG and PNG. (Basic Version is free)
• Printing to PDF is also a trick to capture web pages (but PDF format is not always practical)

commercial screen capture

• SnagIt. One of the leading programs ($ 50)

• Final Impression (added 2011)

Video analysis

Video annotation for research purposes.

Some free software:

• Aquad 7 “is a software that was originally developed in the tradition of qualitative coding and qualitative content analysis. Content analysis without transcriptions: Videos (avi), audio-recordings (wav, mp3) und pictures (jpg) are coded directly on the screen. Content analysis of texts directly on the screen.”
• ELAN “is a professional tool for the creation of complex annotations on video and audio resources.”

Free image manipulation programs

In principle, they include some capturing tool

Multi-platform

• The GIMP (The GNU Imaging Program). Free and sophisticated, here a few tips to annotate screendumps (as quickly as possible)
  • To import a capture (with ALT-PrtScreen): File->Acquire->Paste as New
  • Ajust image size if you want: Image->Scale Image
  • Make the canevas bigger if you want side-annotations (this is recommended since you may erase text later). Image->Canevas Size
  • Then drag the image into position, make sure that you are aware of the total canevas size.
  • The annotate: Use an ugly color and a bold italic font, size 12 or 14. You can move text around in the active drawing window with arrows (until you hit "close". So think a bit before you do this. An imagining program is not meant for re-editing (see drawing programs below).

Windows

• IrfanView
• For those who have MS Office installed (so I don't think it's free) there is the Microsoft Picture Manager (good enough for a little bit of cropping etc.)
• Picasa (made by Google).

Online

• Snipshot (There may be more web 2.0 applications) which are really practical when you are on the road somewhere or in a badly installed PC room ...

Free drawing programs

• Open Office Presentation. (Note: Daniel K. Schneider doesn't like Open Office at all, but likes the drawing program that is included very much). If you feel that the ergonomics of OO is even worse then MS Word's, you still can just use this component.

• Inkscape. An SVG-based program. Here is a micro "how to" for version 0.44x:
  • To import: File->Import
  • Adjust the canevas size (a): File->Document Properties..., Fit page to selection
  • Adjust the canevas size (b): File->Document Properties... (add some margins if needed).
  • Adjust the image size (it may be too big): Object->Transform..., Scale Tab. Tick Scale proportionally and enter something like -20% (not 80% which will make it bigger).
  • Then annotate and safe the result. Use small bold fonts (12 or 14 if you plan to use in a wiki, bigger ones if you plan to import also into some presentation software). Hit Shift+Ctrl+F to set fill and stroke colors. the font menu is available under Text.
  • Then create a PNG or a PDF: File->Export Bitmap or File->Save As.

Links

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenshot