Capture a video or take snapshots of your desktop. Add annotations, select a specific area of the screen for capturing an active window, window or object, rectangular or freehand region, full screen, scrolling window or a fixed region. The utility sends the captured content to editors, the clipboard, printers, emails, Word or PowerPoint.
FastStone Capture is intended to take shots and record video from the screen. The program can be set to start along with the system and run from the Tray. A click on its icon gives you access to multiple commands. Besides, it shows a small floating window from which you can start most operations. Likewise, it responds to standard hotkey combinations, such as Alt+PrtSc and Ctrl+PrtSc.
The program can take static shots of your screen in various modes. Thus, it supports capturing the entire screen, the active window or any other you choose. It also lets you grab a specific object within a window. You can also set to comprise a customized region, using rectangular or freehand selection. Similarly, the tool can capture a scrolling region, such as that of a webpage or a Word document, but I must warn you that there may be some imprecisions.
One of the main assets of this product is its built-in image editor, which has an extensive set of tools and brushes to touch up the screenshot. This way, you can make annotations, add watermarks and draw objects, like arrows, rectangles, and circles. It also supports applying effects such as shadows and frames. The editor can process various images simultaneously, and they can come not only from screen capturing but also from a scanner.
The screen video recorder gives similar possibilities as to region selection. Moreover, it can record audio from a microphone and capture mouse movements and clicks. Fortunately, the tool includes a basic video editor that you can use to draw annotations and crop undesired regions.
When the capturing and editing processes are done, you can export the resulting video or image in various ways. Common destinations include the built-in editor, an external editor, a file, a printer, email or an FTP site. Likewise, captured images can be opened directly on various Microsoft Office programs. The program supports exporting pictures to practically any popular format. However, the choice of output video formats is not as wide.
In general, FastStone Capture is a very versatile program in terms of capturing video or static images from your computer screen. Since there are many similar tools out there, it would be a good idea to check a few before deciding to buy one. Luckily, FastStone Capture is free to try without many limitations.
v7.4 [Mar 15, 2013]
Supports touch interface
Added 2 new options in the Settings:
"Auto-hide capture toolbar when it reaches the top of the screen"
"Bigger buttons on capture toolbar"
Improved the Print dialog
Improved the "Fixed Region" capture tool: now you can press Shift arrow keys to adjust the width and height of the fixed region
Added a hotkey for "Import from Clipboard" in the Hotkeys tab of the Settings
Now it is possible to use the screen capture and screen recorder at the same time if you disable the new option "Hide Toolbar when using Screen Recorder" in the Settings
Now you can preview the fonts in the font list of the Draw tool
Added a "Blur" button in the image editor
Added a "Save" button to the Email window when "To Email" is selected as the Output destination
Added an option to adjust the volume of mouse click sound for the screen recorder
Supports output to Excel
Other minor improvements and bug fixes
