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.
v9.4 [Aug 23, 2020]
- Added OneNote as an output option.
- Added 3 options to Editor tab of Settings:
- "Set default tool in Draw".
- "Highlight active tab".
- "Use workspaces to group tabs". This option allows you to organize and group captured images (tabs) in multiple workspaces. Each workspace remembers its last-used folder and works like a separate instance of FastStone Editor.
- Added "Stay on Screen" and "Minimize to System Tray" options to "Run when Windows starts".
- Added "Send to New Tab" (Alt C) to duplicate the current tab as a new tab.
- Added a count down text box to "Delay before Capture".
- Added Apply button to Settings window.
- Added 2 icons (left/right clicks) to "Insert Mouse Pointer" in Draw tool.
- Enhanced "Save As" and "Open" dialogs:
- Added "Hold Alt key to peek behind this window" option to "Save As" dialog.
- Resizable.
- Size and position are kept for next use.
- Added "Delay before showing" option (click [...] in Toolbar tab of Settings) for the hidden toolbar.
- Added preview option to "Spotlight" effect.
- Added a right-click menu to "Capture Fixed-Size Region".
- Added Contrast and Gamma auto-adjustment to "Acquire Images from Scanner". Enhanced the De-skew algorithm.
- Added tips for the toolbar buttons of FastStone Editor.
- In Draw tool, press Tab/Shift Tab to cycle through drawing tools.
- Enhanced "Screen Color Picker". After picking a screen color, click the "New" color box to fine tune the color.
- Enhanced Print dialog. Now you can:
- Print multiple images in batch mode.
- Print file name in the header area.
- Enhanced Edge/Watermark. Watermark image is resizable.
- Enhanced "Make Background Transparent" (Ctrl T) by adding 3 options: Preview, Tolerance and Anti-aliased.
- Enhanced "Fill with Color" in Draw tool by adding 2 options: Tolerance and Transparent Fill.
- Optimized loading speed of Draw tool. Now it re-opens much faster.
- Many other minor improvements and bug fixes.
