FrontLook's Screen Capture ... The best I've found so far
~~Linda F. Johnson, Linda's Computer Stop

Because I write many tutorials about how to use software, I am constantly taking screen shots so I can show people how something will look on their computer screen.  Many companies offer screen capture programs that are very inexpensive or free and I've tried a lot of them, but most of them don't offer much more than you get by hitting the Print Screen key on your keyboard. 

For those who don't know how to do screen captures the traditional way, here's the down and dirty:

• Hit the Print Screen key on your keyboard to capture what's on your screen (or hold down the alt key and hit Print Screen to capture just the active window).  This saves the image to your Windows clipboard.
• Open some program like Microsoft Paint and go to the Edit menu and choose Paste to put the capture into that program.
• Save the file with whatever extension you like (remember that the Print Screen key produces a bmp file, which is not an acceptable format for Web pages and generally produces a large file size, so you must choose the proper format when you save it)

OK, so how do these Print Screen programs make this better?  Well, most of the ones I've tried just eliminate the steps of having to open Microsoft Paint and paste, then change the format.  What these programs do is automatically create the bmp or jpg for you and place it in a folder.

So, if you don't care about the size of the picture, the file type, or what's included in the picture, then these other programs will work fine for you.  But, in my case, whenever I used these programs, I then had to go to the folder where the pictures were saved and open the pictures in Photoshop so I could resize them and crop them.  (I have not yet found any software that makes better quality pics at the lowest size [kb wise] than Photoshop's Save for Web feature, so I always want to save my pics using Photoshop to optimize them.)  So, in my case this actually added steps for me.  I was better off just hitting the Print Screen key and pasting them directly into Photoshop. 

But, that's where FrontLook's Screen Capture program surpasses the rest!

FrontLook's Screen Capture gives you many options. 

• You can CHOOSE the file format you want as your default
• You can CHOOSE the folder where you want the pics stored
• You can assign different hot keys for different types of captures.  By default, you have these:
  • Print Screen key captures the whole screen
  • Alt+Print Screen captures just the active window
  • And, here's a great feature...Hold down the Windows key and hit Print Screen and you can drag your mouse pointer to select just the area of the screen you want to capture.  So, NO FURTHER CROPPING IS NECESSARY!
• You also have options to send the capture right to the printer
• You also have an option to include your mouse pointer in the screen capture
• And, you can right click any picture you've captured and choose to send it in email and a blank email launches with the picture attached.

So, that eliminates a couple steps for me, but I still want to open all my captures in Photoshop so I can use the Save for Web feature to optimize them.  And, THAT is why I love this FrontLook Screen Capture.  It has an option where I can choose to automatically launch Photoshop with this screen capture already inside it.  How is THAT for cool?  Of course, if you prefer using another program other than Photoshop, you can choose any program you want.

So, now, screen capturing is so easy and quick for me.  I just hit Windowskey+Print Screen, drag a box around the part of the screen I want in my picture, release my mouse button and Photoshop launches and there's my picture and all I have to do is hit Save for Web and I'm done.

Yep, I've been reviewing a lot of software lately and NONE has pleased me as much as this little program. For those of you who want a functional, user friendly screen capturing program that costs HALF of what some more cumbersome programs like Snagit cost, I highly  recommend it!!

Click this button to buy Screen Capture or download a free trial version >>>>

Linda Johnson is a college instructor of all of the Microsoft Office Programs, as well as Adobe PhotoShop and Windows. She also teaches online distance learning classes in Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, and Word at Eclectic Academy. She has worked helpdesk and teaches and lectures at many local businesses and tech schools in her area. Support this newsletter by checking out Linda's eBooks, MS Word MAGIC!, Book I: Fonts, Fun & Formats and Book II: Table Wizardry, How To Get Started As a Software Trainer, and her newest series of MSOffice eBook Tutorials and CD