I write my share of posts on a couple of blogs, and with posts invariably comes images and screenshots to explain what I am writing about. Often I find the need to either:
- Capture only a part of image
- Annotate images
- Capture screenshots one after the other
- Capture only part of the application or window
This is easier said than done. In ancient history I have used Alt+Print Screen and used Paint to change images and upload them manually to the posts. But as I became more serious in writing I upgraded to Screenshotcaptor. An excellent program by DonationCoder, I absolutely loved this program. Screenshotcaptor helps you to not only take screenshots in a variety of ways, but also makes it a lot easier to take periodic screenshots, add special effects like torn edges, focus on current windows with blur effect, annotate images and do much more. I was so thrilled by using this program and by the philosophy of DonationCoder that I actually parted with a small amount of money to show my appreciation.
But my problem was not completely solved. I was looking at a program that can take screenshots and hopefully upload them as well. When Screenshotcaptor documentation introduced me to ShareX for screenshot uploads, I downloaded the program for the sake of trying it, and became hooked. This is a brief ShareX review of a fan, be warned.
ShareX, a good screen capture tool
ShareX is an open source program (GPL v3 license), and surprisingly nimble (<5MB disk) for the power it brings to the table. ShareX is not only for images, but can do a lot more. Its objective as I understand it – make any file on the computer sharable on the web. ShareX makes that as easy as it can get.
First, the interesting part for bloggers like me. ShareX makes it easy to capture screens, or parts of application windows in a variety of shapes (though rectangle is all I use). ShareX internally uses another simple application called Greenshot image editor to annotate screenshots, crop them or blur/obfuscate in parts. Once you finish the annotation, ShareX can automatically upload images to your favourite image host, or Google drive.
The best part – everything is configurable. You can choose the shortcut keys to automatically take screenshot of entire screen or part of the screen, choose to have annotation or otherwise, and upload images to 9 different image hosts incl. Imgur, Flickr, Picassa (Google drive), Tinypic, Imageshack or even use a custom uploader. You can optionally run the URL through a URL shortener service like bit.ly or goo.gl.
At various stages, you can also copy images or the URLs of the uploaded images automatically to the clipboard. In addition to this, you can upload already saved images to image hosts.
ShareX, as mentioned previously, can also share text or other files, and upload files to Dropbox, Box, RapidShare, Google Drive among others.
After trying out many tools (both paid and free), I have come to the simple conclusion that ShareX is irreplaceable today. I have been using it extensively for more than six months now. It is an excellent timesaver, and has been of great help in making a repeatable task as painless as possible.
Thank you Jaex and other contributors. Your work here is inspiring to say the least.
Full laundry list of ShareX key features
From ShareX site -
Capture methods: Fullscreen, Active window, Window list, Active monitor, Monitor list, Rectangle, Rectangle + Window, Rounded rectangle, Ellipse, Triangle, Diamond, Polygon, Free hand, Last region, Screen recording (Supports animated gif), Auto capture
After capture: Add image effects, Add watermark, Annotate image, Copy image to clipboard, Print image, Save image to file, Save image to file as, Copy file to clipboard, Copy file path to clipboard, Perform actions, Upload image to host
Upload methods: File upload, Clipboard upload, Drag and drop, Send to from Windows Explorer, Watch folder
After upload: Use URL shortener, Post URL to social networking service, Send URL with Email, Copy URL to clipboard
Image uploaders: imageshack.us, tinypic.com, imgur.com, flickr.com, photobucket.com, picasaweb.google.com, uploadscreenshot.com, twitpic.com, twitsnaps.com, yfrog.com, imm.io, File uploader
Text uploaders: pastebin.com, pastebin.ca, paste2.org, slexy.org, pastee.org, paste.ee, File uploader
File uploaders: dropbox.com, mega.co.nz, Google Drive, rapidshare.com, sendspace.com, minus.com, box.com, ge.tt, localhostr.com, Custom uploader, FTP server, Shared folder, Email
URL shorteners: goo.gl, bit.ly, j.mp, is.gd, tinyurl.com, turl.ca
Social networking services: twitter.com
Tools: Screen color picker, Hash check, Index folder, Image effects
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