5 Best Tools For Taking Screenshots For Bloggers [ With Pros-cons]

If you are regularly blogging, you will encounter a lot of images. Sometimes you will use royalty free images, but many times you will use screenshots. For how to tutorials and visual guides, a lot of good screenshots are useful to create a helpful blog post.
There are hundreds of tools available to take screenshots. Some are good, some are not. Some are paid; others are free.With this guide, I will show you which are the best screenshot tools available and what are the strengths and weaknesses of each of them.
Before I list the tools, I’ll jot down the basic features that we as bloggers need in any screenshot tool.

1. Save images in multiple formats
2. Take screenshots of specific resolution
3. Annotations (Arrows, Highlight, Tags, Blue, Text)
4. Easy Share to cloud services
5. Fast Loading and Lightweight
6. Full-Screen Capture (For Long Web Pages)
7. Screen Recording5 excellent high-quality tools to capture screenshots
8. Support for shortcut keys
9. Basic Image Editing Features like cropping, rotating, etc.

There are certainly more desirable features, but these are the essentials.

5 Easy and Effective Tools for Perfect Screenshots

1. FastStone Capture

FastStone Capture is one of the most versatile and feature-rich screenshot taking tool.
Its most important features are:

• Global Hotkeys (Capture with keyboard shortcuts)
• Capture full window, scrolling window, menus, specific region, free hand region
• Screen Recording Support
• Multi Output Support (Save image, print image, export image, etc.)
• Annotation Support
• Basic Image Editing Support
• Multiple Tab Support
• Save your file in multiple formats
• Join Side by Side Images
• Multi-Monitor Support
• Touch Screen Support
• Crosshair, Magnifier, Color Picker

and many more!
Let’s see how it looks while using.
Once you download and install FastStone Capture, you will see a mini-window on the screen with various options.

In this small window, you have options to open an image, screenshot the current page, current window, full screen, scrolling window, etc. Let’s try to capture the active window on the ShoutMeLoud Homepage.

The area highlighted in Red is the area that would be captured.
What’s interesting to notice are the instructions. Here is a screenshot.

FastStone allows you to capture multiple areas of the screen in a single screenshot. Its truly an amazing feature.
Once you have selected the areas you want to capture and made a mouse click, you will see the image edit interface.

There are hundreds of options available for you too edit your images. Its almost like a full image editor.
In fact, the blurring on the above image was done through FastStone itself.
Another important option you can choose is the ‘Draw’ option. Once selected, you will be taken to an entirely new screen.

Here you can add annotations, texts, insert mouse images, highlight and lots more.
Once you have edited your images, its time to save. You have the option of saving to multiple formats from FastStone Capture.
You also have options to choose different settings for compression of different file types by selecting options.

If you choose options, you will see a neat side by side comparison of the original and edited image. Its a pretty useful feature as well.



Pricing
FastStone Capture has a 30-day free trial and then you can purchase it for $19.95.
Pros of FastStone Capture

• Extremely Feature Rich
• Maximum options for various screen capture
• Excellent editing tools
• Multiple format support
• Video Support

Cons of FastStone Capture

• Price

2. PicPick

PicPick is a smaller and prettier version of FastStone. Its a lightweight and has the feature-packed utility.
The most important features of PicPick are:

• Global Hotkeys (Capture with keyboard shortcuts)
• Multi Output Support (Save image, print image, export image, etc.)
• Annotation Support
• Basic Image Editing Support
• Multiple Tab Support
• Save your file in multiple formats
• Multi-Monitor Support
• Crosshair, Magnifier, Color Picker, Ruler

One thing to note is that PicPick has an addition functionality of sharing your images directly to Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Google Drive or many other services.
The important thing to remember is that PicPick does not support video capture. So if you are looking to record your screen, PicPick isn’t the choice for you.
Also, the scrolling capture for PicPick does not work perfectly out of the box. A little configuration may be necessary.
Lets see how PicPick performs in action
You can download and install PicPick from here.
Once installed, you will see a small floating toolbar on your screen similar to FastStone Capture.

I’ll capture the Shoutmeloud home page once again.

The overall interface is modern and clean. Its also a familiar looking interface similar to Microsoft Paint.You can see all the basic editing options right on the top menu. The drawing options are much more refined and have much more options.


Let’s see some more features that PicPick has
Pixel Ruler
This one is pretty cool. It shows a virtual ruler on your screen to measure your screen.
It looks something like this:

PicPick Virtual Ruler

By the way, did you know that the ShoutMeLoud logo is 409 pixels wide? Well, now you know.
Protractor
Think of it like the ‘D’ we used to have in school in geometry class. The one used to measure angles.
This tool sets up a virtual protractor on the screen for you to measure.

Now you also know that the angle for the edge logo on ShoutMeLoud is 34.31 degrees.
Crosshair
This tool is useful for identifying the dimensions of an on-screen object. You can set up a reference point, and the cross-hair will tell you the dimensions of the next place you put it.

I was able to find out the menu of ShoutMeLoud is exactly 1139 by 59 pixels. That’s pretty awesome too.
Pricing
PicPick is free for personal use only. A commercial license is available for $24.99.
Pros of PicPick

• Excellent Feature List
• Simple and Clean UI
• Excellent Capture Options
• Excellent Tools like Ruler, Protractor, etc

Cons of PicPick

• No Video Support
• Scrolling Screenshot has to be configured
• Price

3. Nimbus Screenshot (Chrome and Firefox Plugin)

Nimbus Screenshot isn’t a PC software, rather a browser plugin. Once installed, it will appear in the extensions area of your browser. I am using Chrome so here is how it looks.

The features of Nimbus Screenshot are as follows:

• Start with a Blank Image
• Capture Part of a screen
• Capture Scrolling Area
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Screen Recording

One key feature of Nimbus Screenshot is that it can take scrolling screenshot of only a part of the screen.
For example, I took this screenshot of ShoutMeLoud sidebar. The image was taken in a single go, and no editing was done.

Let’s see how it looks in action
Once again I will take a screenshot of ShoutMeLoud homepage.
For taking a screenshot, you have to click the extension icon. You can also do that by using one of the shortcut keys.

Once you select any option, you will see the appropriate window on the screen.
From there, you will see three options, to save, to edit or discard.


If you choose to save, you will see the windows file save window where you can choose the location and the filename.
If you choose to edit, Nimbus will open a web interface where you can perform edits,

You have many options to edit like resize, annotate, blur, insert text, etc.
Once you have edited your image, you can click done in the top right corner. Once you click done, Nimbus will open the save window.

You can save the image to your hard disk, upload it to Google Drive, or Print it. You can also upload it to the Nimbus Cloud with a comment.
Addition features of Nimbus Screenshot
While Nimbus is a browser based screenshot taking application, it can also take screenshots of other windows. To do that, you have to open the image editor. To do that, start by opening a blank image in Nimbus.

Once you open the blank image, Nimbus will open the editor for you. To capture any screen on the desktop, click the button that says ‘Capture from Desktop.’

Once you click the button, you will see all the open Windows on the screen. Choose the one you would like to capture, and it will appear in the Nimbus editor. I have highlighted the window I chose. Its a chrome plugin I use to manage my tabs.

From there, you can edit and save the image as your pleasing.

Remember, while Nimbus can capture other Windows, the functionality for this is pretty limited and should be used only when doing basic screenshots.
That’s all the features of Nimbus Screenshot plugin.
Price
Nimbus Screenshot is free!
Pros of Nimbus Screenshot

• Free
• Lots of Capture Options
• Video Support

Cons of Nimbus Screenshot

• Limited File Format Support
• Image Editing Features are pretty basic
• No Multi-Tab interface

4. Jing

Jing is another free tool by TechSmith, a company that also produces Snagit, another screenshot tool. Harsh also mentioned the Snagit tool in this blog post.
Jing is a toned down and free version of Snagit, but its useful for simple screenshots. Once you install Jing, there is one thing you will notice about Jing, it has no interface! It sits in the corner of your screen like a little sun.
Once hovered, it reveals its options.

You can use the on-screen options to capture a screen or by using a keyboard shortcut that you configure.
Once you take a screenshot, Jing opens a small screen in which you can annotate, add text or do basic editing on the image.

Use can also save directly after the editing is done.
Unfortunately, that’s where the features end. Jing is designed to be the minimal tool and has limited features.
Price
Jing is free to use.
Pros of Jing

• Free
• Lightweight
• Easy to use, even for non-technical users

Cons of Jing

• Limited Feature Set
• Only Supports saving in png format

5. Sktich

Skitch is made by Evernote Corporation, the company behind the popular note-taking app Evernote.
Skitch is another fundamental screenshot taking software. Its feature list includes

1. Capturing rectangular area on the screen
2. Basic annotation features
3. Mobile App is also available (Android/iOS)

Let’s see Skitch in action.
Once you download and install skitch, you can run the app that looks like this.

You can click the ‘Screen Snap’ button to take a screenshot. Once clicked it looks something like this.

You can select a rectangular area on the screen. Once you click, the Skitch app will open up.

On the left, you will see the basic image editing functionality like cropping, resizing, annotation, pixelation, etc. I have done some editing to show how it looks.

One thing to note about Skitch is that the annotations look very pleasing. The other tools are also visually appealing, and the final images look very professional.
Price
Skitch is free
Pros of Skitch

• Easy to use
• Professional looking images
• Simple user interface

Cons of Skitch

• No keyboard shortcuts
• Limited feature set
• Cannot capture menus that are activated over hover

There are hundreds of utilities out there for taking screenshots, paid and free. It would be impossible for me to cover them in a single blog post. Therefore, I have selected the five best tools that are easy to use and which I will personally recommend.