PicPick is a powerful, free way to take and edit screenshots

I've been using Faststone Capture portable for ages to handle my screenshot tasks, but PicPick is a very capable alternative.

PicPick provides the usual capture functionality and Windows hot key replacements (print screen and the control + and alt + variations), but it doesn't stop there. The integrated editor is packed with features, and can easily handle any quick edits I need for creating documentation or blog posts.

The editor's tabbed interface makes working with multiple images easy, especially when working with the repeat function to re-capture the same region for, say, a step-by-step installer tutorial.

Since most of my screen captures have to fit into a 500 pixel <div> tag, I was eager to test PicPick's ability to scale images. Resizing is very good, producing reductions that are on par with those created by CS4.


So what else does PicPick include? How about a color picker, screen ruler, crosshair (for finding pixel-accurate screen locations), protractor (wth?), and whiteboard. The whiteboard feature works well with pen input, and allows you to markup your screen with multiple colors and pen widths prior to capturing.

On the downside, the editor lacks layer support and elements can't be moved once you place them. It can be especially frustrating with text, but PicPick isn't really designed for that kind of editing.

It's free, and packs a ton of useful features in a half-megabyte portable package.

[ via Freeware Files ]

Tags: capture, freeware, portable, screen-capture, screencap, screenshot