Greenshot is a free and open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 screenshot

Screenshot

A screenshot , screen capture , screen dump, screengrab , or print screen is an image taken by a computer to record the visible items displayed on the monitor, television, or another visual output device...

 program for Microsoft Windows. It is developed by Thomas Braun, Jens Klingen and Robin Krom and published under GNU General Public License

GNU General Public License

The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....

. The development project is hosted by SourceForge

SourceForge

SourceForge Enterprise Edition is a collaborative revision control and software development management system. It provides a front-end to a range of software development lifecycle services and integrates with a number of free software / open source software applications .While originally itself...

.

Greenshot's feature set mainly targets project managers, testers and developers.
It is used to create full or partial screenshots. The captured screenshot can be annotated and edited using the built-in image editor before exporting it either to an image file, email attachment, printer or clipboard.

By July 2010, Greenshot was available in ten languages, most of the translations have been contributed by users.

Screenshots

Greenshot offers several modes for creating a Screenshot:
"Capture region" allows to select an area of the screen by dragging a green rectangle to the desired position and size.
"Capture last region" is used to re-capture exactly the same area that was captured before.
"Capture window" creates a screenshot of the active or a selected window (depending on the user's settings)
"Capture fullscreen" captures the complete screen(s).

Image editor

If the user needs to add annotations, highlightings or obfuscations to the screenshot the built-in image editor can be used. Greenshot's image editor is a basic vector graphics editor

Vector graphics editor

A vector graphics editor is a computer program that allows users to compose and edit vector graphics images interactively on a computer and save them in one of many popular vector graphics formats, such as EPS, PDF, WMF, SVG, or VML....

, however it offers some pixel-based filters.
It allows to draw basic shapes (rectangles, ellipses, lines and arrows) and add text to a screenshot. Special filter tools are present to highlight text or an area, as well as obfuscating tools (blur / pixelize) which can be used to wipe out sensitive data from a screenshot.
Each tool comes with its set of settings, e.g. line color and thickness or an option to drop a shadow.

Export for further use

Using the image editor is optional, all export options are available from its top toolbar and menu. However the user can configure Greenshot to skip this step and pass the screenshot to other destinations directly. Options are copying the image to the clipboard as Bitmap, sending it to a printer, saving it to the file system (using a user-defined pattern for the filename) or attaching it to a new e-mail message.

User acceptance

Lately there has been increasing interest in Greenshot, resulting in higher download rates as well as in a rising number of reviews and ratings on international software portals.

Downloads

By July 2010 the program has been downloaded 300,000 times from SourceForge, more than 100,000 downloads were counted in the first half of 2010. In addition, Greenshot is also available for download at several software portals like CNET.com

CNET.com

CNET is a tech media website that publishes news articles, blogs, and podcasts on technology and consumer electronics. Originally founded in 1994 by Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie, it was the flagship brand of CNET Networks and became a brand of CBS Interactive through CNET Networks' acquisition...

, Softpedia

Softpedia

Softpedia is an Internet web site that indexes information and provides software downloads. The site also covers major technology, science, health, and entertainment news from both external and in-house sources and provides software and game reviews. , it is one of the top 500 websites according to...

 or Softonic.com

Softonic.com

Softonic.com is a software download portal based in Barcelona, Spain, founded in 1997. Since 2007, the portal has included a blog called OnSoftware...

.

Reviews

CNET.com staff has rated Greenshot 4.5 of 5 stars, criticizing the lack of detailed help content and of a crop feature in version 0.7, but still recommending it "to all users looking for a quick and easy way to take and edit screenshots". Techworld.com concludes that "there are more powerful screen capture tools around" but still gave 4 of 5 stars for Greenshot's "general ease of use". Nick Mead of Softonic also emphasizes the program's easiness as well as the possibilities for annotation and configuration, but criticizes unneeded visual effects when doing the screen capture, rating Greenshot 7 of 10.

External links

• getgreenshot.org Official website
• Project site on sourceforge.net