I used to knock on Snagit from TechSmith. I didn’t get why somebody would pay for a screenshot utility when Windows comes with one built-in. Then I got a license, and I was converted. I loved not having to hand-draw crappy arrows, boxes, and highlights. It upped my screenshot game, big-time!
But, like all good things, my time with Snagit came to an end. I left the job that brought us together, and with it, my license. I was back to living in the screenshot dark ages with Snipping Tool and Paint. After a few months, I’d had enough. I was ready to put down $50 for a personal Snagit license so that I’d never be without it again. I’m pretty sure I even went as far as putting it into my cart on the TechSmith website, but I never quite pulled the trigger.
I don’t know why it took me so long to think of this, but I finally headed over to Google and searched for Snagit alternatives. And that’s where I met one of my new best friends: Greenshot.
Greenshot has all the features that I’d grown to love about Snagit, but it’s free & open-source. Here’s a quick list of what I love most:
- PrtSc to select a region (Ctrl+PrtSc for entire desktop, Alt+PrtSc for current window)
- Screen grabs open in editor with drawing tools like rectangles, ellipses, arrows, highlighter, textboxes, and speechbubbles
- Obfuscation tool to draw a box around & blur sensitive data
- Auto-incrementing counter circles — perfect for giving directions!
The only thing I didn’t love right out of the gate is that the default keybinding for copying the image from the editor to the clipboard is Ctrl+Shift+S instead of just Ctrl+C. But I’ve gotten used to it, and it’s nice being able to use Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V to copy/paste elements in the editor. It lets me do things like have arrows that are the exact same size and parallel, which is great since I’m super anal about stuff like that!
So, if you’re stilling using Snipping Tool and/or Paint or looking for a great alternative to Snagit, give Greenshot a try. You won’t be disappointed! Unless you want something that also takes videos. Then you’d be disappointed and would probably want to go get Snagit. But for screenshot editing, go Greenshot!
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