Screenie

There are situations when you may need to capture the desktop and save the screenshot as an image file. This applies, for example, when you encounter an error in an application and you want to save the error message and then send the screenshot to the developer, so he can fix the problem. Unfortunately, Windows does not include a reliable tool for capturing the desktop, as you will first need to paste the screenshot into MS Paint before you can save it as an actual image file.

Fortunately, there is a tool which makes it really simple to capture and save your desktop as an image file. The program I am talking about is Screenie. This Windows program allows you to take a screenshot of your desktop and either save it locally or online. When running the software, a small icon will be placed in the system tray. In order to take a new screenshot, you can either right click on the icon and choose the "Take Screenshot" option. Optionally, you can use the Alt + PrintScreen key combination in order to trigger the capturing process.

After the desktop has been captured, a small window is automatically opened, in which you can adjust the screenshot before saving it. As such, you are able to crop the screenshot and only keep certain elements from it. When clicking OK in this window, the screenshot file will be created immediately. By accessing the Configuration window, you are able to change the location for saving the captured desktop and also customize the image format. Optionally, you can configure Screenie to automatically upload the screenshot to a FTP server or to the ImageShack website, so you can share it with others. You can even configure Screenie to automatically resize screenshots before saving them.