Best Free Screenshot Application for Windows

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

This is very true, even in the software testing world. One of the most utilized tools for a Web QA engineer is the screenshot.

Providing a screenshot of the UI error is often the simplest way to get clarity of what the bug is.

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Windows has built-in screenshot capability, but since you will be constantly generating screenshots, you will want something more feature rich so that you can quickly generate, edit, and save your screenshots.

We will be using Greenshot as our app of choice for generating screenshots. Greenshot is a free application for Windows.

Install Greenshot

First, you will need to download Greenshot.

1. Open the installer.
2. Select your language of choice and click the OK button.
3. Accept the User Agreement and hit the Next button.
4. Continue through the installer and select all the default values
5. Make sure that you leave the “Start Greenshot when Windows Starts” option

You should now see the Greenshot icon in your system tray. Greenshot will load in the background everytime you start up your computer.

Using Greenshot

Click the Greenshot icon in your system tray. You will see the menu pop up with the available keyboard shortcuts.

Usually, I only use the “Capture Region” option. I rarely have a reason to capture the entire screen.

When you use “Capture Region”, you will see a crosshair appear on the screen. Simply click and drag to select the capture region. As soon as you release the mouse, the image will be captured.

The default capture “destination” will be applied unless you specify where you want it to go.

Configure the Destination

Click the Greenshot system tray icon, select “Quick Preferences”, then select “Destination”.

You will see the menu below appear.

You can select multiple items from the list depending on what you want to happen. I have mine set to “Open in image editor” and “Copy to clipboard”.

Image Editor

The image editor is simple, but very handy when for marking up images for bugs.

The editor has a simple layout. The left side has all your tools. On the top, there will be options that are based on the tool you selected on the left.

Draw and markup your screenshot as much as you like to make it more clear of its purpose.

If you want to see how I incorporate screenshots into my bugs, check out my course QA Guide to Web Application Testing for Beginners.