The Screenshot Editor

At any time when Instant Screenshot is running, you can take a screenshot buy pressing one of the screenshot keys. This will invoke the screenshot editor. Depending on the screenshot key you’ve pressed, the image editor will display an image of either the active window, the window beneath the mouse pointer, or the entire desktop.

Read more about the screenshot keys...

 

The inside the image editor, you can manipulate the image using the following controls.

Screenshot display

The screenshot display shows the current screenshot, and any edits you have made to it. You can select a region of the screenshot for cropping by clicking on the image or the surrounding chequered area and dragging the mouse to create a selection box within the image. Click the Crop Button to crop the selected region.

 

The screenshot display will respond to mouse wheel movements:

• When the mouse is within the display box, or to the right of it (but not above other controls), the display will scroll vertically
• When the mouse is below the display box, the display will scroll horizontally.

Crop Button

The crop button will reduce the image to the area inside the selection box. To right of the crop button, the dimensions of the current selection are displayed.

Shortcut: Ctrl+X

Width and height track bars

Stretch and shrink the image using the width and height track bars. An anti-aliasing algorithm is used when resizing to ensure that the image looks as smooth as possible.

 

By default, when changing one dimension of the image, the other will update automatically so that the ratio of the height-width of the image, or aspect ratio, is preserved. To change the height or width independently, hold down the control key while sliding the track bar.

 

The track bars will respond to mouse wheel movements. Just hold the mouse pointer over the track bar, and turn the wheel.

 

To adjust the size of the image with precision, use the image dimensions button...

Image Type Combo

You can select the output image type by using the Image Type Combo. Drop down the combo to select the desired output format. The screenshot and image size displays will update automatically to show what the resulting image will look like.

 

The currently supported image types are:

Bmp:	Windows bitmap
Jpeg:	JPEG format
Png:	PNG format

 

The Image Type Combo will respond to mouse wheel movements. Just hold the mouse pointer over the combo, and turn the wheel.

Colors Combo

When the image type is Bitmap or PNG, you can specify the color depth by using the Color Combo. The screenshot and image size displays will update immediately to show what the resulting image will be like.

 

Reducing the number of colors used to display the screenshot will reduce the image size, but may also reduce the image quality.

 

The Colors Combo will respond to mouse wheel movements. Just hold the mouse pointer over the combo, and turn the wheel.

Quality Combo

When the image type is Jpeg, you can specify the quality level by using the Quality Combo. The screenshot and image size displays will update immediately to show what the resulting image will be like.

 

Reducing the screenshot quality will reduce the image size, but will also reduce image fidelity.

 

The Quality Combo will respond to mouse wheel movements. Just hold the mouse pointer over the combo, and turn the wheel.

Image Dimensions Button

The Image Dimensions Button invokes the Image Dimensions dialog, where you can specify the exact width and height to stretch the image to.

Shortcut: Ctrl+D

Greyscale Checkbox

Checking the Greyscale checkbox will reformat the screenshot in as greyscale. This is useful when you are creating a document for black and white printing, and may reduce the image size for some image formats.

Undo, Redo, Reset Buttons

These buttons allow you to undo and redo edits you have made to the screenshot. The reset button will undo all edits and return the image to same state as the original screenshot.

Shortcuts:

Undo:	Ctrl+Z
Redo:	Ctrl+Shift+Z

Note:

Image type and formatting changes (color depth etc.) are not undone and redone using these buttons. This means you can select a desired image format and Instant Screenshot will remember it from screenshot to screenshot.

Image Size Display

The Image Size Display shows the file size of the screenshot with the current format settings. You can use this to trade off size versus display quality for images that will be viewed online.

OK, Save and Cancel Buttons

When you have the desired screenshot, you can click the OK button to close the screenshot editor. The screenshot will be copied to the windows clipboard, so that you can paste it into a document.

Shortcut: Enter

 

The Save Button allows you to save the image to file. You will be prompted for a filename and returned to the screenshot editor after the file is saved. This means yo can save multiple images from the one screenshot.

Shortcut: Ctrl+S

 

The Cancel Button closes the screenshot editor without saving the image and without copying it to the clipboard.

Shortcut: Escape

Menu Bar

All the functions listed above are available through the Menu Bar.