7 Best Free Screen Capture and Screencasting Software (All-In-One Pack)

How often have you taken screenshots using the “Print Screen” key in your PC? The default “Print Screen” of Windows is too basic considering today’s online sharing needs. Whether it’s for sharing desktop snapshots with your friends, recording a demonstration video for your colleagues or sharing a snapshot of a web page etc, there are many good free screen capture software that make you forget the Windows “Print Screen” completely.

In this article, we present an assorted collection of screen capture software which are unique in their features and functionality. Each of the freeware is useful in it’s own right. Here is the list of All-In-One 7 Best Free Screen Capture Software.

1. PicPick Tools

PicPick Tools is an feature rich all-in-one free screen capture software. The software launches from the system tray and has powerful features like Image capturing, Image Editor, Color Picker, Colour Palette, Pixel Ruler, Protractor, CrossHair, and Whiteboard. PicPick Tools is a portable application and hence doesn’t need any installation. Simply put it in a pen drive and use it anywhere you like.

PicPick Tools supports image capturing for Dual Monitors as well.  Capturing profiles include Full Screen mode, Active Window, Window Control (Scroll a page automatically), Region, Fixed Region, FreeHand, and Repeat Last Capture.

With it’s Image Editor, you can give image effects like Opacity, Blur, Sharpen, Brightness, Contrast, Hue, Saturation, Flip, Rotate and etc. The captured and edited image can be saved in JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP image formats. You can upload the image to a FTP server too.

Download PicPick Tools

2. CamStudio

CamStudio is a free and open source screen recorder which can record video screen activity along with audio on your PC. Recorded videos can be saved in AVI or Flash (SWF) format. CamStudio supports full screen as well as framed area capturing.

This freeware screen video capture lets you customize the video quality to suit your needs, add screen captions, annotate the recorded video with “picture-in-picture” of a webcam recording, use custom cursors etc.

With CamStudio’s lossless codec, you can record CD/DVD quality videos. CamStudio is well suited for recording demonstration videos to be used in training.

Download CamStudio

3. BB FlashBack Express

BB FlashBack Express is free screen video capture software which can record, playback and export videos with sound captured from microphone to Flash (FLV/SWF) or AVI format with full playback controls.
This free screen recorder supports Webcam recording and easy uploading of your recordings to video sharing sites like YouTube, Blip.tv, Viddler, Revver etc. BB FlashBack lets you record even ‘Aero’ effects in Windows Vista with it’s high frame rate capturing.

BB FlashBack Express has an option to sit in the system tray and includes capture profiles for entire desktop, selected window or region. This free screen video recorder requires you to register for free.

Download BB FlashBack Express

4. Simple Webpage Capture

Simple Webpage Capture is a free screen capture utility for capturing entire WebPages. It has a built in browser in which you can preview the web site before capturing it. It saves the captured image in GIF, PNG, JPG, BMP, and TIF image formats. This free program lets you even watermark the images.
We have already published an article on Simple Webpage Capture.

5. Jing

Jing is a free screen capturing and screen casting program. You can capture screen shots of windows, panes or click and drag to define a region of capture. You can then markup the captured image with arrow, highlighter, text box and share it instantly with your friends. Sharing can be done via screencast.com or Flickr. Jing places the shared hyperlink in the clipboard, which can then be pasted directly into a chatting client for your friend to view it instantly.

Jing can be used for screencasting. It can record anything happening in a defined area of the screen. It can even record audio from your microphone. After the recording, the recorded video is uploaded to screencast.com. Jing then gives a direct link of that video for sharing it with your friends. However, with this free version you record upto 5 minutes of video only. Since all it’s captured content is shared via screencast.com, you need to get registered in it for free before starting to use Jing’s services.

Download Jing

6. Screenshot Captor

Screenshot Captor is a free video screen recorder that has some extra features not found in other free screen capturing tools. Apart from giving a wide array of capture profiles such as entire desktop, fixed/selected regions, active windows, objects, auto scroll capture etc, Screenshot Captor lets you apply blur & shadow effects, add text boxes, clipart, highlights, arrows and drop image shadows.

With this free Windows program, you can save captured screenshots in GIF, PNG, JPG and TIFF formats. Screenshot Capture supports multiple monitors, hotkey configuration for each of the capture profiles, automatic naming and versioning of image files and file comments embedding. Other interesting features include automatic window enhancement by blurring the background, thumbnail maker for captured images, system tray accessibility etc.

Download Screenshot Capture

7. SCREEN2EXE

SCREEN2EXE is a free video screen capture utility which lets you convert the recording into a self-playing .exe file. This freeware is a good choice when you want to send some training videos or presentations to your clients but not sure if they have the right media player to view the recordings. Normally video capturing software save the recording as either AVI or SWF files.

With SCREEN2EXE, you can add text, images, annotations and even mosaics into your captured videos. This free screen video recorder supports video compression, audio recording, adding delay in video, simple editing such as cutting unwanted clips, special effects like zoom in, focus and fade in/fade out. SCREEN2EXE lets you record video at different frame rates.

Download SCREEN2EXE
Enjoy!