If you’re a software reviewer or a blogger, a gamer or just looking for an easy way to take screenshots, there are plenty of tools to choose from. For anyone keen on sticking with what Windows has to offer, there’s the Snipping Tool but there are numerous other tools available if you like the idea of something a little more advanced. One of the leading commercial tools is SnagIt, but for many people this is restrictively priced. SnapCrab is a free screen capture tool that offers much of SnagIt’s feature set in a well-rounded package.

As you would expect, this is an app that is hotkey driven, and you can create keyboard shortcuts to grab the active window, the entire desktop, or just a selection. You can opt to have the cursor included or ignored and there are extensive options that allow for the automatic naming of files based on the date, time, program being used and numerous other variables. By default your images are saved as PNGs but there are other formats to choose from.

SnapCrab

Images that are captured can be automatically resized and this is a great option for web site owners who need a uniform look for each image that’s being used. For those difficult to setup shots, there’s a timer option that can be used to delay a capture and there’s also a color capture option that can be used to grab RGB or Hex color values from anything you see on screen.

There are some nice touches to be found in SnapCrab such as the option to choose to ignore background images when capturing sections that feature transparency and you can also choose between including or excluding the drop shadow that Windows adds to windows. Additional features are focused on sharing, with the option to connect with Twitter, Facebook and Evernote and upload the images you capture to your account.

You can find out more and download a free copy of the program by paying a visit to the SnapCrab review page.