topbanner_forum
  *

avatar image

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
  • Thursday March 28, 2024, 5:42 pm
  • Proudly celebrating 15+ years online.
  • Donate now to become a lifetime supporting member of the site and get a non-expiring license key for all of our programs.
  • donate

Author Topic: snipping tool with image editor  (Read 8996 times)

kalos

  • Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • default avatar
  • Posts: 1,823
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
snipping tool with image editor
« on: May 06, 2016, 01:51 PM »
hello!

is there a simple light snipping tool for Win8.1 with image editor similar to Paint or better embedded?

I know Mouse's snaption tool, but I find it too complicated for simple uses

thanks!

Ath

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 3,612
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: snipping tool with image editor
« Reply #1 on: May 06, 2016, 03:54 PM »
It's not going to be any easier than Screenshot Captor. If you can't master that, then........hmmm

tomos

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 11,959
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: snipping tool with image editor
« Reply #2 on: May 07, 2016, 02:34 AM »
Faststone Capture:
http://faststone.org/FSCaptureDetail.htm
~ $20
There is still a last free version out there (I used use it before I discovered mouser's SC) -- no idea if it works on windows 8. Cant remember what the editor is/was like.
Tom

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,896
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: snipping tool with image editor
« Reply #3 on: May 07, 2016, 10:27 AM »
My Screenshot Captor (link here) does have a little bit of a learning curve, but I do believe that after you spend just a little time with it and configure it to match your workflow, most users would find that it is trivially easy to do everything you need it to do, and in the most efficient manner.

Having said that, each to his own!

IainB

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 7,540
  • @Slartibartfarst
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
EDIT: Post updated 2018-12-14 to reflect current use.
Usually, when I spend some effort in editing images, it is because I need to keep them for subsequent re-use - e.g. (say), as image attachments when making a post in the DC Forum. So I like to keep searchable meta-data with them, for easy search/find at a later time.
The usual constraint there is that you can only add metadata directly to JPG files. For me, that would sometimes necessitate considerable mucking about and thus, editing images always seemed to become an arduous task and was accompanied by the creation of separate metadata notes and the proliferation/duplication of image types for the same image. Then I realised that CHS might be able to help me, and I adopted what - for me - has been (from experience) a really simple and time-saving approach:

STEP 1: Install CHS (Clipboard Help & Spell).
In CHS Options | Image Capture
  • set the preferred application you want as the External Image Viewer - I use irfanview - which is also a good image file/folder manager and editor in its own right.
  • set the preferred application you want as the External image Editor - I use SC (Screenshot Captor) - which is considered by many to be one of the best image clippers/editors out there.

STEP 2: Determine what image clipping/snipping tools you are likely to want to use, and have hotkeys set up to invoke each of them separately, as required, at the press of 2 or 3 keys.
I use:
EDIT: Updated 2018-12-14 to reflect current use
  • frequently OneNote Clipper - e.g., using Shift+Win+S, which captures into both OneNote and the CHS database..
  • frequently SC (Screenshot Captor) - e.g., I use Alt+PrtScr to capture specific Windows into the CHS database.

Method
When you clip an image using OneNote Clipper, the image is copied not only into the default set (a OneNote notebook page), but also always into the CHS database. Having the image in the CHS database, the user can:
  • switch straightaway to the full CHS view (Ctrl+Alt+A),
  • locate and select the relevant image clip in that view (shows in the Clip Image tab),
  • click on the editing tool icon for that image (the tool is set as SC),
  • edit the image in SC and when done save it to the original file (which is still in the CHS database), thus overwriting the original image file with the edited image (which is usually what one wants) - thus updating the image in the CHS database and without changing the the file name. So CHS still points at the same (but now updated) image file.
  • you can then select in CHS the Clip Text tab for that now edited image and copy the file path from there (path for that image), to use to send it, as below,
  • whilst you are in the CHS Clip Text tab, you can add in some metadata about the image, for subsequent search/find and for reference (IMHO you can never have too much metadata, so don't be afraid of littering) - this all goes into the CHS database.

Then switch to where you want to send/copy the edited image - e.g., (say) the DC User Forum post you are working on - and paste into the attachment field the path to that image that you already have from above.

One needs to try this out a few times to appreciate:
  • (a) how much time/trouble it can save one,
  • (b) how useful it can be for consolidating the image with its metadata in the CHS database - it literally becomes a consolidated part of one's set of knowledge/data that one could probably not previously achieve so readily/easily and have readily accessible/searchable.

So, thanks to CHS (and SC), and credit to @mouser for some excellent tools that work well together.
The really useful thing about SC for clipping images is that the user can set SC to automatically save image clips to the Clipboard, which puts them into the CHS database for subsequent editing by SC. Incredibly useful/efficient!  :Thmbsup:   :Thmbsup:   :Thmbsup:

What about collecting images by Year/Month?
IMHO, this is a useful thing if it can be automated, as it avoids accumulating images into one humungus bucket folder, which would then be slow-as-molasses and take forever to search in a file Explorer, but could still be viewed as a flat file - e.g., (say) in xplorer².
Because I always initiate SC to manipulate images saved in the CHS image files (database) folder, and because CHS is set to update image folders by Year/Month, SC is (usually) already always pointing at the last current CHS Year/Month folder where it was last invoked for operation.
What this means is that the user can forget about Year/Month as it is managed/controlled automatically by CHS, and SC gets the correct folder to use by always invoking SC from within CHS.

For housekeeping:
  • Any separate spurious/unwanted duplicates that the user may cause SC to make in its own set/default location can be periodically quickly searched for and deleted using (say) Everything, based on the SC default filename - e.g., which will be something like: Screenshot - 2018-12-12 , 23_31_40 -.png
    In my case these are in the default SC save folder, currently defaulting to the CHS folder:C:\UTIL\Windows utilities\FindAndRunRobot\Plugins\Clipboard Help+Spell\Database\Files\2018\12\

  • Thus, spurious/unwanted duplicate files of the form 2018-12-12 , 23_31_40 -.png can be readily identified and expunged.
« Last Edit: December 13, 2018, 07:54 AM by IainB »

tomos

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 11,959
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: snipping tool with image editor
« Reply #5 on: May 08, 2016, 06:45 AM »
Very interesting approach Iain :up:
Tom

tomos

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 11,959
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: snipping tool with image editor
« Reply #6 on: May 08, 2016, 06:52 AM »
In case anyone wondered, the only reason I avoid using SC for clipping images is that I haven't had the time to yet figure out how to get SC to automatically save image clips to the Clipboard, so as to get them into CHS' database for subsequent editing by SC...    :-[

this part is easy enough, although, now I look at it, I'm not 100% sure which choice to make:
Options >Basic Capture >Post capture options:
Copy to Clipboard: [select one of] Image Bitmap / File itself

=>
I'm not sure what the difference is between those two options.
Tom

Tuxman

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 2,466
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: snipping tool with image editor
« Reply #7 on: May 08, 2016, 08:02 AM »
is there a simple light snipping tool for Win8.1 with image editor similar to Paint or better embedded?

"Light" "with an image editor embedded". Oh dear.

Other than that, ShareX.

IainB

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 7,540
  • @Slartibartfarst
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: snipping tool with image editor
« Reply #8 on: December 13, 2018, 05:45 AM »
@tomos:
In case anyone wondered, the only reason I avoid using SC for clipping images is that I haven't had the time to yet figure out how to get SC to automatically save image clips to the Clipboard, so as to get them into CHS' database for subsequent editing by SC...    :-[
this part is easy enough, although, now I look at it, I'm not 100% sure which choice to make:
Options >Basic Capture >Post capture options:
Copy to Clipboard: [select one of] Image Bitmap / File itself

=>
I'm not sure what the difference is between those two options.

Thanks for your helpful comment, which I just now came across whilst searching for my post above: Re: snipping tool with image editor - Using CHS as an image clip management tool

Though I did figure out for myself the answer that you give anyway, I'd just like to give a belated thanks for your helpful comment - which I don't think I had read/seen before now!   :-[
I have edited my post to include your comment.

cyberdiva

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 1,041
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: snipping tool with image editor
« Reply #9 on: December 22, 2018, 12:36 PM »
I've used a program called HyperSnap for many years. It snips, crops, resizes, alters colors, captures, does scrolls and regional scrolls, etc. etc. I'm not a sophisticated user, but I've found that I don't need to be to use it for my varied needs. I've tried other programs, including the more expensive SnagIt, but found I much preferred HyperSnap. I also tried mouser's Screenshot Capture, but although SC is a fine program, I didn't see any reason to switch and have to deal with a new learning curve.

HyperSnap isn't free. I don't remember what I paid for it umpteen years ago, but it currently sells for $39.95. It's now in version 8. I'm one version behind, because that version already does everything I want. (I may upgrade just to support the helpful developer.)

Here's a screenshot of one section of the program:

HyperSnap.pngsnipping tool with image editor

Lintalist

  • Participant
  • Joined in 2015
  • *
  • Posts: 120
    • View Profile
    • Lintalist
    • Donate to Member
Re: snipping tool with image editor
« Reply #10 on: December 23, 2018, 08:02 AM »
I like Greenshot http://getgreenshot.org/ myself (also portable) which has a builtin editor (ShareX used to use the greenshot editor) - another option may be Snipaste (also portable) - details https://www.portable...om/index.php?id=2801

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,896
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: snipping tool with image editor
« Reply #11 on: December 23, 2018, 08:25 AM »
For those who happen to stumble upon this thread and don't know, DonationCoder's own Screenshot/snipping/annotation tool is Screenshot Captor (I am the author):
https://www.donation...ps/screenshot-captor

screenshotcaptor.png


An overview video:

Maestr0

  • Participant
  • Joined in 2010
  • *
  • Posts: 30
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: snipping tool with image editor
« Reply #12 on: December 23, 2018, 08:30 AM »
I've used MiniCap for years and years. Great little tool.
MiniCap.exe -captureregselect -clipimage -exit
for the win :D

rjbull

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • default avatar
  • Posts: 3,199
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: snipping tool with image editor
« Reply #13 on: December 23, 2018, 04:01 PM »
My screenshot needs are simple and seldom.  That's a key point - I need something quick and easy, rather than maximum power.  Mouser's program is very powerful, and the best bang for your buck around, but I always seemed to have to learn it from scratch.  Maybe the UI doesn't gel for me, and Undo never seemed to work quite like I expected. I found HyperSnap 7 much easier to use.  Its directory takes about 20 MB.  PicPic is an acceptable free-for-personal-use alternative.  Its footprint is 37 MB.  Lately I've been using FastStone Capture, which is relatively compact at under 12 MB, has a portable version, and a modestly-priced ($19.95) lifetime license.  It seems to do all I need at present, and to be easy to use.

rjbull

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • default avatar
  • Posts: 3,199
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: snipping tool with image editor
« Reply #14 on: December 23, 2018, 04:11 PM »
The usual constraint there is that you can only add metadata directly to JPG files. For me, that would sometimes necessitate considerable mucking about
You might care to explore QuickImageComment.  I've only used it for JPGs, but the implication from the Exiv2 library it uses is that it can deal with TIFF, PNG, DNG and wholly or partially with quite a few others, including RAW files, provided you have the right codec pack installed for the latter.