Ashampoo Snap

Price

Priced at $39.99 (or just $14.99 when upgrading from a previous version), Snap is a relatively expensive screen-capture utility, even if it is cheaper than Snagit ($49.99, or $34.99 for upgraders). Fortunately, you get some unique tools for the money, which we'll explore below.

If you only need very basic screen-capture features, the free Windows Snip & Sketch is a sound option. Snip lacks advanced features, such as GIF making, Wi-Fi syncing, or any kind of video recording. Still, it will work in a pinch if you just need to capture images every now and then. Screencast-O-Matic also offers a very capable free version, with screen capture and video recording features. You can upgrade to the deluxe tier (GIF creation, green screen filter, and more) for $1.65 per month.

A Snappy Start

Grabbing a screen is a simple process. You select a capture method from the menu at the top of the screen, hold your mouse's left button, and move the on-screen crosshair to create a shape. Right-clicking cancels the action. Letting go of the button the highlighted area brings the (somewhat messy) editing and publishing menus to the front. There are numerous screen-capture options available, including rectangular, freestyle, scrolling, timed capture, and full window. Your choice of browser impacts your capture options. With Chrome and Internet Explorer, you can capture the entire webpage from top to bottom. With Firefox, you need to use the freestyle scrolling capture feature to achieve the same result.

Previously, you had to go through the extra step of clicking whatever you wanted to capture. But now, like Snagit, Snap automatically grabs the screen when you release the left mouse button. Having one less thing to do is a nice improvement. Of course, you can simply tap the PrtSc key to capture the entire screen if you don't need to grab a specific area. Certain tools also let you resize the capture area first before committing to a capture.

Unfortunately, Snap still has some technical issues. During our most recent testing, the app didn’t freeze the way it did in the past. However, we encountered occasional hitches, and sometimes couldn’t capture anything until we restarted the app. The problems weren't frequent enough for us to not recommend the app, but they should be noted. Snagit, on the other hand, didn't lock up once during our tests.

A New Ashampoo

On the upside, Snap's newest version continues to build upon past iterations' strengths by keeping what worked and polishing it further. 

You still have many video-focused features, including timed video capture and live video editing. The latter is quite impressive, as it lets you annotate videos while you're recording them, which cuts down on post-processing work. Snap also supports 4K resolution slightly more reliably than Snagit.

You also get watermark options and video-capture capabilities, with numerous resolution and AVI/WMV options, that make creating tutorials and walkthrough clips a breeze. Like Snagit, Snap 11 supports intuitive GIF creation, as well as versioning, so you won't lose the original image after making tweaks.

Gamers can quickly capture screenshots of 2D and 3D games on their primary monitor without interrupting the action. It reminds us of the screen capture functionality in other gamer-targeted software like the Nvidia GeForce Experience, Opera GX browser, and Steam. 

You can save images in the BMP, JPG, JXR, PNG, PDF, PSD, Snapdoc, and WEBP formats. Similar to Snagit, Snap lets you lock the image capture tool so that it grabs images in either the 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratios. Snap conveniently saves your most recent captures in a row at the bottom of the interface for easy access.

Snap's OCR technology gives you another handy way to capture content. Suppose there's webpage text that you'd like to grab, but numerous on-page images make capturing the text tricky. If you activate OCR mode (which supports English, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and now Japanese), Snap scans the page, yanks out the images, and presents you with clean text to capture. Snap processes webpages with impressive speed. Snagit now also offers this feature, but Snap has a slight edge when it comes to supporting multiple languages. 

The toolbar on the left serves up several editing options (for screenshots or any other image files you have saved) that let you add blur effects, color, arrows to highlight on-screen objects, and more. Editing images and adding effects (such as the outline options) proved effortless in testing.

After capturing video or a screenshot, your next course of action is to visit the action bar that's tucked away on the right side of the screen. Depending on whether you captured a still or a video, you can email content to others, or upload it to numerous online destinations, including Ashampoo Webspace, Dropbox, Facebook, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and Twitter. You can also send it to a printer or save it to your PC's hard drive.

Snap lacks a companion app that lets you sync images between a PC and handset that are on the same Wi-Fi signal, the way Snagit’s Fuse and Screencast-O-Matic’s mobile apps do. Instead, Ashampoo offers a standalone Android screen capture app called Droid Screenshot. It lets you manually move images from your phone to your computer, and it isn’t as big a hassle as you'd think. Just as Snap isn’t on Mac, this mobile app isn’t on iOS. 

A Little Room for Improvement

Ashampoo Snap 11 has its weaknesses, from technical issues to missing the cool Wi-Fi Sync feature found in its main competitor. However, live 4K video editing and a relatively lower price may be enough to entice you away from Snagit, the Editors' Choice for screen-capture utilities. Snap is definitely worth trying if you want to experience a screen-capture utility that does more than the average capture tool.