(Guide/Review) Capture screenshots using hotkeys and edit them with HolzShots

[Karlston]

Capture screenshots using hotkeys and edit them with HolzShots

Using a keyboard shortcut to capture a screenshot is a more efficient way to get the timing right, than fumbling over a tray icon or a toolbar. If you agree with that statement, you may find HolzShots to be a useful screenshot utility.

 

 

The program is portable, and the extracted folder is about 7MB. Its executable is located in the following folder: HolzShots\src\HolzShots\bin\Release

 

Run it and the HolzShots icon should appear on the system tray. Double-click on it to bring up the program's settings panel. This is sort of the application's GUI and is divided into 5 tabs.

 

The first tab is called Hotkeys. There are 3 ways to capture screenshots using HolzShots. Hit the F8 key, and use the left mouse to select a specific area on the screen. Selection box too big or small? Hold the left mouse button to resize it. Selected the wrong area? Don't let go of the mouse, hold the left mouse and right mouse buttons together to move the selected area. Hit the space bar to toggle the on-screen magnifier. Another way to use this option is to right-click on the tray icon and click on "Select Area".

 

 

F9 captures the entire screen, while F10 saves a snapshot of the active window.

 

 

All three hotkeys can be customized, and you have options to include Ctrl, Windows, Alt and Shift keys as part of a combination along with any key of your choice. The program lets you disable any of the 3 capture modes completely.

Editor

HolzShots has a built-in image editor called ShotEditor, which opens automatically when you capture a screenshot. The redact tool can be used for masking sensitive text, while the mark tool is useful for highlight text. The "insert text" option is basically a watermarking tool, that allows you to add text or a timestamp and customize the font type, size and color.

 

 

The Erase and Blur tools are handy for hiding personal information from images. You may draw an arrow or an ellipse, use the eye-dropper to pick a color or adjust the brightness of the image using the editor. ShotEditor has an undo option but redo isn't supported.

 

The editor can save images in two formats: PNG and JPG; but the JPG option was buggy in my tests, and the image is saved in the PNG format. You can use it to open existing images, but for this you'll need to use the tray icon's "Open Image" option and browse for the picture. Or, you can optionally enable a setting from the Misc tab, that adds "Open in ShotEditor" context menu item to Explorer.

 

 

There is an upward arrow button in the top left corner of the editor, this is used to upload the image to a cloud service. Refer to the next section for more details.

Upload

HolzShots can optionally upload the captured image to DirectUpload.net or fotos-hochladen.net. The program can be set to upload the image directly before editing, or after. Control these options from the setting tab. The Plugins tab lists two add-ons for the upload services, but it doesn't appear to work.

 

Warning: Please note that we could not test these cloud services. We recommend you read their Terms of Services before using them. You don't need to use this feature, as the program can save the files locally.

Saving

This tab has an option that saves all captured screenshots. You can define the folder where the snaps are saved and also customize the naming pattern.

 

 

HolzShots can optionally be set to auto start with Windows. The program is open source. You may choose to install it via chocolatey using the following command: choco install holzshots

 

I'd say the only thing that's missing in the program is the option to capture delayed screenshots.

 

Landing Page: https://github.com/nikeee/HolzShots

 

 

Capture screenshots using hotkeys and edit them with HolzShots