Shotty, another screenshot tool for Vista/7

By Denis W.
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Grand Master

Denis W. Veteran

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Windows: Shotty is a lightweight and portable screen capture tool that captures screenshots in Windows Vista and 7 while preserving the transparency of Aero-Glass effects.

If all you need is to capture windows with the transparency intact, Shotty does a great job. On top of eye-candy preserving capture, however, it also includes a built-in editor for easy highlighting and annotation. Shotty has support for easy screenshot sharing via quick uploads to popular image sharing services like ImageShack and TwitPic.

It comes packaged in an installer but you can opt to install it as a system or portable application. Shotty is freeware, Windows only.

Download

(via Lifehacker)

Grand Master

+Xinok Subscriber²

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It works. Grabs the Aero-Glass and the shadow as well. It's pretty clever how it works, it puts a background behind the window, and takes two screenshots, once on a black background, and once with a white background. It compares the two screenshots to calculate the transparency.

It captures layered windows as well by clicking the tray icon (windows behind other windows), though these won't have the Aero-Glass effect.

You may have to run the program as administrator to take screenshots of certain processes.

post-57213-12804500799854.png

Grand Master

Mr. Gibs

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It works. Grabs the Aero-Glass and the shadow as well. It's pretty clever how it works, it puts a background behind the window, and takes two screenshots, once on a black background, and once with a white background. It compares the two screenshots to calculate the transparency.

It captures layered windows as well by clicking the tray icon (windows behind other windows), though these won't have the Aero-Glass effect.

You may have to run the program as administrator to take screenshots of certain processes.

post-57213-12804500799854.png

I can do the same thing with printscreen and mspaint :wacko:

Grand Master

+Xinok Subscriber²

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I can do the same thing with printscreen and mspaint :wacko:

I think you're misunderstanding. Shotty creates alpha-transparent PNGs. Any other method won't do that.

Shotty = Transparency (Notice how you can see the checkered background through the aero-glass)

post-57213-12804532718352.png

Print screen + MSPaint = No Transparency (Notice how you CAN'T see the checkered background through the aero-glass)

post-57213-1280453299527.png

Grand Master

Mr. Gibs

Posted
Posted
I think you're misunderstanding. Shotty creates alpha-transparent PNGs. Any other method won't do that.

Oh, I thought you meant being able to see the background through aero in the picture you take LOL.

I was like clearly I'm seeing things, because according to this picture that I just took, I can see my wallpaper.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Grand Master

Mr. Gibs

Posted
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I don't get why Windows doesn't do this out of the box like Mac OS X. Taking screen shots in Windows is pretty ****ty.

It takes screenshots exactly like Mac OS X does. It just doesn't have alpha-transparency like Xinok pointed out.

Now I don't think OSX has any major transparency in the GUI, so you can't really compare the two.

Grand Master

.Neo

Posted
Posted

It takes screenshots exactly like Mac OS X does. It just doesn't have alpha-transparency like Xinok pointed out.

Now I don't think OSX has any major transparency in the GUI, so you can't really compare the two.

No? How would you describe this then?

screenshot20100730at035.png

screenshot20100730at035r.png

screenshot20100730at040.png

Seems to me Mac OS X does transparency quite good when taking screen shots... Please do tell me how exactly can't you compare the two?

Grand Master

Mr. Gibs

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No? How would you describe this:

Seems to me Mac OS X does transparency quite good when taking screen shots... Please do tell me how exactly can't you compare the two?

I did say I don't think it did ;) So I guess I was wrong.

Also, Windows will maintain the transparency so it will show w/e is behind the window you're taking a screenshot of. It just doesn't support alpha-transparency. Not exactly a major deal-breaker.

Grand Master

.Neo

Posted
Posted

I did say I don't think it did ;) So I guess I was wrong.

Also, Windows will maintain the transparency so it will show w/e is behind the window you're taking a screenshot of. It just doesn't support alpha-transparency. Not exactly a major deal-breaker.

I think it's pretty poor for a 2010 operating system. But oh well, Microsoft just is a bit slow when it comes to stuff like this.

Grand Master

+LogicalApex MVC

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I think it's pretty poor for a 2010 operating system. But oh well, Microsoft just is a bit slow when it comes to stuff like this.

I'm sure they figure that it doesn't matter to 99% of their userbase. Like any company they invest their resources where they will get the best return on that investment. Something as minor as this would be nice to have, but doesn't even cross the mind of the majority of people, me included.

For those that do care there is the app posted in this thread to fill the void :)

Grand Master

.Neo

Posted
Posted

I'm sure they figure that it doesn't matter to 99% of their userbase. Like any company they invest their resources where they will get the best return on that investment. Something as minor as this would be nice to have, but doesn't even cross the mind of the majority of people, me included.

For those that do care there is the app posted in this thread to fill the void :)

It's all in the details. And you'd be surprised how many Mac OS X users use this feature. Hell, even my mom uses it from time to time when corresponding with her friends.

A much smaller company like Apple is able to implement this without asking, yet Microsoft has to divert valuable resources? Sure...

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argonite

Posted
Posted

I'm sure they figure that it doesn't matter to 99% of their userbase.

The concept of transparency in an image manipulation program is quite new to a lot of Windows users, they won't know what to do with transparency ("what the heck is this checkerboard doing in my image???"), and MSpaint doesn't even show transparency..

Grand Master

Mr. Gibs

Posted
Posted

It's all in the details. And you'd be surprised how many Mac OS X users use this feature. Hell, even my mom uses it from time to time when corresponding with her friends.

It's funny though you should bring that up btw. Apparently Apple is capable of doing so, yet Microsoft isn't? Right.

Your mum uses alpha transparency? With what exactly?

I honestly cannot say this was something I looked for. Hell I didn't even know the difference until like 20mins ago =/

And who cares if Apple is able to do it? There are many things Windows does that OSX doesn't, and the same applies vice-verca.

MSpaint doesn't even show transparency..

MSPaint on 7 does show transparency, it just can't save it.

Mentor

argonite

Posted
Posted

MSPaint on 7 does show transparency, it just can't save it.

I can't seem to get it to do this. All transparency just turns white, and I can't manipulate the alpha. Is that what you meant? I meant support along the lines of Paint.NET.

Of course, I realize that in order to to be able to edit the alpha meaningfully, MSPaint would have to support layers. This is another jump in complexity for most users.

Grand Master

.Neo

Posted
Posted

Your mum uses alpha transparency? With what exactly?

PowerPoint / Keynote presentations, Word / Pages documents etc. Not all backgrounds are just plain white you know... It also has to do with the fact Mac OS X sees most UI elements as different layers in the progress. Not just alpha transparency.

And who cares if Apple is able to do it? There are many things Windows does that OSX doesn't, and the same applies vice-verca.

You're the one coming up with some revenue / investment story.

MSPaint on 7 does show transparency, it just can't save it.

How convenient.

Grand Master

Quillz

Posted
Posted

I don't get why Windows doesn't do this out of the box like Mac OS X. Taking screen shots in Windows is pretty ****ty.

And why doesn't Mac OS X do [feature] that [Windows, Linux] can do out of the box?

Because Windows is not Mac OS X, and Mac OS X is not Windows.

Grand Master

Mr. Gibs

Posted
Posted
PowerPoint / Keynote presentations, Word / Pages documents etc. Not all backgrounds are just plain white you know... It also has to do with the fact Mac OS X sees most UI elements as different layers in the progress. Not just alpha transparency.

Cool? I honestly cannot say I care, and I'm probably betting that 99% of windows users don't care either. I don't go around taking screenshots of windows and posting them in powerpoint presentations or word documents.

And even if I did, it wouldn't be that big a deal if I couldn't make a window transparent so I can see whats below it.

You're the one coming up with some revenue / investment story.

Excuse me? That made no sense what so ever. And if you bothered to check it wasn't me who said anything about that ;)

How convenient.

Yes because a very basic image editor that is really only used for saving a screenshot or to make a funny edit, must have support for layers, alpha transparency, etc right?

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