ksnapshot vs gnome-screenshot: no comparison! January 22, 2007
Posted by Nigel Ajay Kumar (NAyK) in How-To, Linux, Recommendation, Reviews, Screenshots, Software, Working with Linux.trackback
This is just a quick post to pronounce my verdit (that’s if you don’t know it already). ksnapshot is really a very good, flexible and superior screenshot generator in comparison to gnome’s own’s screenshot gnome-screenshot. In fact, ksnapshot is so good, that I would recommend any gnome user to install ksnapshot by default. It’s more functional and a lot more fun.
Below is a screenshot of ksnapshot made by ksnapshot. As you can see it has more functons that gnome-screenshot, whose screenshot is also below.
I still don’t know how to take screenshots of boot-processes etc. But I’ve really enjoyed playing around with ksnapshot.
For making screenshots using ksnapshot, press <alt f2> which is linux’s universal application launcher (use it, it will become indespensable!). And then type ksnapshot (it should auto compelte in grey if you have it installed already) and press <enter>. The screenshot will appear, but you can just choose to make a more controlled screenshot later.
Now that I’ve said my ‘two-bits’… it’s off for the day!
ksnapshot: as you can see, many functions. I like the delayed response, the region chooser etc.
gnome-screenshot: as you can see, it’s pretty much like pressing <PrtScr>. not that helpful at all… except for the save as function, perhaps.
Tryst with Linux and other Alternatives 
I like scrot – despite being command line driven, it has features like ‘create a thumbnail as well’ along with the screenshot
I’m not sure if it has been improved since you wrote this but: gnome-screenshot has a delay option, albeit a CLI-only option.
Like the rest of Gnome, its GUI is slightly too simple. Unfortunate.
I prefer ksnapshot for its ability to snap an arbitrary region of the desktop.
gnome-screenshot -d 3
-where -d is delay and 3 is 3 seconds
I like screenshooter (the xfce4 default) personally. Has all of the above features for as long as I’ve felt the need for them.
Did you try Shutter?
http://shutter-project.org/
For me is the best…
shutter is built as a GUI layer over the ImageMagick package. The “import” utility of ImageMagick is the core functionality you need.
I’m replacing the current xgrabsc with “import” as the former was written for no more than 8-bit color. A larger palette causes a segment violation as the return of XGetPixel returns a number larger than 255 that is used to dereference the “used” array inside the image. I cleaned up the code for compile under gcc, then identified the limitation. It is “fixable? if you want to grind through transforming the color map down to 8-bits in the getImage function found in get.c. More work than I have time to do with the current development schedule.
gnome-screenshot –interactive
Exactly the same options like ksnapshot. Even better, it starts instantly because it does not take the whole desktop to begin with.
I don’t know when they implemented, but I recently found it in a fresh install where ksnapshot was missing
I agree with the last comment regarding gnome-screenshot.
Also you can re-bind Shortcuts. For Example
PrtSc -> “gnome-screenshot –area” (will grab specified area)
Alt+PrtSc -> “gnome-screenshot –window” (will grab only window)
Crtl+Shift+PrtSc -> “gnome-screenshot –interactive” (will open dialog with options)
I don’t like ksnapshot, find it very buggy.
In particular my version remembers the filename of your previously saved screenshot. It sounds a minor thing but is really misleading and annoying when you have a window open called something you might’ve saved weeks ago that’s completely unrelated. There’s no option to tell it to not remember.