FastStone Capture works on a small floating capture panel, and the user can enable or disable most of the icons on the panel individually under Settings -> Toolbar. The user selects a destination before capturing: internal editor, Windows clipboard, Save As dialog, auto-save folder, printer, default e-mail client, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote or FTP server. When the destination is not the editor, a “Preview in Editor” checkbox sends the capture to the editor before sending it to the destination, and FastStone Capture disables the box when the destination is the editor. A delay timer allows the user time to open a drop down or pop-up menu before the capture fires.
The operation is aborted by right-clicking, pressing the mouse wheel, or pressing Esc during the middle of the capture. The Tab key cycles which corner of the rectangle is being dragged while dragging, and Ctrl+Z undoes back to the previous selection step.
Editor
Images are captured and go into a tabbed editor. Several tabs can be organized into workspaces, each of which will retain the last folder it was used in and will act as an independent instance of the editor. Save formats include BMP, GIF, JPEG, PCX, PNG, TGA, TIFF, WEBP and PDF, and FSC, a proprietary format that saves annotation objects with the image data, so that arrows, text and other mark-up remain editable the next time the image is opened. The pressing of J will put the current date and time on the image and in the Save dialogue a second Ctrl+S will save the image without using the Save button. The Draw tool has the ability to right click on any of the color boxes to select a color directly from the screen, while the numbered stamps in the Step tool go up to three digits (0-999).
Screen recorder
The recorder outputs video in MP4 and WMV format and can also output it as MP3 for audio only recording. A yellow control bar will be visible during full-screen recording but will not show in the video recording. The video editor includes a converter that converts recordings to animated GIFs.
Auxiliary tools
FastStone Capture comes with a screen ruler, color picker, magnifier, crosshair and focus tool. The ruler also features a protractor and an “Auto-Send to Clipboard” feature that automatically copies measurements to the clipboard. There is also an auto-capture feature that takes screenshots at regular intervals that the user can set.
Friction
All the buttons on the capture panel are icons with no text labels, thus new users must learn the function of each icon by trial or manual reading. FastStone Capture is lacking in editing capabilities for recordings, and it records only what is on the screen — there is no support for webcam, game or phone recording. FastStone Capture will not capture anything smaller than 5×5 pixels unless the user first sets “Allow very small captures (5×5 pixels or smaller)” in Settings -> Capture.
