What is Shutter?

Shutter is a free, feature-rich screenshots tool for Linux that's released under the GNU GPL v3 license. Previously known as gscrot, Shutter boasts a very nice integration into the Gnome desktop environment.

Summary of Features

• Taking sreenshots of rectangular areas, windows, your entire screen or particular elements (like the taskbar).
• Taking screenshots of websites.
• Using capture delay timers (eg: taking a screen of a drop down menu).
• Editing the images (drawing highlights, applying effect such as sepia).
• Exporting images to a FTP server and public image hosting services such as imageshack.us.).
• Sessions so you can manage captures, file names, the clipboard, print images etc.

Download and Install

Shutter can be installed on just about any Linux/Unix distribution. If your distro has a package manager, you should be able to obtain shutter with it. If for some reason you can't, you can download the shutter source code (page includes additional packages / info as well). I'm using Ubuntu Linux, so I'll have to use the PPA for the project, choose a version and modify my sources.list.

Ubuntu Installation

If you're lazy and using Intrepid or Jaunty, you can find a .deb file over at GetDeb but I discourage using it. I recommend you fire up your terminal and follow the instructions below.

Open your sources.list in your favourite text editor.

Add the following line (replace jaunty with your version if needed)

Now save and close the editor and add the key

Reload the packages list (I use aptitude so replace with apt-get if needed)

Finally install it (replace with apt-get if needed)


Whether you use the .deb or followed along with me, shutter can now be found under Applications > Accessories > Shutter.

Debian Installation

If you're installing on Debian, the installation method is the same as Ubuntu. You can use this repository :

You can get the GPG key of this package by installing gcue2tracks-dev-keyring package from the same repository.


You can now launch shutter from Applications > Accessories > Shutter or have it launched when your session starts by going in System > Preferences > Startup Programs and adding a new entry with the command "shutter".

Using Shutter

Shutter's main window can be displayed by clicking on the system tray icon. In it you can find :

1. Toolbar
2. A list of screenshots taken during this session
3. A thumnail of each screenshot
4. Detailed information about the file

Configuration

Before we begin using shutter, you might want to configure it to suit your needs (setting the folder where images are saved, configuring an FTP server, shortcuts and so on.).

To open the Preferences window, go to Edit > Preferences (or press Alt + P).

Note : The plugins tab only displays a list of the plugins installed and won't be covered in this article.

Main Tab

1. Profile
   Shutter allows you to save different profiles.
   To the right of the profile drop down menu there are 3 icons: save profile, delete profile and load selected profile.
2. Image format
   Here you can set the compression and file format. (defaults to 9 and png).
3. Save
   Here you can set the folder where shutter will save your screenshots and the filenames.

The filename field supports the following wildcards:

• %Y : year
• %m : month
• %d : day
• %T : time
• %w : width
• %h : height
• %N : Auto incremented numbers

The auto increment wildcard can be used so that your screenshots are named screenshot_001, screenshot_002 and so on. You can use as many "N"s as you like. So %NN would be 01, 02, 03 and %NNN would be 001, 002, 003 etc.

Advanced Tab

1. Actions
   Here you can set actions to use after taking a screenshot such as opening a file with an external program; reducing the colors to 16, 64 or 256; and generating a thumbnail.
2. Capture
   Here you can set a delay (in seconds) and decide wether or not shutter should include the window borders and the cursor.

Behavior Tab

This one is self explanatory.

1. Behavior
2. Gnome-Keybinding
   This feature allows you to configure a hot key that will automatically capture either a selection, window or section.

Upload Tab

1. Accounts
   Here you can set up your accounts on web hosting services. If you don't have one you can click the links on the right to open the registration pages in your browser. If you want to upload your images to FlickR, follow this guide.
2. FTP
   If you want to upload your screenshots to an FTP server, enter your FTP host address, select a connection mode and enter your account username and password.

Taking a screenshot

If you don't want to setup shortcuts, you can take screenshots by right clicking the system tray icon (basic) or from the main window (more options available).


Selection
If you want to take a screenshot of an area of your screen, use the "selection" tool. Simply draw a rectangle on your screen like you would in any image editor (you can resize and move it) then press enter to accept or Esc to cancel.

Full Screen
In order to take a screenshot of your entire desktop, click this button. If you click the down arrow next to it (in the main window), you can choose which virtual desktop you want to capture (x:0 y:0 being top left).

Window
Click this button then click the window you need to take a screenshot of. From the main window, you can select the window you want to capture in a dropdown list :



Section
This one lets you capture a small section of a window (menu, button, etc.). I personnally prefer using the Selection tool though. Just click on the element you want ; borders will appear so you can see what you're about to capture.

Web
If your clipboard contains a string beginning with http://, the URL will automatically be pasted in the form. If that's not the case, manually enter the URL.

Editing and exporting

Once you've taken a screenshot, you may want to edit and clean it up a bit before uploading, sharing or using it in one of your projects. To modify a screenshot, select the appropriate screenshot tab in the main window and then click the Edit button (or press CTRL + E). A new window will appear with various buttons and toolbars.


At the top of the edit window you'll find traditional buttons like zoom, undo, redo, copy, paste, save, close and so on. Below the main buttons there is a toolbar of drawing tools on the left, workspace on the right and a properties bar underneath.

The toolbar

Selection tool: Allows you to select and move objects

Pencil: Draws a freehand line

Line: Click and hold to draw straight a line. You can transform the line after drawing it :



Arrow: Click and hold to draw an arrow.

Rectangle: Click and hold to draw a rectangle

Ellipse: Click and hold to draw an ellipse

Text box: Click and hold to draw a text box. Then switch to the selection tool, right click the box and click on Properties. There you can modify the font, color and type your text.

Censoring tool: Masks information you don't want to share

Auto incremented numbers: Draws circled numbers. You can change the number by accessing the object's properties.

Crop: Click and hold to draw a rectangle. when you're done, click the "Crop" button on the right. (Don't press enter...)



The Properties bar



From here you can modify the colors of your objects, the line width and font style. You also can add an image to your screenshot.

All objects behave like layers, you can move them independantly, move them to the front / back and change their properties (by right clicking an object). The square / ellipse / line / arrow and image can be resized manually. When you're done, save and exit the editor.

Applying effects to your screenshots

Applying effects to your screenshots is done using plug-ins. From the main window, go to Screenshot > Execute a plugin or press SHIFT+CTRL+P. The default plugins include: creating a polaroid (with custom text), sepia, negative, export as PDF, resize, etc.)

Exporting your screenshot

Now that you're done toying with your screenshot, you might want to share it with your friends. Shutter allows you to directly upload your images to a FTP server or to hosting websites (ubuntu-pics, image shack and image banana)

Click the export button or press ALT+U and choose the method you want.



Once the upload is finished a window will appear giving you the URL of your image.

Final thoughts

Shutter is a really nice tool, but the project is still young and suffers from minor bugs and a few annoying things. That's why I sometimes rely on scrot and gimp. You may want to read Kurt Qian's article about scrot and Andrew Johnson's long article about gimp.