CaptureLens How To

The S key rotates:
1 Magnifier with Border
2 Ruler mode
3 Caliper mode
4 Magnifier Glass only

Menu settings:
You can assign the middle mouse wheel to zoom.

How to use the Magnifier

The magnifier can by used to read fine print or enlarge any detail on screen.

To select the single magnifier, press the S key until you have a magnifier, there are two magnifiers, one with a border image and one without a border (glass only )

You can move the lens over any item to view, use the + or - key to adjust the magnification factor.

To enhance a magnified view press and hold down the A key to use the Anti Alias filter to improve the image visible in the lens.

Photographers can easily check photos for sharpness or purple fringing with the magnifier.

Capture lens Real Size

Menu settings:
The lens can also show Pantone PMS colors or gray scale percentages.

How to use the Color Picker

Ctrl+P toggles the color picker / color converter, use the cross hair with the small square in the middle to point to any pixel on screen, the small square in the center will be filled with the color of the selected pixel, to verify that's the color you need to convert. Using the maximal magnification you can easily pick the color of a pixel.

Default Capturelens will show RGB values, to convert RGB to an other color space, select Convert RGB to from the menu, you could convert for example to HEX values if you are working with html pages.

You can read the values from the color value label above the cross hair.
To copy a value from the color value label to the clip board use Ctrl+C you can paste the value into the program you are working with.

Capturelens converts RGB colors to HEX html, HEX BGR, CMYK, HSV (HSB), LAB, XYZ.

Optional, Capturelens can detect PMS colors and alse can produce black percentages when used on gray scales and B&W images.

How to use Color Charts

Pantone PMS, RAL Design and RAL Classic color charts are provided with CaptureLens. Designers can use the charts to match their graphical work with real world colors, web designers can find colors to use on their web page designs.
The Classical Ral Chart is handy to select a paint color for your next paint job.

Optional Pantone PMS color numbers will be shown when Capturelens detects a Pantone PMS color.

Open a chart from the pop-up menu and move the lens over a color to convert the values to your needs, ctrl+c makes a copy of the value to the windows clipboard.

Tip:
You can make use of the fact that Capturelens can keep a screen in memory.
First turn auto capture off, open a color chart from the pop up menu, scroll the color range you need to use in view, re-capture the screen, activate the program you are working with, now you can move the lens over the (hidden) previously captured screen, copy and paste as described above.

How to check the Exposure of an image

Even when your monitor doesn't show dark or light areas very well, Capturelens can still detect exposure errors.

Open the image in your usual image viewer, if not already running, start Capturelens, use Ctrl+E to toggle the exposure check option, now move the small square in the center of the lens over the part of the image you think is under or overexposed.

The exposure check circle on the left has three stages:

Green: The area is OK, no problems found.
Orange: Still OK but getting close to an exposure problem.
Red: (black bar) The area is underexposed or (white bar) overexposed

How to Measure small screen items

Capturelens has an adjustable and pixel ruler and caliper, both tools scale up/down with the magnification factor.

Ruler:
Press the S key a few times get the ruler in view, place the top left of the ruler on the first pixel of the item you want to measure, fine tune the position with the arrow keys (one step) or ctrl+arrow keys (ten steps)

You can measure horizontal or vertical up to 200 pixels, to measure very small items increase the zoom, the + and - keys scales the rulers markings.

Caliper:
This is a more exact way to measure, again press the S key until the ruler is in view.

Place the top left of Capturelens on the top left side of the item you want to measure.
If needed, fine tune the top left alignment with the arrow keys.

Use the Shift+Arrow keys to adjust the jaws of the caliper, the values are shown on the top right and left bottom, in this case width 36px and height 14px

Note:
You also can read out the angle in 360° of a line.
90° north
180° east
0° west
270° south

How to Measure large screen areas

Measuring larger distances and angles is done by measuring from a start point any point you drag the measuring cross hair to.

Pressing the M key sets Capturelens in measure mode, move the cross hair to the start position and press M key again to start measuring, now you can move the lens to anywhere on the screen to read the distance and angle.

To move Capturelens in a straight line use the arrow keys or ctrl+arrow keys, or keep an eye on the angle.

Example:
On the right you see an example, the top left position of a banner on an Internet page was selected as the starting point, after pressing the M again Capturelens was moved to the oposite site of the banner, the length of the banner reads 1000 pixels.

How to Capture a Screen or make a Crop

You can crop a full screen or any part of the screen and save it to file.

Optional you can place a crop on the Windows clipboard to paste in any suitable program capable of handling images. This option is located in menu More>Settings> Save captures to Clipboard (not to file).

Capture Full screen:
The R key or a double click with the L mouse button re-captures a screen.

Use the Ins key to grab and save a full screen, default the screen that's already captured and visible through the lens. You can change this behavior to capturing the screen outside the lens by activating the Re-capture before saving a full screen option found at the More>Settings menu.

Capture a Crop:
If you want a crop of a part of the screen press the C key (crop) to activate the cropping mode, press C key again to mark the first corner of your crop, move capturelens diagonal to the other corner and press te C key again, done the crop is saved.

BTW all images (crops) on this pages where made with a second running instance of Capturelens.

Capturelens crop of the moon

How to use a Qframe to make movie or slide show stills

Qframe is a special option to capture predefined coordinates with a single key combination or middle mouse click, for instance to capture stills from a movie or slide show.

To start setting up the Qframe press the Q key once, move the cross hair to any corner of the movie, slide show or any other moving object, press Q key again to lock the first corner, move the cross hair diagonal to the other corner press Q again to lock the second corner and save the settings.

Now, every time you want to make a still during the movie press the Space Bar or use the middle mouse button, Capturelens recapture the screen, crops according the Qframe settings and saves the crop to file.

The four images below are taken from a small part of an Youtube movie this way.