More Screen Capture Software
Last summer I wrote a post about my experiences using various screen capture software. At the time I was using Bandicam which suited all my needs. I had configured the software to launch at Windows start-up and had a hotkey assigned to capture images from my primary monitor. Hence I could quickly grab a screenshot from my desktop or when playing a game. However, this changed in November 2025, when I bought two new monitors. Both of which supported HDR (High Dynamic Range). Although they provide superior picture quality, HDR has a knock-on effect on Bandicam. Screen capture images and video look over exposed. Hence I had to stop using the software and find an alternative. Fortunately the same company has been developing an alternative product with HDR support; Bandi Camera. So I swapped to this software. The screenshots were far better but the functionality of the app was lacking.
Last summer I wrote a post about my experiences using various screen capture software. At the time I was using Bandicam which suited all my needs. I had configured the software to launch at Windows start-up and had a hotkey assigned to capture images from my primary monitor. Hence I could quickly grab a screenshot from my desktop or when playing a game. However, this changed in November 2025, when I bought two new monitors. Both of which supported HDR (High Dynamic Range). Although they provide superior picture quality, HDR has a knock-on effect on Bandicam. Screen capture images and video look over exposed. Hence I had to stop using the software and find an alternative. Fortunately the same company has been developing an alternative product with HDR support; Bandi Camera. So I swapped to this software. The screenshots were far better but the functionality of the app was lacking.
The main problem I have found with Bandi Camera is that to use it effectively you have to use a series of hotkeys. First it has to be maximised from the system tray and then you need to select which monitor you wish to take images of. Finally you have to choose whether you wish to capture a specific portion of the screen or the active window. It all works well but the process does not lend itself to “grabbing a screenshot on the fly”. I prefer just pressing a single key and not having to worry about anything else. Another issue is that the software takes two images when you take a screenshot. One in .jpg format and the other in .avif (or .jxr). I have no need for these more advanced formats. However, as there is not an excess of screen capture software with HDR support available at present, I have got by using Bandi Camera. It has the benefit of being free of charge at present.
Recently while perusing software online, I discovered Action! This is a screen recorder, primarily designed to be an alternative to software such as OBR and XSplit. Not only does it record video footage of your desktop or game, it also can take screenshots. It is also notable that it supports HDR. So I purchased Action! for £20, which is a reasonable price for a single user lifetime license. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy the software was to configure and how straightforward the user interface is. Most importantly, I can take a screenshot of a specific monitor by pressing a single hotkey. Effectively I have returned to the functionality that Bandicam gave me, only this time I have HDR support. So far the quality of the screen captures has been fine, apart from those taken from Roblox. However, as that is not a major source of my video game blogging, I can live with this minor issue.
I have also spent some time experimenting with the screen recorder option, capturing video footage of various video games. Action! is certainly less complex than OBS and once properly configured to record HDR content, the results are good. However, there are a few bugs. If I set the software to capture an active game, most of the time it does so without any issues. However, when recording The Lord of the Rings Online, if I turned off the screen recorder HUD, a black box would still appear in the top right corner of the screen. This bug seems unique to LOTRO as it hasn’t occurred with any other game. I fixed the issue by selecting the screen instead of the game, as the source of the recording. Minor glitches notwithstanding, Action! Handles screenshots well, so as that is my primary requirement, I’ll continue to use it.
Screen Capture Software and HDR
I take a lot of screen captures of video games and Windows apps, usually for blog posts. I use both Bandicam and Windows Snipping Tool to do this and have set up various hotkeys to make the process easy. Of late, the screen captures that I’ve taken have all suffered from washed out colours, regardless what tool I used to take them. I checked to see if both these apps needed to be updated but they are running the latest versions. Hence I was initially stumped as to why this problem had started happening. After some thought, I deduced that the only new elements in my PC hardware were my two new monitors. Both of which support HDR. Google Gemini quickly informed me that this was a known issue and taking screen captures from an HDR enabled device resulted in an excessively bright image that looked over exposed.
I take a lot of screen captures of video games and Windows apps, usually for blog posts. I use both Bandicam and Windows Snipping Tool to do this and have set up various hotkeys to make the process easy. Of late, the screen captures that I’ve taken have all suffered from washed out colours, regardless what tool I used to take them. I checked to see if both these apps needed to be updated but they are running the latest versions. Hence I was initially stumped as to why this problem had started happening. After some thought, I deduced that the only new elements in my PC hardware were my two new monitors. Both of which support HDR. Google Gemini quickly informed me that this was a known issue and taking screen captures from an HDR enabled device resulted in an excessively bright image that looked over exposed.
HDR, or High Dynamic Range, is a technology that improves image and video quality by creating a greater contrast between the brightest and darkest parts of an image. This allows for more realistic pictures with a wider range of colours, deeper blacks and brighter whites, while also preserving detail in both highlights and shadows. It is commonly used in 4K televisions and is supported by streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. 4K UHD Blu-ray supports HDR but regular Blu-ray does not, instead using the older Standard Dynamic Range. HDR is also a feature on the latest Smartphones. Furthermore, HDR is common in many contemporary video game titles and as such gaming monitors now support the process. Hence capturing an image from any of these sources is potentially going to run into these issues with regard to colour balance and contrast.
Bandicam screen capture without HDR support
Why does this happen? Mainly because most screen capture software has been designed to capture content in the older Standard Dynamic Range (SDR) format and has been incrementally updated over the years. The fundamental mismatch between the wide brightness and colour range of HDR displays and the technical limitations of traditional capture methods leads to screenshots and recordings that appear dim, washed out, or overexposed. Fortunately, there are specific screen capture apps that have subsequently been designed to support HDR. Bandisoft, the software developer that makes Bandicam, has another product called BandiCamera which is HDR compliant and works in an identical fashion to Bandicam. However, it is purely a screen capture tool producing still images. At present it does not support video capture.
BandiCamera screen capture with HDR support
So far BandiCamera, which is free to download, has proven a good solution to the problem. Screen captures of both video games and websites no longer suffer from the overexposed and washed out look that previously blighted them. Screen captures can be saved in .PNG, .JPG and .AVIF formats. However, BandiCamera lacks some of the features found in Bandicam, which can be configured to take pictures of a specific monitor or any active game executable file. BandiCamera has various hotkeys that can be assigned to specific tasks, one of which allows you to “find capture target”. This works fine when you’re taking a screen capture from a website or YouTube video. However, it is not so good for grabbing a screenshot on the fly while playing a video game. Hopefully future releases will address this and add further functionality.
Update: During the course of researching this issue, I discovered after I had downloaded and installed BandiCamera, that Windows Snipping Tool already has a setting called “HDR screenshot colour corrector”. This can be toggled on or off accordingly. It does a similar job of compensating for HDR’s vivid colour palette, although the results are not quite as comprehensive as BandiCamera. The obvious benefit is that this is a tool that comes with Windows 11.
