If you appreciate Google’s Circle to Search feature on Android, the Snipping Lens application on Windows is sure to capture your interest. This free utility transforms the traditional Snipping Tool into an efficient visual search engine, leveraging the capabilities of Google Lens to analyze screenshots, extract text, translate languages, and identify various objects—all through your preferred Windows browser.
Introducing Snipping Lens: Enhance Your Visual Search
Those who have utilized the Circle to Search on Android, a collaborative innovation by Google and Samsung, will find Snipping Lens to be quite similar. This open-source application, available on GitHub, is designed for both Windows 11 and 10, as well as Linux platforms.
To get started, you can download the app from its GitHub Release page. Windows users should select the “SnippingLens.exe” asset. Note that as a non-Windows Store application, it may prompt a SmartScreen warning during installation; simply proceed with the installation steps.
Using Snipping Lens is straightforward. Simply launch the Snipping Tool either by pressing the keyboard shortcut Win + Shift + S or by accessing it from the System Tray.
When you capture a screenshot, it doesn’t just save to your desktop; the Snipping Lens app operates in the background, uploading the image to Litterbox, a secure server that automatically deletes images after one hour. Consequently, a Google Lens window appears in your default browser, offering a wealth of insights as outlined below.
Experience Instant Visual Searches with Google Lens
Once a screenshot is captured, a new Google Lens tab automatically opens in your browser, showcasing the image with the option to adjust the selection area using the circles at the bottom right. Once you’ve made your selection, you will receive instant results right beneath the highlighted area.
While the Windows Snipping Tool does offer Bing visual search capabilities, many find its interface cumbersome, requiring multiple steps to upload images manually. This inconvenience often deters users from taking advantage of the tool’s full potential. In contrast, Snipping Lens presents results naturally beneath the screenshot, creating an intuitive user experience.
Identify and Describe Screenshots with Ease
Snipping Lens enriches the identifying ability of the Snipping Tool by integrating Google Lens’s text prompts to help users easily identify objects within screenshots. By focusing on specific portions of an image, you can obtain precise details without navigating away from your current tab.
This capability is handy when working across multiple browser tabs. Whether you’re decoding intricate code snippets or analyzing circuit diagrams, the information you need is just a screenshot away.
Leverage OCR Capabilities in Your Snipping Tool
The traditional Snipping Tool’s Text Actions feature can identify clear texts but often struggles with optical character recognition (OCR) from images, particularly in the case of scanned documents. However, with Snipping Lens, you can effortlessly extract text from images, handwritten notes, scanned documents, and PDF files easily.
Multilingual Translations Available in Screenshots
The translation functionality in the Circle to Search feature may seem basic, yet it proves invaluable when encountering foreign-language pages or documents. This remarkable functionality integrated into a screenshot utility is a first for Windows.
By simply capturing a screenshot and selecting the Translate option, you can obtain results instantly, keeping your workflow uninterrupted.
When exploring websites, such as Amazon, you no longer need to copy and paste product details repeatedly. Instead, just zoom in on the relevant section and quickly retrieve Google search results that provide what the product is and where to obtain it. Depending on your Snipping Tool settings in Windows, either press the Print Screen key or snip the target area to access information effortlessly.
Additionally, did you know that Snipping Tool in Windows 11 allows screen recording as a GIF? This added feature enhances your digital toolset even further!
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