- Speed. Starts instantly. The project is built with a focus on speed and optimization and avoids heavy libraries. You can see the comparison with Flameshot & Spectacle with benchmarks here.
- Functionality. :
- OCR: fast text scanning, with the option to download and choose a specific model
- Pin
- Color picker
- Basic annotations: pen, highlighter, line, arrow, rectangle, circle, numbered arrows, text, redact (blur or pixelate)
- Native on Wayland.
LumineCapture supports different launch options, here is the most basic one:
-
lumine-capture
╰─> Takes a screenshot of the whole workspace. -
lumine-capture -m
╰─> Takes a screenshot of the monitor under the pointer. -
lumine-capture -r
╰─> No editor and no annotations, just drag a region; the screenshot is taken as soon as you release the mouse button (by default it is both saved and copied).
lumine-capture -f(full workspace)lumine-capture -f -m(current monitor)lumine-capture -w(active window, currently works only on KDE)
Important: by default every screenshot is also saved as a file and copied to the clipboard, even if in the editor you only chose to copy or pin it. There are two ways to change that:
-
-t <letters>decides what happens to the screenshot for this launch, where the letters are:ssaves it to the screenshots folder,~/Pictures/screenshots/<year-month>/by defaultccopies it to the clipboardppins it to the screenowrites the PNG to stdout for piping to utilities and other toolsrcopies the recognized text to the primary selection (middle click). It works only with-r ocr: screenshot ignoresr, since vast majority of apps paste only text with the middle click
The letters can be used in any order, even
scp; they don't get in each other's way. A bare-tmeans nothing on its own, only what you pick in the editor. -
toin the config does the same for every launch without-t, with the same letters:[general] to = "c"
An empty value (
to = "") stops it from doing anything with the screenshot on its own.-toverrides it.
In detail (lumine-capture -h)
lumine-capture [MODE] [OPTIONS]
lumine-capture --ocr-daemon [serve|status|stop|calibrate]
Modes (without one, the editor opens):
-f, --full Capture the screen right away, no editor
-w, --window Capture the active window right away (KDE Plasma only)
-r, --region [ocr] Drag a region, releasing the mouse immediately takes the shot.
With ocr, reads the text in it instead. Unlike OCR in the editor,
it doesn't show any scanning progress: it closes, and when the scan
finishes, shows a notification with the outcome.
Recommended to use with -t, see below
Options:
-m, --monitor Only the monitor under the pointer
-d, --delay <SECONDS>
Take the shot this long after the launch, e.g. -d 3 or -d 0.5
-t, --to <LETTERS> What to do with the shot: c copy, p pin, s save, o write the PNG
to stdout, in any order and mix, e.g. -t pc. Defaults to general.to
in the config. In the editor, Enter and a double click do this, and
any other finish adds it. A bare -t means nothing by default.
Only for -r ocr: r copies the text to the primary selection (middle
click). Screenshots ignore r, apps paste only text with the middle click
-o, --output <DIR> Save the shot into this directory instead of the configured
one, creating it if needed; implies s in --to
-n, --nonotify Disable notifications for this launch
-s, --speed Print how long each startup step took to stderr
--config <PATH> Use this config file instead of the default location
--print-default-config
Print the default config.toml and exit
-h, --help Print this help and exit
-V, --version Print the version and exit
These shortcuts are available in the editor. All of them can be changed in the `[keys]` section of the config file.
| Keys | Description |
|---|---|
| S | Set the Selection as the tool (choose or adjust the capture area) |
| V | Set the Pick as the tool (select, move and resize annotations) |
| O | Set the OCR as the tool (recognize text, select it and copy) |
| G | Set the Eyedropper as the tool (pick a color from the screen) |
| T | Set the Text as the tool |
| P | Set the Pen as the tool |
| H | Set the Highlighter as the tool |
| D | Set the Line as the tool |
| A | Set the Arrow as the tool |
| R | Set the Rectangle as the tool |
| C | Set the Circle as the tool |
| N | Set the Numbered arrow as the tool |
| X | Set the Redact as the tool (blur |
| ←, ↓, ↑, → | Move the selection |
| Shift + ←, ↓, ↑, → | Move the selection faster |
| Alt + ←, ↓, ↑, → | Resize the selection |
| Alt + Shift + ←, ↓, ↑, → | Resize the selection faster |
| Return | Finish with general.to (copy and save by default) |
| Ctrl + C | Copy to the clipboard and finish |
| Ctrl + S | Save as a file and finish |
| Ctrl + P | Pin to the screen and finish |
| Esc | Quit without taking the screenshot |
| Ctrl + Z | Undo the last modification |
| Ctrl + Shift + Z, Ctrl + Y | Redo the next modification |
| Ctrl + A | Select the whole monitor under the cursor |
| Delete, Backspace | Delete the selected annotation |
| Space | Toggle the visibility of the toolbar and the settings panels |
| M | Toggle the magnifier |
| [, ] | Decrease / increase the size (width or font) of the current tool |
| Double click on the selection | Finish with the default action, same as Return |
| Right Click | Clear the selection |
| Mouse Wheel | Change the tool's size (width or font) |
| Hold Shift while drawing | Straight line, snaps to horizontal or vertical (Pen, Highlighter, Line, Arrow) |
With the OCR tool active, Return and Ctrl + C copy the selected text, and Ctrl + A selects all recognized text. With the Eyedropper they copy the picked color.
- bind them in your bind settings, that's the only proper way on Wayland.
- On KDE you can import few launch commands binds from lumine-capture-shortcuts-kde.kksrc in
System Settings -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Import -> Custom Scheme, but kde import feature is quite unstable.
- On KDE you can import few launch commands binds from lumine-capture-shortcuts-kde.kksrc in
Packages are on the releases page.
GNOME is not supported yet.
Packages are built for x86_64 & ARM64 (aarch64), except for Arch package, its x86_64 only.
Fedora 43+
From the Copr repository
sudo dnf copr enable netflate/lumine-capture
sudo dnf install lumine-captureor a single package from the releases page:
sudo dnf install https://github.com/Netflate/LumineCapture/releases/download/v0.3.0/lumine-capture-0.3.0-1.$(uname -m).rpmUbuntu 24.04+ / Debian 13+
wget https://github.com/Netflate/LumineCapture/releases/download/v0.3.0/lumine-capture_0.3.0-1_$(dpkg --print-architecture).deb
sudo apt install ./lumine-capture_0.3.0-1_$(dpkg --print-architecture).debArch Linux
curl -LO https://github.com/Netflate/LumineCapture/releases/download/v0.3.0/lumine-capture-0.3.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
sudo pacman -U lumine-capture-0.3.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zstor build it yourself from the PKGBUILD (the only way for ARM on arch):
git clone https://github.com/Netflate/LumineCapture && cd LumineCapture/packaging/arch && makepkg -siaerynOS
sudo moss it lumine-captureevery test ran on a dual-monitor setup, so each screenshot covered the whole workspace (both screens), which made every run a bit slower. Compare the tools with each other rather than looking at the absolute numbers.
The measurement for each of the three started exactly one frame before the command execution, so the actual time is approximately 0.10 ms lower for each one. It's also important to note that the Spectacle measurement might be unfair. I decided to end the measurement exactly when the application is fully initialized and ready to use, and that's when the toolbar starts appearing, not immediately after the screen dims. This is because Spectacle hasn't loaded the toolbar by that point. The measurement ends at the frame when the toolbar animation starts
| Command | Mean [ms] | Min [ms] | Max [ms] | Relative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
LumineCapture |
150.5 ± 51.9 | 111.0 | 280.9 | 1.00 |
Spectacle |
576.1 ± 11.7 | 556.5 | 605.4 | 3.83 ± 1.32 |
Flameshot (daemon running) |
737.9 ± 33.4 | 692.5 | 841.0 | 4.90 ± 1.71 |
Script: scripts/bench.sh
The config lives at ~/.config/LumineCapture/config.toml.
Most of the code was written by hand, except for OCR, it's noticeably AI-assisted and planned to be improved & rewritten in the future. Otherwise, AI is used for research, debugging and finding gaps in optimization & speed.
Contributors are expected to take an equally responsible approach, more in CONTRIBUTING.md.
A lot of the reference for this project, including the layout of this README, was taken from Spectacle and Flameshot. Thanks to both projects and everyone who works on them.
OCR runs PaddleOCR PP-OCRv5 models through ONNX Runtime, via oar-ocr, whose releases also host the models.
- QR code scanning (#12)
- Themes, and a proper GUI to choose between them
- Screen recording
- GNOME support (#21)
- On-screen translation
- Scrolling screenshots, if they can be done well (#17)
Licensed under either of
- Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE)
- MIT license (LICENSE-MIT)
The bundled Inter font is under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 (LICENSE-OFL).