Free built in Screenshot application for Windows / Mac

These days I am trying to stay off piracy and resorting to using softwares that are available online for free or are built-in into my computer operating system.

I am a Mac user and Mac users get a free tool called Grab-It which is definitely an amazing tool to take all sorts of screen shots, there are even built in keyboard shortcuts for Mac users such as:

Command-Shift-3 --> Shortcut for taking a screen grab of your entire screen, the screen shot is saved on your desktop

Command-Shift-4 --> Gives a crosshair cursor so you can choose which area of the screen you want to capture.

Control-Command-Shift-3 (or 4) --> Which, instead of creating a file on your desktop, copies the capture into your Clipboard memory, so you can paste it where you want. For eg: Photoshop

However, when it comes to Windows users, they generally use 

PRT SC / PrtScn --> Abbrev. for Print Screen to take snap shot of entire screen and copy it to your clipboard which can then be copied into Photoshop or Microsoft Paint software and saved / edited from there as desired.

OR

"Alt + Prt Sc" / "Alt + PrtScn" --> Copies into clipboard only the screen shot of Active Window.

However it can be cumbersome every time opening up MS Paint or Photoshop and pasting screen shots, I prefer the direct desktop saving feature, especially when you are taking too many screenshots, for example when creating a software tutorial.

And the solution for that is SNIPPING TOOL, its a free software that comes Pre-Installed with Windows 8 Windows 7 or Windows Vista, and if you are a Windows XP user (don't worry, you aren't outdated, I still have Windows XP installed on Virtual Box for Mac), you can download the snipping tool application for free (and legally) from CodePlex or Softpedia.

Here is a screen shot of Snipping Tool

And the video tutorial can be found on Microsoft Website.