SnagIt

Get better screen captures with Snagit for Mac

Arguably one of the best screen capture programs for Windows is now available on the Mac. TechSmith's Snagit has a long history with Windows fans as a highly flexible and feature-rich tool for quickly grabbing visual info on your screen. The software's main strength is that it offers a number of tools for adding graphics--like arrows, boxes, and thought and speech balloons--to call out specific areas on the screen. When you're finished with a capture, you can quickly add the project to a presentation, just about any document, or send the screen capture through e-mail. One of … Read more

Spotlight on screen capture apps (and why you need one)

Updated section on Jing on 3/6/09 at 8:30 a.m. PT.

Even if you don't use a screen capture application regularly, there are good reasons to have one on standby. Instead of copying the ID number of an error message into a customer service e-mail by hand, you can quickly take and send a screen shot. Screen shots also make excellent archivers. In a click you can save an image of a flight itinerary or other receipt that you don't want to hang around in paper form. Gamers have another use case--documenting killer performance to … Read more

Archive your Web life with ScrnShots

ScrnShots is a community for hosting screenshots. It's a companion to a desktop application that will grab and automatically upload in a similar fashion to Plasq's Skitch. Both sites have a social element, with commenting and tracking popular shots. The big difference is that ScrnShots is cross platform and will work on both Macs and PCs. You can also simply use it as an image host if you're using another screenshot utility like TechSmith's SnagIt, or OS X's Grab.

The service launched in private beta back in April, and has since opened up to everyone. … Read more

5 reasons to love the new SnagIt 9

Whatever you might envision of Tuesday's release of the redesigned SnagIt 9, it probably wouldn't be as a Microsoft Office clone.

Before you Microsoft naysayers begin your shuddering and muttering (you know who you are), have a little faith in TechSmith, the publisher that also brought to market the top-rated Camtasia Studio. Thanks to the new features and look, SnagIt 9 is a familiar, intuitive, and much more varnished capture utility whose image editor has finally come of age. Here are five ways SnagIt 9 has caught our attention. Check out the video below for a snapshot, or … Read more

Screenshot apps that'll capture your attention

Most software categories have their share of free and commercial, good and bad samplings. Screen capture applications, which are more powerful and specific than a PC's native Print Screen function, and which seem like they should be straightforward, are also a varied bunch.

I captured every pixel of my display a few times over while testing four screenshot products--FullShot, SnagIt, Gadwin PrintScreen, and ScreenHunter Free. Because we evaluators just love criteria, I looked at image quality, editing features, and ease of access--the quickest, most natural way to get from screen to a shareable image. Ready for some findings?… Read more

Make Internet images good

I'd put money on the probability that most Internet users have had to grab and optimize screenshots for cyber use. While some of us are lucky enough to have professional graphic artists on our side, it's important to know how to quickly create and touch up an image for the Web. For example, you might want to create your own avatar from a real-life photo or digital graphic.

Editing images for the Web is a different process than editing for print, and it therefore calls for its own approach. That's primarily because screen resolution can affect how easily the eye can interpret graphics. Ever noticed that faint flicker on the screen? Eyes have to work harder to overcome that subtle interference and process a clear image.… Read more