The freemium screen capture and screen recording application Jing received an update on Tuesday that adds new video functionality to paying users, and a few other enhancements for all Mac and Windows users.
Two hotkeys now help Jing's capture crosshairs snap to common aspect ratios. Press Ctrl to maintain a 4:3 aspect ratio and Shift for 16:9 widescreen proportions. While locked into a ratio, dragging out the crosshair shows you boundaries for common screen measurements within that ratio that you can easily snap to, like 320×240 or 640×480. This is a nice addition in keeping with Jing's visual, low text-density design.
Jing 2.1 adds buttons to export the capture to Camtasia or Snagit.
(Credit: CNET)After capturing a video or still, Snagit and Camtasia Studio users can export the clip to either of Jing's sister programs. Techsmith, the creator of all three, offers a 30-day trial for Snagit and Camtasia prospectives to give either a try. After taking the capture, click the program icon to continue editing the video or still using those premium tools. In addition to sharing captures with yourself, you can add toolbar shortcuts to push captures to any Screencast.com folder you've set up. In Jing 2.1, you can further let Screencast.com visitors comment on your captures.
As usual, premium users get the most impressive addition. Subscribers to the $15-a-year Jing Pro can now record from their Web cam, and toggle between recording from the Web cam and from the screen. For more details and video clips, read the Jing blog here.
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. I've been exploring it this morning and have come across quite a few gems just from its discovery pages, which like Flickr will highlight some of the more interesting shots based on community involvement either in page views or comments. If you find something you like, or would like to share one you've taken, there's a simple embed option to stick it on a blog or social-networking page. One thing to note is that these embeds are for specific sizes only, either close to full-size or a small thumbnail, like I've embedded below.
For power users, the integrated desktop applications offer the convenience of uploading without having to visit the site. You can also do things like add URLs and related tags--the latter of which is made far easier on the Mac version, as it will pull up tags you've used in the past and auto-complete them for you as you begin to type. Both sit in your system bar and can be called upon no matter what application you're using.
While regular users will bask in this simplicity, ScrnShots isn't the perfect solution for bloggers, what I consider to be ScrnShots' target audience. It's missing a way to annotate and edit your shots. Skitch and SnagIt offer this, and I find it a hugely helpful feature--especially for some of the shots I take and use for my posts on here. Also missing is a way to set up captions and credit on shots that are embedded elsewhere, meaning site owners will have to set up custom CSS and coding into the embedded item if they want to do either of those two things. Until it gets these features I wouldn't ditch SnagIt or Skitch just yet.
I use TechSmith's Snagit screen-capturing tool (review) on a daily basis to gather all sorts of shots for posts and archival purposes. It works great at getting those pixel-precise sizes you might be going for, along with taking a step or two out Windows' less-than-stellar built-in print screen function. Today I've been playing with a small download called Clip2Net. It's a free and simple screenshot program with built-in Web uploading for screenshots AND image files. It's not at all as advanced as Snagit, but if you're in the market for a relatively easy way to take and host screenshots, or share a roll of pictures with friends, Clip2Net is a promising hybrid solution.
Setup is simple: Just download and install the less-than-1MB file and you're good to go. You can start capturing right away, either in regions or the entire screen at a time. Registering and plugging in your login credentials lets you upload your shots to a Web folder that saves all your shots. Likewise, if you'd like to stay anonymous, Clip2Net will provide you with a URL where your shot is being hosted--although keep in mind that if you lose that URL, you won't be able to track it down again.
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