Who Shot the Screen
Posted by damian.m in Reviews, on Jul 2009 with 2 CommentsAs a designer, taking screenshots is one of the activities I do most during the course of the week. What adds to this activity is working with various programmers who need design direction, and it also greatly assists with bug reports. For others, screenshots are merely a way to gather inspiration and ideas, saving what might be lost later.
The question is, what tool do you use and which is the best? I’ve used and been through quite a few screenshot tools looking for the perfect solution so I’ll attempt to go through the better ones I encountered.
This was perfect for me when I first found it. Jing has everything one needs, including video recording for up to 1 minute. The video is a great asset because there are times when the phrase “a picture is better than a thousand words” just doesn’t cut it. For still images, it contains the usual type, arrow, box selection and highlight tools - which is great for pointing out errors.
What you’ll love about Jing is that it allows you to upload to screencast.com or your own private server which I preferred. But hands down the best feature about Jing is that it packages all these features for free.
The downside about Jing is that after using it for months, it started hanging my computer using 1.5GB of memory. I guess it’s due to the hundreds of images that I was storing in its database. I couldn’t tolerate this any longer; it was time to move on.
There’s a lot of buzz around this one. LittleSnapper is a great tool with some handy features. The first major feature that sets it apart is its built in browser that allows you to browse and snap at your heart’s delight. It has an array of tools like the ones mentioned in Jing but goes further with a blur tool. The highlight tool is also very useful and works better than Jing’s.
LittleSnapper was created to collect inspiration and you can tell this by it’s ability to organize screenshots. You can create collections such as ‘Cool Websites’ or you can simply create folders. They even take it further with a feature called ‘Smart’, which allows you to create a collection based on certain rules you set. That’s very useful.
Now like everything else, LittleSnapper isn’t perfect so I use it occasionally. The main problem I have with it is its inability to re-size text-boxes. Yes, I know, a very basic feature. If I were to type and forget to press ‘return’, LittleSnapper runs the text right across the image and even off it. Even though the browser is a cool feature, I use Firefox so I find its inability to take screenshots on the fly a drawback. In Jing and others, I simply use a shortcut, crop the area I want and I’m golden.
This is a Firefox plugin that allows you to take an image or screenshot to their site where you can use their tools to annotate. It’s a very good tool. It’s fast, effective and easy to use.
The drawback on this is that I don’t like my images being made public; but if you’re ok with that, then no problem there. I did give this tool a shot and couldn’t use it because every time I shared the image I just sent to them, I got some other image. I believe it might have been a bug but being in need of a tool fast made me move on.
I came across Skitch after asking for some help in my quest for the perfect screenshot tool on the Designers’Couch discussion board.
After coming upon Skitch’s website I quickly left, so it’s fair to say it wasn’t love at first sight. I went back, got it and got hooked. Skitch has some amazing features and is incredibly easy to use, not to mention fast. The most notable feature about Skitch to me is the drag feature which allows me to drag the image from Skitch to Gmail, your desktop or straight to Photoshop. Sharing screenshots gets easier with the ability to upload to ftp or your account on skitch.com.
Skitch has all the annotation tools required like text, highlight, selection, pencil, etc which is more than enough. It even allows you to take a snap photo of yourself using your camera.
I love this tool because it encompasses everything I need - but it’s not perfect. If Skitch can add to their feature set the ability to video record your screen it would be in a better spot to compete with Jing and others. A smaller feature that would improve usability is to automatically copy web urls of the posted image to clipboard.
At the end of the day, the one you choose will depend on your needs and your preferences. What about you? What great tools have you come across? I’d love to hear some of your suggestions because I’m always on the lookout for better tools.
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Sara Pall 08/08/2009
can you please tell me the address of Skitch’s website i really need it because it sounds so amazing and looks so amazing...and your comments man they are killing lolz..actually i am a student preparing for CISSP questions and the thing is that i just love to make pictures and designing stuff man so please post some more information so that i can relate easily...!!!!!!!
MeganMv 12/31/2009
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