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.
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 prove their bragging rights.
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Gadwin)
Out of the expansive screenshot category, Gadwin PrintScreen is a freeware standout. It's not the newest or flashiest app, and configuring your preferences is a pain. Once you've set your preferences, however, the impressively feature-rich and completely unobtrusive app gives you a seamless experience from start to finish. While PrintScreen doesn't have its own image editor, setting up the app to automatically open the captured image in your favorite editor is a smart, painless move.
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TechSmith)
Jing is our first freeware runner-up. Its excellent pedigree shows (its publishers also make SnagIt, described below) in an inventive app that combines basic screen grabbing with the ability to record your movements on the screen. The real draw is being able to quickly and easily upload these images and screencasts to the Web, though you can e-mail images or save them locally as well. Jing's lack of an image editor is one drawback, but its annotation tools are a plus. Those who may see Jing's persistent yellow orb at the top of the screen as a distraction can also hide it and launch Jing directly from the system tray.
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TechSmith)
To go pro, the top-notch SnagIt comes with a steep price tag that's worth the clams for frequent capturers or those looking for a well-rounded app with advanced features. SnagIt's bag of tricks includes capturing multiple areas of the screen at once, taking timed snapshots, and customizing profiles. The revamped editor very usefully stores every capture you take regardless of whether you save it to disk, and lets you search captures by name or even by Website. Text capture is still ineffective (HyperSnap fared better in our tests), but the image and video tools deliver with force.
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Fraps)
Gamers have some specialized screen capture apps at their fingertips, like the free-to-try Fraps for DirectX and OpenGL games. In addition to taking stills and video of your game in the throng of the action, Fraps will also perform some benchmarking stats, including how many frames per second flash by while you work your magic.
Two other apps worth mentioning are the solid ScreenHunter Free and CaptureWizPro. You'll find them and a glut of others here.
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 skip it to go straight into the count.
1: Tinted good looks
Dark skins and themes are all the rage, so why not a darker SnagIt? The new program interface and editor is organized much like version 8's, but swaps out blue for blackened gray. The image editor has been painted with the same brush, but underneath is a dramatically different layout from version 8 that elevates visual selection over text menus.
2: Microsoft-like menus
As part of the new visual design, SnagIt 9 borrows heavily from Microsoft Office 2007 to arrange tools and effects in a horizontal ribbon. This layout makes use of large images and icon-driven drop-down menus and goes easy on the text, under which useful tools were previously buried and ignored. According to SnagIt's product manager, Tony Dunckel, the average user accessed only two percent of the product.
SnagIt 9's Start button and menu structure is modeled on Microsoft Office 2007.
(Credit: CNET Networks)The decision to follow Microsoft's lead is twofold, Dunckel said. First, replicating the menu brings SnagIt closer to earning Microsoft certification. Second, piggybacking on Microsoft's design makes use of the software giant's extensive consumer testing. If users responded best to the ribbon workflow in Office 2007, why not apply it to SnagIt?
Looking at the spacious version 9 and cramped version 8 side-by-side, it's hard to argue that version 9 isn't substantially improved by the menus, which rescues those editing effects from obscurity and migrates them to eye-catching menu blocks a user can explore.
SnagIt9's Editor is larger, darker, and easier to use.
(Credit: CNET Networks)3: A well-stocked catalog
No longer must you recapture images you didn't perfectly edit the first time around. With the new Open Captures tray, a ribbon along the screen bottom, SnagIt matures from a screen grabber that callously dumps any capture you didn't save into a helpful tool keeping track of all your images, including those unsaved files. You'll be able to jump from one open image to another, an illegal action with previous SnagIt versions, to interact with images at any time for editing, saving in a new file-type, and exporting.
Annotation and drawing tools are easy to access with the horizontal, icon-driven menu system.
(Credit: CNET Networks)4: Tagging
Like e-mails, images contain information, relevance, and nuance. SnagIt 9 introduces tagging in the library pane and the menu navigation that uses a combination of flagging, autotagging, and keyword entry to assign searchable tags to an image. Flag categories include important, follow-up, personal, finance, and funny. Captures are also tagged by URL if they're taken from a Web site, by the name of the application you may have grabbed it from, and by a manually entered keyword.
5: Search
SnagIt's user scenario is to store every capture you've taken in the application's lifespan. After a couple hundred captures, browsing through tags gets old and inefficient. A search engine integrated into the library pane pulls up relevant tags and dates. Clicking the folder icon at the bottom right of the screen helps organize the findings with more granularity--you'll be able to sort by name, size, dimension, flags, and keyword and display image clips instead of the usual text-chunky file names.
The search field pulls up captures by tag, flag, keyword, and source.
(Credit: CNET Networks)There are still more features to love in future versions that aren't so lovable now, like the functionality of the text capture profile to name one. Still, the application has come so far in usability that it remains the most sophisticated capture technology around, and a must-have tool for screen-grabbers interested in more advanced editing.
SnagIt 9 is available with no restrictions for a 30-day trial period and costs $49.95 to purchase in full. Current customers can upgrade for $19.95 in the next 60 days.
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.
... Read more
FullShot is easy on the eye, but less so on the pocketbook.
(Credit: CNET Networks)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
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CNET Networks)
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
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