The most basic way to take screenshots is through the “PrintScreen” key located on your keyboard. This key takes a snapshot of your computer screen and copies it to the clipboard. You can then paste this copied image into any software like Paint and save it. Alternatively you can install one of many available screenshot applications that lets you take, save, and use screenshots in a far more convenient way than the PrintScreen method. One of the most user-friendly of these applications is “Greenshot”.

Introduction

Greenshot is a free to use desktop application compatible with Windows computers. While modern screenshot-capturing software come equipped with a plethora of “bonus” features such screencast recording and automatic uploading, Greenshot focuses on simplicity of usage and effectively taking screenshots the way you want. A tiny program, Greenshot installs quickly and silently runs in the background, operating only when you need it to. You can use it to instantly capture the entire computer screen, specific open app windows, or specific rectangular portions on your screen.

Usage

The first thing you will need to do is download Greenshot’s setup file. The EXE setup file is sized under 600KB and quickly downloads and installs. The app works fine in both Windows Vista and 7.

With the application installed, you will find its icon in your System Tray. Before you can start using Greenshot, you should right-click on its icon and modify a few options. Select the “Preferences” option.

Clicking on Preferences will display a Settings window where you can modify the default settings. Under the General tab, you should check the options to register hotkeys and startup Greenshot when your computer turns on. You can select whether or not to play a camera sound and show flashlight each time a screenshot is taken. The capturing mouse pointer option depends on the type of screenshots you will be taking. Checking the “interactive window capture mode” will ease the task of taking screenshot of individual windows.

The Output tab in the settings window lets you control how your screenshots are treated. You can choose your screenshots to be copied directly to the clipboard, sent to your default image editor such as Paint, saved by prompting you for a name and location, saved using a predefined name and location, attached to an email, or sent to your printer. Greenshot lets you select multiple options thus letting you have full control over your screenshots.

Under this tab, you can also select the file format in which your screenshots are captured: JPEG, GIF, PNG, or BMP. In case you choose JPEG, you can select the quality of the output image; choose lower qualities for smaller file size.

If one of your options included sending your screenshots to the printer, you will want to adjust the default settings of Greenshot’s printing under the Printer tab. Here you can control whether or not print data and time with the image, rotate the screenshot, and similar relevant printing options.

With these controls set according to your needs, you can start taking screenshots. The program’s hotkeys include CTRL+PrintScreen for capturing the entire visible region on the screen, ALT+PrintScreen for capturing a particular open app window, and merely PrintScreen for capturing a specific rectangular region. Most users will be using the last option most.

With Greenshot running, pressing the PrintScreen key transforms the mouse pointer into a crosshair; you can click-and-drag to select the region you want captured. Your captured region has a semi-transparent green shade; a measurement in pixels of your captured region is displayed as you drag your mouse.

Once your screenshot is taken, what happens to it depends on your selected preferences in the previously mentioned Settings window.

Conclusion

Greenshot is a lightweight screenshot capturing application for Windows computer. It is feature-rich and provides you full control over your captured screenshots. Unlike competing apps that try to incorporate non-screenshot features as bonuses, this app focus on its primary objective and excellently serves it. In other words, if you are a Windows user looking for a screenshot capturing software, Greenshot is where your search ends.

Greenshot

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Installing JShot

JShot is written in Java. Before you install JShot, make sure that you have the Java runtime installed on your computer. Most operating systems come with it already installed, but it doesn’t hurt to check.

Once you’ve determined that you have the Java runtime installed, download the installer. There are two version: an executable for Windows and a .jar file for Linux and Mac OS X. If you’re using Windows, double click on the executable to launch the installer. If you downloaded the .jar file, crack open a terminal window, navigate to the directory into which you downloaded the file, and then run the following command:

java -jar jshotinstall.jar

Then follow the instructions on the installation screens.

Taking Screen Captures

If you’re doing a number of screen captures, it’s most convenient to launch the tray applet. Do that by selecting JShotTray from the Application or Start menu – for example, in Ubuntu select Applications > JShot > JShotTray.

Your capture options are limited: either a portion of a screen or window, or the full screen. Double click on the JShot tray icon to capture a section of the screen. Your mouse cursor will change to a plus sign (+) and you just click and drag to select the region. If you want to grab the entire screen, right click on the JShot tray icon and then select Capture > Full screen.

From there, you can save the screen capture (more on this soon), or edit it. To do the latter, click Edit with JShot. While I prefer to edit my images in The GIMP, the editor built into JShot doesn’t do too bad a job. With it, you can add shapes and lines to a screen capture, erase portions of the image, add text, and highlight text. Quick and dirty, but useful.

Saving Your Captures

If you want to be old fashioned, you can save your screen captures to your hard drive. Just click Save to file, give the file a name, and select the directory into which you want to save it.

But where’s the fun in that? Plus, you might not on you main computer, or might need to share the screen capture with someone else. JShot offers you a few ways to do that. You can upload a file to your Web site via FTP. If you have an account, you can also save your screen captures to any of the following services:

• Dropbox
• min.us
• ImageShack
• Picasa

Just click the Share button in the JShot window to select the service that you want to use.

Final Thoughts

While not the most fully-featured screen capture program out there, JShot does a better-than-average job. It’s easy to use, has solid features, and runs on several operating systems. If you use more than two OSes, then this is a plus – you get a consistent experience, no matter which operating system you use.

Photo credit: LeWy2005

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iPod Controls from Lock Screen – Speaking of the iPod controls, you can also reach it from the Lock screen via the Home button. When your phone is on Lock, and you hit the Unlock button, instead of hitting the slider to unlock the phone, click the Home button twice and it brings up the iPod controls, with forward and reverse, play/pause, and volume.

Voice Control – When your focus is on doing tasks that don’t involve your iPhone, the Voice Control option can be a handy feature. You can use it to call someone in your contacts list or play something on your iPod. If you hold the Home button down, it brings up the Voice Control screen. Speaking clearly, you can tell it to “Call John Mobile” and it will call the mobile phone of your contact named John. If you tell it to “Play Aerosmith“, it will play all the songs you have by the band.

Screen Caps – Another hidden function of the Home button is to take screen caps of your screen. It’s the source of the screen caps used in this article, as well as the other iPhone articles I’ve written. If you press the Home botton and Lock button at the top simultaneously, you’ll hear a “camera click,” as it takes a picture of your current screen and stores it in your Photo Album.

[feedomit][/feedomit]

Search iPhone – If you’re inside an app or on page two or later of your apps listing, clicking the Home button once will indeed take you to the Home screen. However, if you’re already on the Home screen and you press the button, it will take you to a search screen. You can enter in criteria for searching your apps, contacts, email, and iPod.

Forced Shutdown – If your iPhone becomes unresponsive and freezes, you can force it to shut down if you hold down the Home and Lock buttons at the same time. You can also do this if the screen isn’t frozen, but you want to shut down your phone completely instead of just locking it.

What other uses of the Home button have I missed out?

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The Mac OS also ships with an application that does screencaps. Grab is stored in the Utilities folder of your Applications. You can either access it there, or from the File menu while in the Preview application. While in Grab, in the Capture menu, you can select to either save the entire screen, a window, or a screen. The benefit here is that you can also choose to have it save a timed screen.  Once you start the timer, it waits ten seconds before snapping the screencap of the entire screen.

[feedomit][/feedomit]

If you need more than just a basic screenshot, you can’t do better than Jing. It can be downloaded for free right from the website, with an option of going with a paid Pro version. It has the additional option of recording screencasts with voice as well as screencaps.

The first time you open Jing, it gives you a quick tutorial showing you just how easy it is to use. It then puts a small sun in the right-hand corner of your screen. Once you hover over the sun, it gives you three options, one of which is crosshairs. Clicking on the crosshairs allows you to drag your selection. After your selection you have options of adding annotations to the screen. On the shot above, I added the annotation in the red box as well as the arrow, and also added the yellow highlighting.

The biggest advantage is in the way you share your image. While you can save it as a .PNG file as I did for the purposes of this article, you can also have it place a web address on your clipboard. You can then go to your Facebook, Twitter, or email and paste in the link to share it with your friends or coworkers. That way you’re not adding unnecessary files to your hard drive. It would be easy to also send it to your cell phone via email to then have it for your usage there or to text it to a friend.

The advantages of the pro version lie mostly with the video options, such as the ability to post the video directly to YouTube or Facebook, incorporate a webcam, and quicker uploads. The one advantage Pro provides for taking screenshots is it eliminates the ads. Embedded in the links that you share with your friends and coworkers are ads for Jing, and you can eliminate those with the Pro version.

There are other applications out there available from both the web as well as the App Store. However, they either don’t have free versions, or only save files to your hard drive, which is no different than the Mac OS option or Grab. If you’re looking for a quick screenshot and don’t use the option often, one of those two will definitely do. But if you want more options and want to be able to be able to share via a web address to Facebook or Twitter, you can’t do better than Jing.

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“ShowDocument” is that super-collaboration website.

Introduction

ShowDocument is a user-friendly website that lets you freely collaborate with online friends using numerous web applications. The collaboration apps provided by the site include a document creator plus editor, a video conference tool, a live chat room with translation features, an online whiteboard, a tool to watch YouTube videos together with your friends, and many more.

Usage

Before you can start using ShowDocument, you will need to sign up for an account. With it activated, use your account information to login to the website. You will find a big orange “Start a Session” button.

Clicking on this button will display a new window with the available applications that let you collaborate.

A wide array of collaboration apps are available for use. In addition to the abovementioned apps, these apps include sharing a computer file, sharing the feed from your webcam, sharing your monitor’s output, jointly using a units converter, jointly browsing websites, and playing Set or Tick-Tack-Toe with online friends.

In this review, we will be covering the YouTube application. You can easily try out the other apps and use the sharing procedures outlined below – they apply to all ShowDocument apps.

The ShowDocument YouTube Application

To open the YouTube application you simply click on the corresponding icon. A application tab will be opened in the same window. All the opened apps are viewable via tabs on the top. With the YouTube, you get links and thumbnails to popular YouTube automatically displayed. You also search for YouTube videos and enter the URL of the video if you already have it.

The selected video is played across all participants’ windows at the same time so you all view the YouTube video together. While you view the video, you can draw on it using the pencil tool; the drawings are shown across all participants’ screens.

In the left-most pane of the application window you will find a chat window where participants can talk to one another.

Inviting Participants to Your ShowDocument Application

Under the participants list in the chat window you will find a button labeled “Invite New Participants.”

Clicking on this button opens up a window that displays the URL to the ShowDocument application you are using.

In addition to the sharing the URL, you can send email invitation or copy share the numeric code; friends can type in the code at ShowDocument’s homepage and reach your app’s page. Before joining the application, friends specify a nickname for themselves. That is all they need i.e. they do not need to register for a new account on the site in order to start collaborating with you.

Pricing

ShowDocument’s free account offers collaboration sessions that are only 30 minutes long. You get only 10MB of storage and each app can have up to 3 participants with the audio and video disabled in chat. These restrictions are lifted if you go for the paid option; the paid account costs $30 per month. Before going for the paid account you can test it for free for 30 days.

Conclusion

ShowDocument is definitely an amazing website. It is perhaps the only website that merges so many collaboration web apps and provides them under a single dashboard. The features offered by the free account are sufficient to benefit most computer users.

You can visit ShowDocument by clicking here.

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Example: Suppose your friend has messed up her Windows network settings and can’t connect to the internet. She needs your help, but she is unable to understand the textual instructions, articles and the step by step procedure that needs to be done.

In such situations, either you have to go to her home to solve the problem or you can record a step by step screen video, explaining how to fix the issue. That’s when you need screen recording tools and one of the easiest ones out there is IORAD.

IORAD makes it very easy to create step by step instructions on just about anything. If you have developed an application and want to create a visual demonstration, explaining how to use the product amongst other features, IORAD is a tool worth checking out.

How to Create Step by Step Application Instructions Using IORAD

1. First, head over to the IORAD website and sign up for a free account.

2. Once you are in, hit the “Go to application” button, as shown below:

3. Depending upon your browser’s and Windows firewall settings, you may get a prompt as “The application’s digital signature could not be verified”. Choose “Always trust content from this publisher” and hit the “Run” button.

4. This will open the IORAD project application window on a new browser tab. You will see the following interface:

Enter a name and description of the project which you are going to create. This will be useful, when you want to edit or search for the same recording at a later point of time.

4. Once you hit the “Create” button, the application editor will open, which looks like the following:

5. You are ready for the screen recording session. To start recording, hit the “Capture” button on the left and the application will ask whether you want to record the whole screen or just a part of it.

There is another drop down menu which will list all the currently open applications. Select the application which you want to record and hit the “Start Capture” button.

6. As soon as you hit the “Start Capture” button, IORAD will load the same application window in it’s recording frame. Hit the “Record” button and the app will record a complete snapshot of the application window you had defined in the “Window” dropdown above.

When you are done with recording the first screen, hit the “Done” button and a snapshot will be loaded in the IORAD app editor. Now you may add other instructions e.g highlight a section with an arrow, adding custom texts, labels, adding rollover texts and so on. Here is how the interface looks like:

7. This is only the first step of your screen recording. To add more steps, simply hit the “Capture” button again and the app will record the application window of your choice and open it in the same editor.

Once you have edited and added custom instructions to the second snapshot, it will be linked with the earlier snapshot. The same procedure continues with any number of slides that is required for your tutorial.

8. When you have finished the entire screen recording procedure, hit the “Deploy” button to save your Project. That’s it, your screen recording is ready to be viewed by anyone.

Now you have three options:

• Share the direct link of the recording with anyone.
• Embed the recording in your blog or website.
• Download a PDF, .DOCX or PPT version of the recording on your computer.

Hence, IORAD makes it really easy to create a step by step application usage recording and supports easy sharing. Agree there are screen recording applications like Camtasia Studio, ScreenToaster etc but then again, you will need to upload the video on YouTube and then share the video with your friend.

Another problem with videos is that you can’t add so many effects that easily and the videos can not be edited at a later point of time.

Apart from providing tech support, IORAD can also be used for a variety of other purposes. If you have a blog and want to show the most important sections of the website to your visitors, it would be a nice idea to create a screenshot tour using IORAD and embed the sideshow on your blog’s “about” page.

The company is fairly new and promises to add more features and improvements in the coming days. Give IORAD a try and let us know your ideas in the comments section.

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What is ScreenFlow?

ScreenFlow, very simply, is a screen capture program. You can get it here, and can try it for free. While the full version costs $99, the trial version is fully functionaly, though it does watermark your end result once you upload it to YouTube.

How is it used?

ScreenFlow is ridiculously simple to use, yet powerful if you want to take the time to learn its intricacies. Upon starting ScreenFlow, you’re greeted with this box:

Simply decide which options you want and click the record button at the bottom. If you do choose to record video from a camera as well as the screen capture, your camera image will appear in a box in the corner of the video.

The recording process

The recording process is super simple. You will see a countdown, just like in OS X’s built in Photo Booth application, and then the recording will begin. You can narrate, have music on, or do just about anythign else you can think of. Once you’re finished, you can click the ScreenFlow Camera Icon in your Mac’s menu bar, or you can just hit the keyboard shortcut to stop the recording, which is Command-Shift-2.

Editing in ScreenFlow

Editing is where ScreenFlow really shines. Once you stop the recording, you’re greeted with the editing screen:

In the editing screen, you can trim the clip, as well as add effects of all sorts. The level of complexity varies, but if you really want you’re videos to look professional, its certainly possible. Check out some of their demos at the developer’s site here for some insight into the possibilities this software offeres.

Wrap-up

Do you guys know any quick and easy ways to do this?  Maybe something free that works similarly? Have you tried ScreenFlow, and if so, what did you think of it?  Tell us in the comments!

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Picture Stitching

Picture stitching allows you to take a screen capture of a full webpage or at least more page than can be viewed on a screen with out scrolling. The way it works is by pressing the default hot key combo of Ctrl + Shift + Print. A selection window appears; stretch it to fill the area you want to capture minus the side scroll bar. Once the area is selected, using the browser scroll bar, scroll down a little at a time, making sure to stop periodically. The screens need to overlap so the software knows where to stitch the pages together.

Editing

One of the features I was really happy to see was the built in editing window. It can do the basics like resize and crop. Some of the additional features that set Screepresso apart are things such as:

Annotation

Some applications have basic markup tools, this application is not all that different there. You can add shapes like circles, an ellipse, squares and arrows. What IS different, is the resizing of the shape. As simple as it sounds, this is a nice touch. Instead of clicking undo and repositioning the arrow, you can grab either end and move it. The same can be done with the other shapes as well.

Blur Tool

This feature caught me by surprise. Normally, I would use some sort of image editor to blur out personal information in a screen capture. By having this feature built into the screen capture program, it saves steps and therefore saves time.

Numbering

Numbering is not something I personally use a lot. However, there are times when there are needs to place numeric place markers on the captured screen. If you are making an owners manual or giving feedback on a website for example, this would be extremely useful.

Text

Adding text can be done in two ways; the standard text box or a text balloon (think comic book text bubble). Again, this is handy if you are adding comments and need the words to point at something specific. Sure you could use an arrow then add a text box to the tail of the arrow. This is just a cleaner looking way.

Resizing

Like many other apps, basic resizing is available. The coolness in this application is, you can set it to auto resize and are given a multitude of selections to do so. When you are in the edit window, click on the image tab. If you choose the maximum width setting for example, any screen capture will automatically be reduced to that width.

Sharing

Once you have everything marked up and ready for people to see, you are given the option to send to Twitter. If you would rather not tweet it and send it via email, you can simply drag it into your desktop email program. If you are using web based email such as Yahoo or Gmail, you can brag the file onto your desktop and attach it to your email like normal.

Pro Version

Right now, there is only a free version. It does however look as though a pro version is in the works. Right now it looks like the features they list on the comparison grid are all the same. In the settings window are grayed out tabs for audio and video capture. I did not see a specific mention about these features only accessible in the pro option, but I would venture to guess that will be what happens.

How much time will an all-in-one program like this save you?

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Extract the downloaded file to your home folder. You should see a folder with the name “android-sdk-linux_86”.

Open your .bashrc file and add the filepath to the end of the file. In a terminal, type the following:

gedit ~/.bashrc

Add the following line to the end of the file:

export PATH=${PATH}:<your_sdk_dir>/tools

Replace <your_sdk_dir> with the actual filepath of the SDK folder. If you have extracted the file to your home folder, it should be something like /home/your_username/android_sdk_linux_86/

Next you need to install Ecplise. For Ubuntu 9.10 users, the latest version of Eclipse (Eclipse Classic 3.5.1) is already included in the repository, so you can easily install via the command:

sudo apt-get install eclipse

Once the installation is completed, open Eclipse (Application -> Programming -> Eclipse)

On the menubar, click on Help -> Install new software

At the Work with field, enter http://download.eclipse.org/releases/galileo and click Add.

You will see that there are several software now available for installation. Ignore them.

Next, erase away the entry in the Work With field and add https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/. Click Add.

Check all the entries in the bottom pane and click Next to install.

Once the installation is done, restart Eclipse.

Go to Windows -> Preferences. On the left, select the Android entry.

Enter the Android filepath in the SDK location field. Click Apply follow by OK.

Update: The latest version of Android SDK requires you to install the SDK API before you can create a new Android project.

Go to WIndows -> Android SDK and AVD Manager.

On the left pane, select the “Available Packages” entry. On the right, place a check on the version of the Android SDK that you want to install. Once done, click the Install Selected button.

That’s it. You have install and set up Android SDK in your Ubuntu. To create a new Android project, simply go to File -> New -> Project and choose Android project in the Wizard window.

Taking screenshots of your Android phone

First enable the USB debug mode in Settings ->Applications->Development

Connect your Android phone to your computer via the USB cable.

Make sure that Eclipse is closed, navigate to your Android SDK folder. Go to the Tools folder and open the ddms.bat file. When prompted, select RUN.

Highlight the entry of your phone.

Go to Device -> Screen Capture.

That’s it.

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KSnapshot for KDE stands out as one of the best screen shot tools available and is unquestionably the best one for KDE. It is a standard KDE program and should come packaged with any Linux distributions that offer KDE. It is very easy to learn, but as we always do at MTE, we are about to make it easier.

Starting Ksnapshot

There are a few ways to start KSnapshot:

1. Click the K menu -> Graphics -> KSnapshot.
2. Press Alt-F2 and then type “ksnapshot” into Krunner.
3. Press the shortcut key(s). Mine is set to start after pressing the “Print Screen” key.

Types of Screen Shots

While taking a full screen screen shot might suffice when all you want to do is brag about your desktop organization skills, more involved tasks require more options. With KSnapshot, there are 5 different capture modes:

1. Full Screen

By default KSnapshot will take a screen shot of the entire screen, including the desktop and any present windows. To take a shot, click “New Snapshot” and then click once, anywhere on the screen.

2. Window Under Cursor

With this mode, only the window your mouse pointer is hovering over will be in the screen shot. For this option, you may check “include window decorations” if you want them in the shot. Click “New Snapshot” and then click the window you want to capture.

3. Region

Sometimes you only need a small part of the desktop or window. You always have the option of editing a full screen image, but KSnapshot makes it easier. Click “New Shapshot” and then select the area you want to capture by clicking and dragging the selection box.  The portion of the screen(s) not selected will dim.

4. Section of Window

Windows are typically divided into sections. For example, a web browser will have the menu bar, toolbars, browser viewing area, and status. KSnapshot will detect these sections and allow you to click on the one you want to capture. It will then highlight it with a red rectangle. Click it again to finalize your choice.

5. Current Screen

I love my dual screen setup and found KSnapshot’s “current screen” option to be crucial.  When selected, it will only capture the screen with the focused window or the mouse cursor (depending on your setup).

Snapshot Delay

The snapshot delay setting is perfect when you want to catch something in the act. It may be a rotating desktop cube or a moment in a Flash video. To activate it, set the timer by pressing the up arrow. The time will be counted in seconds. You can always go back and adjust the time if, for example, you find 5 seconds too short. Unlike the “no delay” setting, there is no need to click. Once the countdown expires, the program will automatically take the screen shot. This is the most effective way to take a screen shot while you are doing something else.

Export Options

KSnapshot supports numerous image file formats, including PNG, JPEG, and TIFF. I have found the JPEG default setting to be too lossy and usually opt for a lossless format, later creating an optimized JPEG in Gimp. Once you name and save the first image, KSnapshot will pickup a numerical naming scheme, adding sequential numbers to your name for each shot.

If you prefer, you can send your screen shots straight to the image editor of your choice, including Gimp. If you choose “Copy to Clipboard” you can paste the image into virtually anything that will support image pasting.

KSnapshot is easy to use, free, and works with KDE, GNOME, and other desktops. Best of all, with KSnapshot, you can start multiple instances and take snapshots of KSnapshot, as I did for this article. Enjoy!

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Once I’ve settled with Jing, a nice multi platform screen capture app. Then one of my Mac-user friend recommend Skitch – a Mac only alternative. After trying it out, I was hooked. Skitch has several features that I can’t find in Jing.

Screencapture tool plus image editor

Most of the screen capture utilities that I came across so far is usually limited to one main feature only: making screenshots. Skitch has many more features that complement the screen capturing process.

You could say that this app is also a light image editor because you can use it as one. You could just open any image file and edit it using Skitch. But before we dig deeper into the features, let’s adjust the basic settings.

My first favorite place to visit every time I open any application for the first time is the Preferences. Same thing goes here.

Open Skitch,

Click on the “Tools” menu

and choose Preferences (or hit Command + Comma on the keyboard).

Even though you can spend some time here and adjust many values according to your liking, I think the most important items here is the Snapping settings. Here you will decide what Shortcut keys to use to do Crosshairs (part of the screen), Fullscreen and Frame (adjustable location of part of the screen) snaps.

Now for the main show, let’s see how this app does what it’s built to do: screen capture. The one snap option that I use the most is the crosshairs. Just hit the pre-defined shortcut key and you’ll have the crosshairs lines appear, ready to capture the screen.

You could click and drag the lines to define the part of the screen that you want to capture. Or you could just click on a window and Skitch will capture that window for you.

Then the image that you’ve just capture will be opened in Skitch editor. Here you can do some light editing to enhance the image.

There are basic drawing tools at the left vertical bar such as pencil, rectangle, fill, text, and arrow; there are additional tools at the right vertical bar such as color picker, undo and clear buttons; file name and file info at the bottom bar, webpost button and settings also at the bottom; Settings button, Photos button (to open any image from the hard drive), Save button, and History button (to view recently captured images) are all at the top bar.

To resize image to the size that you desired, drag any corner of the window. To crop the image into the area that you prefer, click and drag the edges of the image.

And finally, to quick save the image, just click and drag the “Drag Me” button at the bottom bar to the location that you’ve want: in finder or in any other application such as Mail or Text Edit.

Now about the name bar at the bottom, you could write the name of the file and decide the image format before dragging it and the image will be saved using that preferences.

Using Skitch, you have the option to save the image into web location. Click the little arrow next to the Webpost button and choose “Open Webpost Settings”

You’ll have the Skitch.com as the default location (registered at the first installation of the app). To add more location, just click the plus button,

And fill in the necessary data according to the types of your account. There are several options here ranging from MobileMe to FTP to Flickr.com.

Final Notes

There are still many other things haven’t been discussed here about Skitch, including the ability to take a snap of itself. The best way to find them out is to explore and use the app yourself.

And as much as I like and prefer Skitch over other screen capturing tools, there’s one thing that I find a little bit annoying: that the only option to save the captured image is by dragging it to our desired location. It would be better if the developer add configurable buttons to save the image to several pre-defined locations in the hard drive (like the one that Jing has).

Sometimes, dragging images could be troublesome. Especially for those who doesn’t have wide area for mousing.

Have you tried Skitch? Do you know other alternative of screen capture tools for Mac? Share using the comment below.

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Motivated by a need, I tried to find a way to solve this problem and found Aviary.com. Here’s how it works:

1. Taking Screenshots:

No matter which browser you are using, simply go to the address bar and add aviary.com/ before the web page you are trying to capture. So if you want to take a screenshot of Yahoo.com you will type aviary.com/http://yahoo.com in your address bar.

If you find this hard to remember, you can also go to Aviary.com/launch/falcon and enter the URL of the web page that you want to capture.

Following either of these methods would take a screen capture of the web page and open it in an online image editor. If you want to capture only a certain part of a web page, you can crop the image once it has been captured.

2. Editing Screenshots:

Aviary is also an online image editor providing almost all standard features that you can find in a regular image editing tool. You can draw shapes and lines, add text and arrows and use brushes.

You can also use the editor to resize, crop, rotate or flip an image. While resizing, you can simple slide the width or the height bar to a desired specification. The aspect ratio of the image would remain locked during resizing so it does not go out of proportion. Similarly, you can flip the image vertically or horizontally, or rotate it at any desired angle from 0 to 360.

If you think you need more powerful editing tools, you can open the Advanced Image Editor. Features like adding effects to images and working with a color palette are also available within the image editor. You can also use the zoom tool to view an enlarged version of the image and add outlines and shadows to the image.

Saving Images:

Once you are done editing, just click on the “Save To Desktop” button to save the images on your local drive. Alternatively, you can sign up for a free account and host your images online free of cost.

Tip: If you simply want to share the image with somebody without downloading or uploading it anywhere, click on the “Save & Host Online” button, but when it prompts you to register for an account, click “Cancel”. After this, you will see a small “Share this creation” link which will provide you with a permanent URL of your image that you can share with others.

Aviary also offers a number of other on-the-fly image tools that you can use free of cost. These include an Image Editor, a Color Editor, an Effects Editor, a Vector Editor and an Image Markup tool. If you regularly use Firefox, you can also access the Aviary tools through their Firefox Add-on.

What other websites do you use to capture your screenshots?

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Wink is a tutorial and presentation creation software, primarily aimed at creating tutorials on how to use software (like a tutor for MS-Word/Excel etc). Using Wink you can capture screenshots, add explanations boxes, buttons, titles etc and generate a highly effective tutorial for your users. Wink is also available in several languages including English, French, German, Italian, Danish, Spanish, Serbian, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese and Simplified/Traditional Chinese.

Here’s how we use Wink to create screencast easily.

Download and install Wink on your Windows platform [currently Wink supports only Windows 98, 2000 and XP].

1. Open Wink software and create new Wink project (File -> New). The project wizard window will show up.

2. Check the box “Start by capturing screenshots“, “Hide Wink Window“. In the dropdown bar, select “Screen“. Enter the region (screen size) that you want to capture and the timeframe of the screencast. Click OK.

3. The next screen will show you the hotkey to start the screen capturing. Shortcut keys that you have to remember are Alt + Pause, and Shift + Pause (key near scroll lock button on your keyboard). Click on the “Minimize To Tray” button to minimize the Wink window to the system tray.

4. Press ALT + PAUSE to start recording. Once the screencasting is started, you will be able to see changes in the Wink icon in the system tray.

5. Do all your demo on your screen. Once you are done, click ALT + PAUSE again to stop.

6. Right click the Wink icon and select Finish Capture to complete the project.

7. You should now see the entire frames of your screencast as thumbnail images at bottom of  the Wink window .

8. Select the frame in which you want to add the text, images, preset shapes from the properties bar .

9. Preview the frame in which you have added text and preset shape to it.

10. Once you have completed all your editing, we will now configure it to be saved as .swf format. Go to Property -> Settings. Select Macromedia Flash (*.swf) in the Output File Type.

11. Select Project -> Render to save the file.

12. You should now see the output file as swf format. You can also save the project as PDF or PostScript format

Wink is a freeware and you can download, install and use it for free. Don’t forget to see the tutorial that comes with it for more usage detail.

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GScrot is a GTK+ 2.0 screenshot application written in perl. It covers all features of common command line tools like scrot or import and adds reasonable new features combined with a comfortable GUI using the GTK+ 2.0 framework.

To install Gscrot in Ubuntu Intrepid:

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following line to the end of the file.

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/gscrot/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/gscrot/ubuntu intrepid main

Save and close the file. Back to your terminal,

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gscrot

Gscrot is now known as Shutter.

To install Shutter on your Ubuntu Intrepid

First add the PPA’s key to your system

wget -q http://shutter-project.org/shutter-ppa.key -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Open the apt sources.list file.

gksu gedit /etc/sources.list

Add the following repository to the end of the file. Save and close the file.

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/shutter/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main

deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/shutter/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main

Update and install the application

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install shutter

Open Gscrot (Application -> Accessories -> Gscrot – Screenshot Tool).

There are several options that you can use to take screenshots: Selection, Full Screen, Window, Section and Web.

The Selection button allows you to capture a selected region of the screen. There are two modes for region selection – Simple and Advanced. The Simple mode is just like the Compiz way where you drag the crosshair cursor across the region that you want to capture. In the Advanced mode, a lightbox canvas will first load up. You can then define, move, resize the region that you want to capture. When you are done, simply press Enter to capture the region.

The Fullscreen button is to take a quick snapshot of the full screen

The Window button allows you to take a screenshot of any active or sub-window.

The Section button allow you to select a section within the window.

The Web button is an interesting one. You enter the URL of the site and get Gscrot to retrieve the full screenshot of the site. No browser required.

Full screenshot of Make Tech Easier

The best of Gscrot comes after you have taken the screenshot. There are various effects (also known as pulgins) that you can use to enhance your screenshot.

Click to enlarge

The result after applying Raise border and Jigsaw piece 1 plugins

There is also a draw function where you can add drawing or annotation to the images.

You can also upload your screenshots to specific image hosting sites such as ubuntu-pics.de, imagebanana.com and imageshack.us

Conclusion

After reading the review and seeing the screenshot, are you excited? I am not sure about you, but I am definitely impress by Gscrot. If you are looking for a standalone screen capture app, I strongly recommend Gscrot.

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When I am writing post for Make Tech Easier, I love to take plenty of screenshots as I feel they can make the explanation clearer and easier. Over the year, I have also discovered several ways to take screenshot on my Ubuntu machine. If you are looking for one, I have compiled a list of screen capture tools that you can use in Ubuntu.

Gnome-Screenshot

Gnome-screenshot is the default screen capture tool in Ubuntu. It is simple and easy to use. You can choose to capture the whole desktop or the current window and you are able to set a delay before activating the capture. It is useful for those who wanted a lightweight and minimal screen capture tool.

Gnome-screenshot can be accessed from Appications -> Accessories -> Take Screenshots.

Compiz

Compiz comes with a screenshot plugin that allows you to take screenshot quickly and easily. It consist of the bare minimum and few or none configuration options. You simply press the Windows button on your keyboard, left click your mouse and drag the cursor to cover the area you want to snap. That’s it. For those who want a quick snapshot of a specified region, Compiz is the best.

To activate the screenshot plugin, you will have to install CompizConfig Settings Manager and activate it from there.

GIMP

GIMP has a screen capture function that can be found several levels down the menubar. One of the advantage of using GIMP is that you can immediately edit the screenshots and save it in the file format that you want it to be. In addition, this is the screen capture tool that I used everytime I wanted to take a snap of a window inside a virtual machine.

GIMP is useful if you want to take a comprehensive screenshot that you can edit immediately. If you just want a quick snapshot, I don’t think it is worth the trouble to load up GIMP, navigate several levels down the menubar before you can take a shot.

If you are using Gimp 2.6, the screen capture function can be found in File -> Create -> Screenshot

KSnapshot

One of my favorite screenshot tool is Ksnapshot (Click the link to install). It is a KDE application and is not available in the GNOME desktop. You will have to install it to use it. For me, I find that Ksnapshot is more like a combination of Gnome-screenshot and GIMP. You get to choose which region to capture – full screen or active window, and after you have captured it, you can either save it as a image file in various format or you can send to another application, such as GIMP, for editing.

If you don’t mind having a large bunch of KDE file in your Gnome desktop, then Ksnapshot is the one to go for.

Webkut

Webkut is an Adobe Air application meant for taking screenshot of Web page. It is like a browser where you can load up the webpage by entering the URL in the address bar and select the region to capture. One thing that I like about Webkut is that I can adjust the size of the canvas before I take the screenshot. This is useful when I need to take a screenshot of specific width and height.

ScreenGrab

ScreenGrab is a Firefox extension that can capture the screenshot of any web page. Once installed, you can access the ScreenGrab options via the context menu (right mouse click). There are a few options that are available to you. One of them is the ability to capture the whole web page even though it is out of your screen. This can save you the trouble of taking several screenshots and stitching them together. You can also choose to capture only the visible portion or a partial region of the whole desktop.

Webshots

Webshots is another Firefox extension for screen capture. The option is rather limiting as it only allows you to capture the full page. One thing good is that it can be quickly activated with the shortcut key Alt + W.

For Seasoned Windows User: Easy Capture

For those seasoned Windows users who just got on to the Ubuntu platform and are not comfortable with any of the above native Linux apps, I have found Easy Capture (a Windows screen capture application) to work well under Wine. It is like a mini GIMP where you can take screenshots and do some simple editing before saving it in the file format you want.

Which one is your favorite screen capture app in Ubuntu?

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