Oct 6 2010
VIDEO: Screen Shots to the extreme with Skitch
Last time we looked at taking screen shots on your Mac using just your Mac’s built-in powers of awesomeness. This time we take it up a notch.
Skitch is a free desktop application and web service1 from Plasq that allows you to easily take the same kind of screen shots you can take on your Mac right out of the box, but adds more functions and extremely useful features like intuitive scaling and cropping, iSight snaps, timed screen shots, the ability to sketch and type to annotate your images, a saved history, a variety of file types and sharing options including FTP, Flickr, MobileMe and a My Skitch page that comes with your sign-up—it also allows you to dig into that “Kitteh” gallery in your iPhoto library for quick and simple LOLCat creation!
No Flash? No problem—click here!»
As stated in the previous post, a screen shot is basically a digital snapshot of your computer’s screen at the time when the screen shot was taken. They are really handy when you are trying to show someone what’s on your screen when you can’t get them to come over and look for themselves. Common such situations are taking screen shots of error messages or warnings that you’d like to show someone offering tech support, taking screen shots of websites when you’d like to show someone on another browser or computing platform what the site looks like on your end or taking screen shots of a wicked high score on a game you’re playing.
Skitch takes that ability and gives in extra oomph. What if your computer screen is a bit cluttered and it isn’t obvious what you are showing people. In the video below I demo how to take a timed screen shot as I reveal a hidden item in J. J. Abrams‘ Star Trek that proves that even in the distant future, some innovations of the twentieth century simply cannot be replaced or improved upon. Watch the video and see what I’m talking about.
- free at the time of this posting, but the app has been in perpetual beta, so that may change if it ever get officially released [↩]
