TinyGrab is a cross platform application that allows you to take screen captures and seamlessly upload them to a service of your choice using a simple shortcut key combination.

The TinyGrab service has it’s own hosted element for uploading your captures to, together with an online control panel for managing both your uploads and your account.

Sign up is free but the free accounts are limited to a maximum of 10 uploads per day and the capture pages display small adverts. For a one-off payment of £10 the upload limit is removed and there is an option to remove the adverts from the capture pages.

While uploading the images is an integral feature of TinyGrab this feature can be suspended if required, for example for privacy. The screen captures made with the upload element disabled are still saved and in fact TinyGrab allows the location to be changed from the OS X default of the desktop.

Available From: http://tinygrab.com
Platform: Mac and Windows
Price: Free or single payment of £10 for unlimited uploads

CloudApp is an application that allows not only images but also links, music, videos and files to be shared quickly and easily from the CloudApp icon in the menu bar.

Using it is simplicity itself; select the file to be shared, drag it up to the menubar and drop it on the CloudApp icon. The file is uploaded in the background and a short link to the item automatically copied to the system clipboard.

Uploaded files can be managed via the CloudApp web interface and items can be viewed, tracked and deleted directly from the CloudApp icon in the menu bar.

CloudApp ships with a collection of plugins, called Raindrops. These extend the functionality of CloudApp to allow access to it’s services via applications on the Mac.

Available From: http://www.getcloudapp.com/
Platform: Mac
Price: Free

Hazel is the infinitely configurable Mac application lauded as being your personal housekeeper.

Hazel works via user configured rules attached to folders. Hazel then watches those folders automatically reorganising the files according to the rules you specified. To anyone familiar with Apple Mail the rules interface will be immediately familiar. Hazel can manage files based on name, date, type, sending address and much more. Actions to be applied to these files can include moving, copying, setting colours, organising into subfolder structures, opening, adding Spotlight comments and run workflows.

The range of options available for these rules is immense and what you can achieve in terms of automating your organization is only limited by your imagination or requirements. A few examples might fire your imagination!

Downloads

By default Safari saves all files to a Downloads folder in the user’s home folder. Hazel could be configured to organize the downloaded files into subfolders based on their file type or by the date they were downloaded. An extension of this would be to move files out of the Downloads folder based on their file type so for example downloaded audio files could be moved to the iTunes “Automatically Add to iTunes” folders. The next time iTunes is run any files contained within the “Automatically Add to iTunes” folder are added to iTunes.

Dropbox

Dropbox is a cloud based service that I use extensively and have demonstrated numerous times. One of my popular demonstrations is where I have the Dropbox client software installed on two machines, one a Windows PC the other my Mac. I then configure the Windows machine to save screen captures to a folder inside my Dropbox folder. The Dropbox synchronisation services ensures that the files created on the Windows machine are copied up to the cloud and then down to my Mac. I then have a Hazel rule attached to that folder to process these screen captures, the rule actually transfers the image to iPhoto.

Desktop

Sometimes the temptation to add items to the Desktop is overwhelming but Hazel can assist in that compulsion too! A set of rules can be attached to the Desktop folder to either move items to another location or organize them in a series of subfolders.

Hazel is also compatible with the Growl framework so you are able to monitor what Hazel is doing via Growl notifications.

Available From: http://www.noodlesoft.com
Platform: Mac
Price: $21.95

I term Skitch quirky due to it’s unique interface. Initially I was skeptical about an interface that wouldn’t look out of place in a toy shop but I was quickly won over by it’s range of functions and just how accessible the interface made them.

The primary requirements of any screen capture application is of course that it has a complete range of capture tools. Skitch certainly has an extensive repertoire in this area, capturing the full screen, dialog boxes, windows and specific regions. In addition to this it can also capture images from any attached cameras.

Captures are displayed in the middle of the Skitch Window and are surrounded by an comprehensive range of tools for annotating, exporting and managing, especially important since Skitch can run in Menu only mode which, despite the misnomer, dispenses with the traditional menu bar.

Images amended in any way are automatically saved to built-in library, together with a history of exports and uploads.

Amendments can include annotating the captures in many ways, for example, adding text, arrows, highlights, boxes and erasing parts of an image. Captures can also be cropped and resized.

One of the more unusual and useful options is hidden away in the preferences and allows a watermark to be added to captures.

Exporting an image is a simple matter of selecting a file format from the conveniently located file format drop-down and dragging the “drag me” tab to the location you would like to save the image to.

Skitch supports web posting to their own hosting service, Skitch.com, and other services including MobileMe, Flickr and general FTP transfer. All the upload options only need configuring once.

Skitch is currently in free beta, in fact it seems to have been in perpetual beta for at least the last 4 years. While this might be worrying in terms of the long term future of the application Plasq announced in March 2010 that the product has reached maturity and is now a separate company with some of the original team of programmers continuing to work on the product and promising big things for the future of Skitch.

Skitch can be downloaded from http://Skitch.com

Available From: http://Skitch.com
Platform: Mac
Price: Free

When the application Little Snapper launched in 2008 a companion service called QuickSnapper was launched with it allowing the captures made by Little Snapper to be shared online. In 2009 this service was rebranded as Ember.

Ember still allows images to be uploaded and shared directly from Little Snapper and is also integrated into other applications and services including Cinder and Courier.

Ember has become home to inspirational uploaded designs and is one of the easiest ways to share captures online, from webpages to screenshots, design to illustration. Ember is built for creatives looking to build an online design scrapbook.

An account is required to use the service. A free account provides for up to 30 uploads a month and the creation of three collections. A Pro account is also available at a cost of $24 per year which gives unlimited uploads and allows an unlimited number of collections to be made.

In addition to Collections items uploaded can be organized using tags and submitted to Categories. Categories showcase the very best uploads in any given area as they are curated by the Ember team to ensure the quality is maintained.

The Ember Dashboard provides an instant access point from which to manage all uploads and indeed all the features of the Ember service.

You can check out Elaine’s Ember account at http:/emberapp.com/elainegiles.

Available From: emberapp.com
Platform: Mac
Price: Free ($24 per annum for a Pro account)

In our recent Screen Capture event we demonstrated many different screen capture software utilities, one application came as a surprise to the Mac users in attendance.

The application in question was Grab. The surprise was that it is free and pre-installed with OS X, it’s just hidden away in the Utilities folder within the Applications folder.

While many of the options to be found in Grab merely replicate the default screen capture capability within OS X using the keyboard shortcuts there are a few useful additional features.

A really useful option is to be able to instigate a timed capture. This allows the screen to be set up as required prior to taking the screen capture.

The second great option is hidden away in the preferences and allows the mouse pointer to be captured. The option goes beyond allowing it to be captured as it’s displayed because a range of different mouse pointers are available for selection. A fantastic option for trainer’s documenting points and clicks.

Available From: http://apple.com
Platform: Mac
Price: Free with OS X

Windows Vista and Windows 7 include a utility called The Snipping Tool. It is a screen capture tool, that allows users to take screenshots of windows, rectangular areas or a free-form area. Once captured, the image can then be saved as either a jpg, gif or png.

One problem with the Snipping Tool is that if you want to capture a menu, as soon as The Snipping Tool gets the focus, the menu (in the application that you want to capture) disappears from the screen.

A while ago, Mike wrote a tutorial on his blog on how to solve this issue.

Available From: http://microsoft.com
Platform: Windows
Price: Free with Windows Vista and Windows 7

In our recent Screen Capture event we demonstrated a number of different screen capture software utilities including Snagit.

Available for both Windows and Mac, Snagit is one of the best screen capture apps around. In addition to snapping images, Snagit can copy web sites, text, and even video – you can record your screen’s action in the AVI format.

New in SnagIt 10: all-in-one capture, transparency, cut out edge effect, page curl edge effect, text capture with rich text formatting/editing, Screencast.com output, custom trim, rotatable text boxes.

A free trial is available from the Techsmith website. The full version costs £37

Available From: http://www.techsmith.com
Platform: Mac and Windows
Price: £37

In our recent Screen Capture event we demonstrated a number of different screen capture software utilities including Hypersnap.

HyperSnap is a fast and easy way to take screen captures from Windows screens, and text capture from places where normal text copy is not possible. HyperSnap combines the power of a first-class screen capture application with an advanced image editing utility – wrapped into one easy-to-use tool.

It’s perfect for capturing images that you want to include in your Help system, online tutorials, manuals, training handouts, presentations, marketing materials, Web pages, emails and more. Use HyperSnap to quickly share a picture-perfect representation of anything on your screen.

A free trial can be downloaded from the Hyperionics website. The full version costs $40.

Available From: http://www.hyperionics.com/
Platform: Windows
Price: $40

In our recent Screen Capture event we demonstrated many different screen capture software utilities and the Mac application Little Snapper was one of those on show.

Little Snapper from Realmac Software is way more than just another screen capture utility, for many reasons.

1. It captures more than just standard screenshots, it can also capture whole webpages or even specific parts of webpages.
2. LittleSnapper has an integrated library to facilitate the management of the captures it makes. The library system includes, tagging, groups, smart groups and maintains an upload history.
3. LittleSnapper has inbuilt vector based annotation tools to allow you to mark up images with text, callouts, sequence numbers, shapes, lines, arrows, blurs and highlighting. Best of all, the annotations are all non-destructive allowing you to hide and show them at a moment’s notice.
4. Sharing snaps with clients, colleagues and friends is incredibly easy. Little Snapper has built in support for Flickr, image exports, FTP, SFTP and seamless integration with Realmac’s design-inspiration sharing service Ember.

A trial version of LittleSnapper is available from Realmac Software, the full version costs £26.

Available From: http://www.realmacsoftware.com/littlesnapper
Platform: Mac
Price: £26