Have you ever had something on your computer screen that you wanted to share? Maybe in a PowerPoint presentation, on a Web page or by E-mail? Regardless of how you use them, screen captures can be VERY useful.
Out of the Box
Anyone can capture an image of their screen with little effort.
Windows
If you are using a Windows machine hit the “Prt Scr” key on your keyboard… exciting isn’t it?
OK it probably doesn’t seem like anything happened.
Click on START > Programs > Accessories & open Paint
Now right click and select “Paste”
You now have a screen capture!
For more fun hold down the “Alt” key then hit the print screen. This will limit the screen grab to only the area of the active program you are using.
Mac
Mac’s have an even cooler way to screen capture. If you are using OSX, hold down the Command/Apple key, the Shift key and then hit the 3 key. Just like on a PC the entire desktop will be captured. Unlike Windows the image appears on your desktop in a .png file you can then share or edit elsewhere.
The Mac has another option. Hit the Command/Apple key, the Shift key and then hit the 4 key. A “crosshair” icon will replace your mouse cursor. You can now click and drag to create a box. Whatever part of the screen you put into that box will be captured when you release the mouse button. Just like before a new file will appear on the desktop.
Note: You can change the place the images are stored and their default file format too. So if you want a jpeg and not a png, no problem. You do need to use the Terminal, so if you don’t know what that is you might not want to do it. Check out this link for more.
Doing More
Skitch
Hands down the best free screen capture application I have used is Skitch. Not only is Skitch a program it is also a free service that allows you to store and share your screen captures on the Web. The downside is that Skitch is Mac only, sorry Windows users.
Once you’ve downloaded Skitch you can easily access it by holding down the Command/Apple Key, holding down the Shift key and hitting the 5 key. You now can select the area of the screen you want to grab just like you normally would on the Mac. You can even hit the Shift key and receive a countdown timer to the moment when the program actually grabs the screen.
The real power comes once you have finished the screen grab. The Skitch application appears and from there you can add arrows, text and draw shapes, then send your image to a wide variety of places. Skitch lets you even connect to bluetooth devices and attach to email. The ability to share is built right in! Want to go one step further? Skitch lets you take screen grabs of Skitch!
Cropper
On the PC side is a free program called Cropper. The program installs an icon in the system tray. Whenever you want to capture the screen you double click the icon and a box appears. You can resize this box however you like. Right clicking in the box will give you options including the ability to automatically create a thumbnail you specify to go with the image you save. Once the box is hovering over the part of the screen you want to capture you simply right click and tell it what format you want. You can save as BMP, JPEG, PNG or send to the Clipboard for use in other programs or directly to your Printer.
Cropper is not as intuitive or slick as Skitch but it gets the job done.
As mentioned both applications are free and easy to use!
This entry was posted posted on Friday, February 26th, 2010 at 3:16 pm and is filed under Favorite Fridays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
