1,2,3, Jing: A Great Screen Capture Utility

Screen capture is a utility that I use daily. Ever since I switched from a PC to a Mac I was looking for one that has the same features as SnagIt, which is the best screen capture utility for a PC.

I tried many screen capture utilities for Mac OS. None of them support all four requirements which I consider to be a must:

• Capture multiple region types: selection (most important), full screen & window while providing a clear preview of the captured area
• Save in different file formats including PNG
• Capture video
• Fast and easy to use image editor, built into the screen capturing utility (no need to copy image to another application), that allows me to add basic elements like arrows, boxes and text to the captured image. I use this often to do quick and dirty mockups, report bugs and just take visual memos of stuff I see on the web

What I have found is that most utilities for the Mac support the first 2 requirements, a few also support the 3rd (Video) but very few support the last one (image editor) which is what I find to be the killer feature of a good capturing utility.

Until I discovered Jing, a freeware that has it all and more (like a one click upload of the captured image to Flickr).

BTW, it was created by TechSmith, the same company behind SnagIt — these folks clearly understand screen capturing.

You can download it for free here.

P.S.

PC users – You are not forgotten. Jing has a Windows version as well.