6 extra ways to capture a screenshot on Mac OS X

Screen-shooting is a useful and practical way to save what you are seeing on the screen; and a good screen-shooting software should become our daily utility. Apple Mac OS X has built-in screen-shooting software, aka Grab. Grab it’s very easy to use; since it’s already built-into Mac OS X, you can just use the default shortcut keys to activate it without turning on the system. This is great for those who doesn’t want to miss the chance to capture a moment on the screen.

For Grab, the shortcut keys are as following:

• command+shift+3 Capture the whole screen
• command+shift+4 Capture a selection area you choose
• command+shift+4, then hit “spacebar”, Capture a window

Once you activate Grab, your picture is automatically saved onto your desktop. It’s a very neat and easy software to use. However, despite how easy Grab is, we need something more powerful to reduce our post-work on the screen shot. That’s why I am introducing 6 other screen-shooting software to you.

1. Skitch(Free)

Skitch is a very entertaining screen shooting software on Mac. Comparing to Mac’s built-in Grab, Skitch brings you more fun. I must say it’s especially good for girls as it doesn’t only includes screen shooting function but also numerous special effect. For example, you can use iSight to take a picture of yourself and you can just play with it right on Skitch, and you can drag and drop it onto your desktop or to your Mail.app to share with your friends.

There is a demo on Skitch’s website and you can see how fun it is. It’s free, try it out and use your imagination and do some creation.

2. InstantShot! (Free)

InstantShot! is a very famous screen-shooting software. It’s not only free but also support multi-languages. It basically includes all features that Grab has; InstantShot! also is capable to save images in Tiff, Jpg and Png format and to the clipoard so you can import the image directly in other applications.
In addition to this, you can also customized your saved pictures’ path and prefix so that you can organize your pictures better.

3. Capturen Me (Free)
Capture Me is a free flexible screen capture and recording utility for Mac OS X which features a floating capture window, several saving options, and resize ability.
Rather saying Capture Me is a screen-shooting software, I should say that it’s a screen recording software. When you are using Capture Me, it acts like a transparent camera picture frame on your desktop. You can move and re-size the “frame” according to your need, just make sure the “frame” includes what you want to capture.
Capture Me is indeed a great application especially you want to teach someone something that’s hard to explain, just do it, capture it with Capture Me, and then send it over.

4. Snapz Pro X (Commercial)
Snapz Pro X is an all-around screen-shooting/recording software on Mac; it’s said to be capable to capture ANYTHING on your screen, except the dirt, XD.
Very powerful software, however, it’s not a free meal. This software comes with two versions:
Snapz Pro X Image Capture is $29 USD (Only screen shooting)
Snapz Pro X Movie Capture is $69 USD (Both screen shooting and recording)

5. Jing (Free)
Jing is a dual-platform software, available on Windows and Mac. It allows you to capture your screen, record your screen and share them over web, IM (Instant Messaging) and email.
Once you capture a picture with Jing, you can edit it right away. You can add text and comment as well as indicators like arrows. You can send it to Flickr via Jing’s built-in function.
The only thing that’s not so neat is that you can only save the picture as .png files.

6. Paparazzi! (Free)
Last but not least, I am introducing this great screen-shooting software, Paparazzi!. It’s a very very tiny software yet I love it very much. This software is for you to capture a website. You can save the image as .PDF, .JPG, .PNG and .TIFF; it’s especially good for web designers to use because you don’t have to screen shoot muliple pages and then use software like Photoshop to join them together (believe me or not, that’s a tough job when you have a very high website.)
Here is a screen shoot for my Blog using Paparazzi! :
Screen Shot of Rockia.com (Sorry, the picture is too big; it’s nicer to put it in a new windows.)

There is not best software, just choose the best one for yourself. (No kidding, I have seen a Mac senior user who only uses Grab and he is 100% satisfied.) If you like my post or you would like to give me any recommendation, please leave me a message.