SnagIt 6.2
Techsmith Corporation

SnagIt is an awesome utility for capturing the video screen. You can capture still images, text, web and video. SnagIt comes with the capture software along with SnagIt Studio that allows you to annotate your captures with text and from a library of icons. You can add text to some of the icons to get your point across. There is a whole library of different icons and you can add your own. Each part of the library is a catalog and it's easy to create your own catalog after creating your own icons so that you have a unique library to pull from.

Below are captures created with SnagIt to show you the capture interface and it's menus. These captures are as easy to make as using Ctrl_Shift_P or any hot key you would like to assign to that action. SnagIt allows for personal creation of hot keys to make it even easier to use.

You can set up how SnagIt captures or you can use the built in Wizard to guide you through every step on the way.

Creating movies of your captures is as easy as creating still image captures. Below is a quickie video capture.

Above is a capture made with SnagIt. I've used the Camtasia Studio not included with SnagIt to convert it into a .GIF file for easier web download for this review. The auto format output of SnagIt is .AVI.

SnagIt comes with SnagIt Studio. This is where  you will edit the captures you've created. You don't have to do this but it's a powerful tool for annotating your captures to make them even more powerful.

Below are the menus available in SnagIt Studio.

A list of major features is below just in case I forgot to mention something. SnagIt is very complex but so easy to use you'll never know how much you can do with it until you try it. After reading through the feature set, hop on over to Techsmith and download the demo version so you can try it out for yourself and see the power that is incorporated into this inexpensive but powerful piece of software.

Image Capture

• Choose to capture the entire screen, region, object, menu, or shape, scanner, digital camera, DOS, DirectX, etc.
• Capture an entire window from top to bottom or side to side with AutoScroll.
• Capture multiple windows at the same time.
• Capture bitmaps, icons, and cursors from resource files such as "EXE" and "DLL".
• Automatically name files.
• Save images as BMP, GIF, PCX, JPEG, PNG, TGA or TIF.
• Capture shapes like a rounded rectangle and triangle, or draw own free hand shape.
• Use advanced capture options like custom scroll, DOS, extended window, TWAIN, and program file, which lets you directly capture bitmap, icon and cursor images stored inside other programs on your computer.
• Send images to the Windows Clipboard for pasting in other applications.
• Automatically send captured images as e-mail attachments.
• Send captures to multiple destinations.
• Print multiple captures on a single page.
• Preserve image quality and text legibility when resizing captures.

Text Capture

• Capture from applications that don't support Cut and Paste.
• Save text captures as editable text.
• Add annotations to text captures.
• Easily import the text, even into spreadsheets and databases

Video Capture

• Capture onscreen activity, including mouse movements, as a standard AVI video file.
• Optionally record audio.
• Create time-lapse videos.

Web Capture

• Type in a URL to simultaneously capture all JPG, GIF and PNG images in one step.
• Capture images off all Web pages linked to original page.
• Capture background images.
• Save captures as image files or send to the Catalog Browser

Printer Capture

• Print from any application to the SnagIt printer.
• Apply all of SnagIt's image processing features on the document and scale pages, stamp with time and date, add a watermark, etc.
• Choose your Output - send to a real printer, or if you don't want to print it, save it as an image file, attach as an e-mail, send to the Catalog, or send to the Web.

Edit

• Preview the captured image, edit and apply filters before saving or printing.
• Modify your images, including flip, reverse, resolution, rotate and scale.
• Change the colors with options like grayscale, invert, color substitution, brightness, contrast, hue and saturation.
• Add image effects such as annotation like customized captions, time/date and system information.
• Design a border to enhance your capture.
• Import watermarks to stamp on your images.
• Trim or crop the capture to your exact specifications.
• Use professional image processing effects such as sharpen, mosaic, emboss, etc.
• Constantly view work as you make an unlimited number of changes.
• Use unlimited undo button.

Studio

• Annotate, mark and modify images with drawing tools.
• Select from dozens of preset annotation shapes, frames or borders.
• Create and save own custom annotation shapes.
• Add text boxes, captures, callout boxes, rubber stamps, arrows, sticky notes.
• Highlight an image region.
• Overlay and position multiple images in a collage.
• Import any BMP, GIF, PCX, JPEG, PNG, TGA or TIF image.
• Export annotated document as graphic file.

Organize

• View, navigate and manage SnagIt captures.
• Use as a graphic viewer for any images on your PC.
• Take advantage of thumbnail viewing feature to easily locate and organize images.
• Save, convert file formats, print and e-mail in batches.
• Easily apply and undo various image processing effects

This is very exciting software and I urge you to try it out and see.

Visit the SnagIt website and check it out today!

$39.95 (US)

Windows 95B or higher, 98, ME, NT 4, 2000, XP or later version

90 MHz processor (400 MHz recommended)

16 MB RAM (64 MB recommended)

14 MB of hard-disk space for program installation

For printed output, a Windows-supported printer capable of printing bitmaps

For mail output, a 32 bit MAPI mail client

For audio recording and playback, a Windows supported sound card and microphone

Copyright Vikki Olds, All Rights Reserved