Apple Mac HQ

I’ve wanted to write about Skitch for some time now. In its most simple form, Skitch is a screenshot application. In its most complex form, Skitch is a drop dead simple, yet powerful, image manipulation tool.

When you launch Skitch, it shows up as a menu bar icon. You’ll most often use Skitch when you activate it with a keyboard shortcut, though you can click the menu bar icon too. You can capture images several different ways.

1. Drag-able cross-hair snapshot
2. Full screen snapshot
3. iSight snapshot

Once you take a snapshot, you’ll be presented with the image in the Skitch window.

From the Skitch window, you have an enormous number of options. You can add text to images, add arrows, erase, circle, color fill, resize, and so much more. Once you’re done manipulating the image, just click the “drag me” tab (see the red arrow) and move the image wherever you want. You can drag the image straight from the Skitch window into emails, the Flickr upload tool, or just about anywhere else. You don’t need to save the image, just drag it!

Along with the Skitch software, there is also Skitch.com. Skitch.com is a webservice that gives you “1-click uploading of images for fast and fun image sharing.” Skitch.com gives you a place to store your Skitch images if you don’t have online storage else where. You can set the Skitch images to public, secret (open but with a secret URL), and private. People can even add comments to your Skitch.com images. If you want to get comments from multiple people on an image, Skitch.com will certainly come in handy.

If you take screenshots of any kind or frequently add text to images, Skitch is absolutely invaluable. If you are blogging and don’t have Skitch, you’re wasting time. Skitch is perhaps the single most useful tool on my Mac. Don’t know if Skitch is for you? Watch the video below for a quick 3 minute video tutorial.

Skitch has been in beta for quite some time. Skitch is currently free, though I’m sure it will cost something once it leaves beta. Skitch was created by Plasq, the folks behind Comic Life.

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