QuickSnap - a Great Shareware Screen Shot Utility for Mac OSX

In almost every software review I've written, I've included at least one screen shot of the application in question being used in a real-world situation. With Mac OSX, this is a pretty easy thing to accomplish. Simply hit the Apple key, the shift key and the 3 key simultaneously, and you instantly get a screen shot of the entire screen. To get a portion of the screen, use the 4 key instead of the 3, and you'll see a crosshairs appear. Simply drag the crosshairs over the section of the screen you want to use, and whatever you highlighted will be "snapped" instead of the entire screen.

You can also use a program included with OSX, called Grab, to accomplish the same things, but with a few more options, such as to capture a single window or take a timed screen shot, which allows you to navigate through menus to show exactly what you want. Grab is a pretty full-featured program in and of itself, and added to the built-in keyboard commands, is basically all one really "needs" to create great screen shots.

So why do I have Snapz Pro installed, and why am I now looking at another screen shot utility, called QuickSnap?

Because the built-in options aren't perfect.

For instance, using the built-in keyboard commands, I only get screen shots in PNG format. Now, PNG (portable network graphic), is a great format, except Associated Content doesn't accept it. This means that for every single screen shot I take, I have to run a different program, to convert it to JPG, which Associated Content accepts. And even Grab, which does more than the built-in keyboard commands, has issues in this regard, as it only saves screen shots in TIFF format, which again necessitates another program.

QuickSnap, on the other hand, has no such limitations. With QuickSnap, I can take screen shots in the same manner (either using a menu or keyboard combinations), only now I can choose my own format (not to mention my own hot keys), which makes QuickSnap a much better option for the power user.

To use QuickSnap, simply double-click its application icon, and you'll see a small three-section window appear. This window has sections labeled "Screen," "Selection," and "Window." Clicking any of these sections results in a screen shot of the entire screen, a selection you pick, or a single window.

QuickSnap doesn't force its users to use the PNG format. You can, but you can also choose to have your screen shots saved as JPG, TIFF or GIF, which make up (along with PNG), the four most common formats on the Internet today, as well as BMP, SGI, TGA, PICT or PDF.

Unlike using the keyboard commands, which automatically remove the cursor from the screen shot, QuickSnap lets you choose whether or not to display the cursor. This can be handy if you just want the window and nothing else, or if you want the cursor visible to display a certain aspect of a program.

QuickSnap also allows you to play a sound when making a screen shot, to better show when exactly the shot has been taken, and for simple confirmation. QuickSnap has a nice feature as well, of simply copying the screen shot into your Mac's clipboard. This is nice if you simply plan on pasting the image into an image editor. You don't need to mess around with taking the screen shot, saving the file to disc, opening that file and copying/pasting into your image... you can just take the screen shot, switch applications, and paste!

Finally, in the same way that the built-in keyboard commands automatically name your screen shots "Picture 1" "Picture 2" "Picture 3" and so on, you can set QuickSnap to use a common pattern, and the screen shots can be saved wherever you like, as opposed to the Desktop, which is the built-in default.

All in all, I think QuickSnap is a fantastic program. It's fast, easy to use, and in all honesty, has all the features I use from Snapz Pro, a utility which costs $29.00 for very similar features (or $69.00 if you want to be able to capture video). Quicksnap, on the other hand, costs only $14.95 for a license. So if you're looking for a good screen shot utility, and the built-in options just don't cut it for you, I'd recommend giving QuickSnap a try. It does everything you can already to, plus a whole lot more.