In Love with Skitch?

myskitch550.jpg

I have been using Skitch for a month now, and I intend to do a full review once it is out of beta. I wanted to write about it now though for a number of reasons:

– the hype around Pownce seems to have knocked it off the front page a little which I feel is a shame because as a concept and application I think it is far more interesting and useful,

– I realised that I had a number of invites left and rather than hand them out at random I wanted to do something different with them.

For those of you that don’t know about Skitch it is a compact, powerful and fun way to capture, draw, annotate and share images. It enables you to:

* Take a snapshot of a website, draw attention with an arrow, and webpost the image

* Draw a quick diagram to help people find your dinner party and send it in an email

* Pull out an iPhoto, add some comments and share when instant messaging

* Quickly capture, resize and annotate a picture to put on your website

MySite550.jpg
Am Example of Skitch

Setting up Skitch is really easy, and has a few nice features:

SkitchPreferences.jpg

To get the most of Skitch you need to use mySkitch

Webpost and mySkitch.com

Often you will want to share your images with people on forums, websites, eBayâ„¢ auctions, mySpaceâ„¢ chat sessions and the like. And traditionally it has been difficult to get an image from your computer to the Internet, and then being able to point someone to that image. mySkitch aims to solve this problem.

The Skitch beta also supports .Mac, FTP, SFTP, webDAV and Flickr.

plasq offers the mySkitch.com service as part of the Skitch beta, and is evolving rapidly, so please consult mySkitch.com for details.

Please note: The webpost feature in Skitch Beta is a test version, and any images that you put there may disappear after the test period of Skitch has ended. Therefore, do not place any important images there, or link to them from a forum where people may try to access them after the image has long gone – these people will only see an error message.

The webpost function is automatically configured for your mySkitch.com account when you first start up the Skitch beta. Simply press webpost and your image will be uploaded and a page will open in your browser showing your image, and information about how to share it with your friends or on a website or chat. You can manage and delete images directly from the Skitch application, by selecting the image in your Skitch history, and choosing from the details that appear in the lower section.

Using FTP, SFTP, .Mac, Flickr and webDAV

Upload (send from your computer to a server via the Internet) images. Webpost supports the .Mac, SFTP, FTP, WebDAV, Flickr and the mySkitch service. You can add multiple accounts and switch between them by first setting up the accounts in the webpost preferences, and then choosing from the menu button that sits to the right of the webpost button.

As I said this isn’t a full review – that is where you come in!!! I have six (6) invites available and I would like to give them to readers who:

a) respond with a comment explaining why they want/need/deserve/desire an invite,
b) are prepared to share their images and thoughts when I write the final review, and
c) will make the two invites they receive when accepting my invite available to other readers if requires (sort of like a chain letter only not of course)

If you are OK with those ‘conditions’ and want an invite then let me know via the comments. Try and be creative with your requests, it has been a long week already!

25 thoughts on “In Love with Skitch?

  1. Gary

    My Dad bought Plasq’s flagship product – Comic Life a while back and was invited to join the Skitch beta. He was all enthusiastic about it when I was over recently, though I never really got a proper demo.

  2. Robert

    Great (p)review, i really like the app a lot. I also have an invite left, so you cold make the number of invites to give away 7 🙂

  3. Gary

    Thanks for the offer, but I’ll pass for now. If I took you up on it, there’s a good chance that the little time I’ve got for trying to create my new site template (from scratch!) would be put back another couple of weeks. And since I’m just starting to make some progress now, I don’t want to risk it! But thanks anyway! 🙂

  4. Mac Sokulski

    I’m still trying to figure out what else this does besides being a fancy screen capture tool. I like the interface, and the idea.

  5. Chris Marshall Post author

    Well I particularly like the ability to annote and comment on a picture.

    Take one of my pictures (you have lots) and ‘scribble’ your comments/suggestions on it and send it to me (or share it with me). It is easy, fun and actually very useful.

  6. Andy Rudkin

    This sounds very interesting. I would appreciate an invite and look forward to posting my feedback once we’ve given it a test drive. Cheers.

  7. john sanchez

    I would like a Skitch invite to test drive it.

  8. Dunks

    My full time job is teacher of ICT here in the UK and I use various screen capture software to produce user docs or lesson materials for my students. They use the software to also for their coursework. I’d love an invite to see how Skitch compares to other software – particularly the annotation side of things.

  9. Chris Marshall Post author

    @Jeff & @Dunks – I have emailed Mac to get him to send you an invite each.

    Let me know if there are any problems.

    @Mac – thanks.

  10. dunks

    @Mac – Invite received. Thanks Mac
    @Chris – 2 invites available to pass on. Thanks.

  11. Chris Marshall Post author

    @Jeff: Mac tried to invite you but it said you had already been invited. You all set up now?

    @Dunks: you are welcome

  12. Gary

    I know that this article is cooling off now, but this was the obvious place to mention the dual platform “Jing” which I took a brief look at today. A PC using colleague emailed me about it – for her it’s rather useful since the standard Windows screen-grabbing facilities are pretty prehistoric in comparison to the Mac options which are available out the box.

    Having watched their demo movie (I admit I haven’t actually tried the software in person) I have to say there appears to be some overlap with Skitch. Its user interface is probably not as cute as Skitch, but it’s functionality goes a little beyond. Anyway, I thought you might be interested…

  13. Chris Marshall Post author

    That is a pretty good looking video – thanks. If I was still on a PC ……… damn I can’t even contemplate that thought 🙂

  14. david

    hi Chris,
    I’m doing a bit of web design work and it sounds like Skitch would be great for working with my clients and other designers I work with. If there are any invites left, I would appreciate one. Thanks.

  15. david

    hey Chris,

    i’ve been using Skitch and I love it. It’s been very useful as well. Thanks again for the invite.

  16. Chris Marshall Post author

    You are welcome – have started drafting the article so hopefully wont be long before I have something to publish

  17. Dunks

    Ok, so got to use Skitch in earnest tonight. Have been refreshing the fonts/colours on a clients website and wanted them to see the proposed changes. Fired up skitch – 3 snaps – 1 of the old design, 1 of the proposed – clean for comparison, 1 of the proposed design with annotations and arrows. Total time in skitch – 4mins or so. Results excellent and client impressed with the screenshots. Loving this piece of software.

  18. Chris Marshall Post author

    I agree ‘ I have received a number of similar screen shots on a few projects and it has been an excellent ‘tool’.

    I must get the article finished soon 🙂

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