subject: Screen Capture Software Review: Jing Project By Techsmith [print this page] Every now and then, it's helpful to be able to take a picture or brief video of something on your screen. You might need to show someone how to do something with a quick video, or need a picture of an error message, or maybe you're just trying to capture something that gave you a good idea for a project you're working on.
In the general, the tedious process of grabbing a screen shot (not something everyone knows how to do in the first place) copying it into a program for cropping and/or resizing (another skill not everyone posesses), saving it and sending it off is not always wort the effort!
So, whats the solution?
**Jing Screen Capture Software**
Jing Project (or just Jing) screen capture software makes it incredibly simple (and fun) to save image and video from your computer screen. Best of all, the basic version is completely free!
Once installed, Jing takes the form of a small yellow sun. When not in use, that sun sits at the edge of your screen so its out of the way (I tend to forget its there until I need it for something). When you place your mouse over the Jing sun, you'll be able to select from three options: Capture, History and "More".
Clicking "capture" will allow you to select the area of your screen you want by clicking and dragging. Then its a simple matter of selecting whether you want an image or a video.
**Image Screen Capture**
Once you select an area to capture by clicking and dragging across your screen with Jing conveniently measuring the size of the area youve selected you can take a snapshot of your screen with a single click. Double clicking a window on your screen automatically selects just that window. Jing then provides a preview of the image that you can save, delete or edit.
Editing the image in Jing is easy as well, adding arrows and boxes - as well as captions and highlighting, can all be done before the image is saved. Once your image is good to go, all you have to do is save and share it.
In terms of sharing, you can easily add buttons to post your image to your twitter, facebook, or flickr account as well as options to copy the image to your clipboard so you can paste it wherever you want (even if you havent saved it!) or upload it to your web server via FTP.
In a nutshell, Jing allows you to take any part of your screen pretty much wherever it needs to go.
**Video Screen Capture**
Every so often, though, an image just won't cut it. In that case, you can always use Jing to capture and share a short video of the action on your computer screen.
If you need a video, just hit the "video" button after you select the capture zone and Jing will record! Jing will capture anything on your screen for up to five minutes at a time (you can, of course make multiple recordings if you need to). If you need to, you can even pause the recording to move windows around or whatever you might need to do. When you're finished, your revording is saved in .swf format when its complete.
To easily share the video with others, there is a single click button to upload the video to ScreenCast.com on of Jings sister products from TechSmith. Videos can also be edited in Camtasia (also from TechSmith) with a single click.
Jing Pro edition screen capture software unlocks additional features to allow for even more sharing options, and the option to record videos as .mp4 files, rather than .swf making them more accessible to other viewing and editing programs, but for most users the basic free version is enough to save a TON of time.
