Apple's OS X operating system has a built-in screen-capture tool, so it may seem odd that someone would want to spend $50 on a utility like Techsmith's Snagit 3. Well, if you're a journalist, blogger, meme creator, or 4chan poster, you probably need a lot more functionality than simple capping and cropping. You'll want to blur sensitive information, add call-out arrows, make timed captures, or even capture video of your screen. Snagit 3 (available on PC as Snagit 12) does all that and more. The utility is a bit pricey, but it's a worthy Editors' Choice award-winning screen-capture tool for Mac users.
Your Snagging Starts Here
Snagit 3's capture options dialog is accessed by a miniature tab that takes a sliver of space at the right edge of the screen. Move the cursor over the tab and a small dialog slides in, showing a red button that you can click to start a screen capture. There are options that let you dig deeper by capturing menus, windows, and webcam images. You can also initiate a capture by pressing a user-defined hotkey.
When Snagit captures a screen, it displays a set of crosshairs you can drag to define the area you want to capture, as well as a magnifying lens that enlarges the area under the cursor so you can position the crosshairs precisely. By default, a captured image opens in the Snagit editor, a user-friendly image-editing app with the ability to draw lines and shapes and add captions, edges, and borders.
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The editor has built-in functions for uploading images and videos to Facebook, Google Drive, Twitter, and other destinations, but it lacks the incredibly handy Smart Collections feature found in competing screen-cap app Viola ($29.99). I would like to see Snagit adopt a Smart Collections-like feature as it declutters the editor by slotting images and video into categories such as Screen Snaps, YouTube Exports, and many more. Snagit 3, on the other hand, has a far superior feature—magnification. As you capture a portion of the screen, a small window opens near the cursor that gives you a pixel-level view for heightened accuracy.
Snagit 3 also has an incredibly useful feature that its Windows counterpart does not: Revert to Save. This lets you immediately remove all the edits that you've made to a capture with one click—no need to keep pressing the back icon until you've returned to the file's original state.
New Video Editing Features
New to Snagit 3 is a simple video editing feature, something that Skitch (free), a rival screen-capture app, lacks. Previously, you needed a separate video editor if you wanted to trim a video; now you can do that from within the app. Trimming a video is as simple as setting two points and clicking the Cut icon.
Trimming is the extent of Snagit's video editing chops, but it works well. If you want to add titles or such, you'll need an external video editor. You can preview captured videos in Snagit's video editor, and capture individual frames from a video. Captured video can be shared to Camtasia, ScreenCast, or YouTube.
From the editor, you can save images and videos to disk in any standard format, including JPG, BMP, GIF, MP4, or Snagit's own SNAG format. One essential feature for anyone making screenshots of Internet applications is the Blur tool, which comes in very handy when you want to mask elements in an image, such as names, telephone numbers, and email addresses.
You Should Snag Snagit
Less-expensive screen-capture products like Skitch and Voila offer effective screen-capture functionality, but SnagIt's ease of use, flexibility, and power make it an outstanding screen-capture utility—one that's well worth the relatively steep asking price. Snagit remains our favorite screen-capture app, and it once again gets the PCMag.com Editor's Choice for screen-capture utilities for the Mac.
OS X has an integrated screen-capture tool, but those who need more functionality will find that Snagit goes far beyond, with this utility that's loaded with features.
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