Skitch – Snap, Draw, Share
Like many of us, one of the things I missed most when switching to a Mac was that there was no app that replaced Paint. While there are more powerful apps, such as Photoshop, there isn’t a simple app for users who want to quickly edit their images. Finally, though, there is something that serves this purpose: Skitch.
Yes, Skitch is a simple app, but still incredibly functional and easy to use. There are many ways to get started. You can take a screenshot of your desktop, take a picture with an iSight, look through photos in iPhoto, Aperture, and your pictures folder. You can also drag a photo from anywhere on your computer (and even the Internet) to start editing.
Once you have found the image you want to edit, you can do things like add text (it supports any font you have on your computer), draw with the paintbrush (it stays smooth if you make the image larger or smaller, and even supports the pressure sensitivity included with most tablets), make shapes such as lines, boxes, circles, and arrows, and then erase what you have done. Skitch also allows you to clear all the things you have done (by clicking Wipe under Undo) leaving just the original image, or undoing as many steps as you like. You can also move around something that you have drawn without editing the image at all.
When you are done editing the image, you can “webpost” it (to mySkitch, Flickr, .Mac, and your FTP server), email it, send it to Bluetooth, and drag it onto your desktop. While I wish it supported uploading to ImageShack, I just use the Image Upload Widget instead.
The image editing is not the only easy to use part of the app, either. Editing preferences in Skitch is easy too, by clicking the preferences button at the top of the window, or by hitting Command-, (like in most apps). From the General preferences tab, you can easily change the color of the window, change the preferences from screenshots, and much more. Like the rest of the app, the learning curve in the preferences is very gradual.
Since it is still in beta, Skitch does have some things that need to be worked out. Some of my complaints include the non-standard UI, the lack of ImageShack uploading, and the ability to delete images from mySkitch online. Other than that, it is by far the most useful app I have seen for quickly editing your images. Skitch is in public beta, to see how mySkitch holds up and to get feedback, but will be a commercial app when it is released. For a more complete instruction manual for Skitch, watch the video below.
You can sign up to get on the list to receive an invite for the public beta at plasq.com, or maybe we’ll have some invites to give away tomorrow (hint hint)…
Please send me an invite!
You can delete files from skitch online. Go to the skitch history > click the file you want to delete > choose delete > and then choose ‘from web’.
By online, I meant from mySkitch.com.
Conner, yeah it works from myskitch.com too. I just deleted a bunch of stuff myskitch.
The first 20 people to enter my photography competition get a BETA invite to Skitch (the guys at Plasq are so cool!) –
*No Self-Promotion In Comments*
Nice job promoting your crap on the comments.
I would love an invite if any are floating around.
@Alex: I was offering people invites
There was some fumbling going to press with these invites…Watch for it very soon guys – I think today’s lineup should have the goodies.
I would like an invite too.
Thanks
[...] seems lots of people are really into Skitch! If you don’t know what Skitch is, it’s a drawing, doodling, and photo editing app [...]
I’d like to give it a shot!
I’ll give an OiNK invite to anyone who can get me a Skitch invite? =P
Can I get a invite @@?
keuvin612@gmail.com
invite please?
[...] this one. The app has also been around long enough and the development crew over at plasq (think Skitch) are a great committed group who supply regular updates and [...]
[...] Skitch – Allows me to easily and visually share what I’m doing to someone else over the internet. Takes screenshots, annotates them, and allows you to upload them in one click. Amazingly easy, and changes the way I communicate my ideas to others. [...]
[...] this year introduced Doozla. Doozla is basically a refined version of Skitch (which we’ve written about before), but without the same level of screenshot integration, but a bumped up UI and a demeanor that [...]
[...] written about Skitch before as far back as last summer. If you remember Skitch will give you ‘1-click uploading of [...]