Sometimes when working online you need to grab an image of something on your screen. It could be anything from a logo, to a screenshot or a short demo video for a team member. The problem is that grabbing that on-screen content isn’t always easy.
Let’s face it, taking a screen shot, copying it into an image editor, cropping and resizing the image, saving it, attaching it to an email… is just way too much work!
So, what’s the solution?
Jing Project or Jing is an incredible tool designed to simplify the process of saving and sharing the things that happen on your computer screen. The basic version is available for free at JingProject.com.
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 it’s out of the way. Whenever you need it, simply move your mouse over the little yellow sun and three “rays” will appear with “Capture,” “History,” and “More” buttons that look like the picture to the right.
Clicking capture will allow you to select the area of your screen you want by clicking and dragging. Then it’s a simple matter of selecting whether you want an image or a video. Choosing image lets you save an image file anywhere you want on your computer, while video lets you create a screen capture of the section you’ve selected.
This is great for demonstrating something to a teammate or coworker.
Images can even be edited right within Jing. Arrows, boxes and highlighting, along with captions can all be added before saving the file.
Additional options include integrated Flickr uploads for images, as well as FTP integration. This means you don’t need to capture your image or video, save it, open your FTP client and upload the file. You can just save your file and hit the FTP button right in Jing and it’s off!
Jing Pro edition unlocks additional features to allow for even more sharing options, but for most users the basic free version is enough to save a TON of time.