As a designer, I tend to collect various screenshots from all around the web. I use these screenshots for a variety of reasons, from design inspiration to problem-solving. I’ve never really had a great system for cataloging these screenshots. I typically use a combination of Snapz Pro, Paparazzi, and the built-in screen capture capabilities of OS X, and then just throw those images into a folder. It works, but it’s not very elegant.
Not too long ago I started using an online service called, ScrnShots to collect the images. You can upload image files, or there’s a desktop utility for snapping a screen shot and having it upload directly (here’s mine). While ScrnShots works pretty well, I tend not to be a big fan of online-only applications… partially because you can’t get to your stuff when you’re offline, and also because they’re generally not as responsive as desktop applications. At least not yet. I much prefer a dedicated desktop application, that also has good web-syncing capabilities. That way you have the best of both worlds.
A while back I heard about an upcoming piece of software from Realmac called, LittleSnapper. It’s sole purpose is to capture and catalogue screenshots, and it syncs with a sister-service website called, QuickSnapper (it’s similar to ScrnShots). This sounded like exactly what I wanted, so I’ve been anxiously awaiting it’s arrival ever since. Version 1.0 was released today. :)
I’ve been playing around with LittleSnapper tonight, and my initial impressions are very good. It gives you several ways of capturing whole or partial web pages, and straight screenshots. It has quite a few features that I won’t go over now, because Realmac has done a pretty good job at outlining them all, here.
While I think LittleSnapper is a solid 1.0 product, it does have some room for improvement. In fact, there is one thing about it that’s bumming me out. In addition to capturing new screenshots, LittleSnapper can import existing files, but the formats it can accept seem very limited. I have a large collection of screenshots in pdf and psd formats, and LittleSnapper will not import them. I can’t find any official documentation, but it seems to support a similar set of formats that an average browser would (jpg, gif, png). I was able to import a very large tif, but it choked a bit.
All in all I’m pretty impressed with LittleSnapper, and I will probably be buying a copy. It runs $39, and requires 10.5, Leopard (sorry Tiger users).
Here’s one tip: LittleSnapper can capture whole web pages (like Paparazzi) or standard screenshots (like OS X). The difference is, when you capture a straight screenshot it comes into LittleSnapper as a graphic, but when you capture a whole page it comes in as a graphic and a web archive. This is useful, because it allows you to export that captured page (web archive) as a PDF with editable text intact.