Review: Snapz Pro 2.0.1
Product Information
Published by: Ambrosia Software, Inc.
Phone: (800) 231-1816
E-Mail: help@ambrosiasw.com
Download: http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/cgi-bin/mirror-url.pl?SnapzPro2.bin (1112 KB)
Price: $40 shareware fee; upgrades from Snapz Pro 1.x are $20
Requires: Color-Capable Macintosh, System 7 or later, some features require QuickTime.
Few Macintosh shareware companies have done as much for our favorite platform as Ambrosia Software. Their games and useful tools have eternal fame among the Macintosh faithfuls. Therefore it is not surprising that Ambrosia’s latest creation, Snapz Pro 2.0.1, sets a new milestone in the shareware arena. An update to the successful Snapz Pro, version 2 of the screen capture utility adds some exciting new features to the already impressive feature set.
Command-Shift 3 and Command-Shift 4 have been with us for quite a while. Originally, the Mac OS only supported Cmd-Shift 3 to capture a picture of the entire screen in a PICT file. Later, Cmd-Shift 4 was added to support the capturing of a selection or the content of a single window (if caps-lock is depressed). Yet it is still impossible to capture the picture of an open menu in the OS without an added tool. Snapz Pro adds this functionality and can even take screen shots where other programs fail.
Snapz features very customizable settings. You can change the keyboard shortcut to any key combination you like. Pressing the shortcut can either open up the Snapz palette or use the last tool selected. The area to be captured can be either selected normally (like in a graphics program) or can be a draggable selection which can be moved and resized until the final area is confirmed by pressing return. The resulting picture can be saved in a variety of file formats (PICT, TIFF, GIF, JPEG, PNG or MOV) and creators.
In the palette, you can either capture the entire screen, a single window, an open menu, or a selection, and send the result either to the desktop, the Screen Snapz folder, the clipboard, the printer or a customizable folder. The result can be scaled or the color palette changed (for example to the Web or to Windows color schemes).
The most exciting new feature is the ability to capture a QuickTime movie instead of a static image. I have created the movie above using that feature. It works similarly to capturing an image: press the key combo, choose movie from the palette and the desired frame rate, select the area to capture, do whatever you want to film, and press the key combination again to stop. A new window will be opened that allows you to optimize the compression of the movie. Fixed Camera, Follow Cursor, and Smooth Pan camera modes allow you to film just what you want. All the other options, like scaling, apply to the movie as well. You can even capture audio from the Mac’s audio ports to narrate the movie etc. It’s easy and works great. The frame rate sets the “smoothness” of the movie. The more frames per second, the smoother the movie; however, the size increases as well. The feature is a fantastic idea! Do you want to show someone how to do something? Just make a movie of it with Snapz. Voila! I wonder what Ambrosia will invent for Snapz Pro 3.
Copyright ©1999 Daniel Chvatik, dchvatik@atpm.com. Reviewing in ATPM is open to anyone. If you're interested, write to us at reviews@atpm.com.
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