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A friend has sent you a link to the following article: http://pixobebo.com/index.php/pixonomy/articles/58/ One of the coolest looking Mac utilities to come along in awhile is fun to use, easy to use, and totally baffles me, all at the same time. Skitch for your Mac is, well, I’m not sure what it is. It’s fun, though. If I could just get paid for using Skitch. Dueling Duo Doodles Skitch is a classy looking Mac application that captures screen images and lets you doodle over the top. Skitch also works hand in hand with Skitch.com, a webservice that lets you upload your images and share them with friends. Think of it as social networking for folks who like to doodle on their Macs. Skitch + Skitch.com is an amazingly fun and super useful duo. Everyday we all share images, ideas, and have fun with friends online—this should be easy… right? Yes, but easy to do what? Doodle? Dawdle? Preferences Skitch requires you to register online and download the Skitch application. Preference set up could not be much easier, and choices are easily understood. Use preferences to change the window color, change drawing precision from precise to loose, add keyboard shortcuts, and more. The Webpost tab lets you post images to your Skitch account. All your Skitch images are saved in the History tab. Oh, did I mention that Skitch is integrated? Skitch works with Aperture and iPhoto so you can actually pull in images and modify them right from inside Skitch without damaging or altering the original. Double click on an image in iPhoto and it opens in full few in Skitch. Now What Do I Do? Good question. Skitch does a lot for a Mac application that isn’t apparent right away what it does. Use Skitch to snap a web site’s web page. Capture an iChat moment and add text captions. You can even take a screen shot of an application or utility you’re working on and send it to someone else. Remember, we’re in the social age, the age of FaceBook and MySpace and Twitter, so there are millions of people out there, some of them Mac users, who long for new ways to communicate with one another. Your friends are global… you can send them links… but what if the action is on your screen? ... Point out a quick suggestion to a colleague or pass on that funny moment from an IM chat, post images to MySpace, eBay, forums or via email.. Skitch is the Internet age’s Camera and it Rocks! Skitch comes with a 3-minute video and I highly recommend that you take the three minutes to watch it. Then you’ll know as much about Skitch as anyone. The Skitch palette is drop dead gorgeous. Tools are laid out on both sides and I found it easy to figure out what they do. The pointer moves elements. The Circle tool draws circles. The Bucket fills with color. The text icon allows you to overlay text on the image. See? Fun and easy. On the right of the screen is a Cam button for your iSight camera, and a Snap button which opens cross hairs so you can drag and snap an onscreen image from your Mac. Everything gets loaded up in the Skitch window so you can, ah, well, doodle on it. Beauty in the Details Skitch lets you upload your images via WebPost. The settings are found in the Preferences. Click the WebPost button in Skitch and it uploads whatever image you’ve captured, doctored, doodled. The button then turns green and throbs. Honestly. It’s a throbbing green button which says Share! Click it and you can see your image on the Skitch web site, but only using the secret URL, which you can send to friends. The Skitch menu gives you plenty of options. Save your image, email your image, print, show fonts, flip, rotate, and so on. FTP or SFTP to a web site, to Flickr, or to your .Mac account. Graphic Heritage Skitch is produced by Plasq, same folks who make the popular Doozla, a graphics tool for kids, and ComicLife, an excellent application for Mac and Windows users to create their own comic strip. ComicLife has a distinct purpose. Skitch can do things of a graphic nature in a very classy attractive package. But it’s a doodle and share your doodle tool. Try Skitch. I think you’ll like it. It’s free. Be forewarned. Skitch doodling takes up lots of time; more if you have lots of friends.