Splash of Style...Macs, Photography, Design, and other Passions

Skitch

September 11, 2007 by debbie T | Art and Graphics • Mac Software

When I heard Allison from the Nosilla Podcast talking about the beta for a new Mac image editor called Skitch, I knew I wanted an invite. Allison set me up and I installed immediately.

I have been using it for over a month, and I admit, at first I wasn’t thrilled with it. I felt it was hindering my workflow, not helping. It wasn’t like the kind of image editor I was used to. But I kept remembering what Allison said in her podcast. I quote:

One thing to keep in mind when you’re working with Skitch is not to think too hard. Just like the Macintosh, if it’s hard, you’re doing it wrong!

So, I kept working with it, and eventually I learned to loosen up and let the software do its thing. It is now an indispensable app, that I use constantly.

I started out mainly using it to edit my screen shots. It is easy to add text, arrows, shapes, lines, and pencil drawings. It can automatically upload images to Flickr and your account at MySkitch. You also can set up SFTP and FTP accounts as well. I really like how it keeps a “history” of the edits to the file, and I use the drag n drop ‘save’ feature all the time. I still haven’t mastered everything about Skitch, but I am learning as I go.

Being that it is still beta, I haven’t noticed many issues. It is a stable app. Unfortunately there is no information about when the final version will be released, or how much it will cost.

For more information about the Skitch beta, go to the Plasq website. The beta is invite only, but there are many invites floating around online; check out their forum.

If you do install the software, be sure to check out Allison’s podcast. If you don’t have time to listen to the audio, check out her detailed show transcript. Her notes really helped me get started using Skitch. Skitch’s help files are also very good; whenever I had a question, most times the answer was there. There is a quick tutorial video in the help files, along with on Plasq’s web site.

I love Skitch!

skitch screenshot