I use Jing for most of my blog and technical documentation. Jing is a screen capture utility that allows me to draw arrows, markup and paste (and even shoot video). But Jing can be a memory hog and its uploading feature is anything but fast to use. But how about a utility with an installer that is a mere 1MB in size? It is a small free application I found yesterday called Gyazo.

It does one thing, and it does it very well. It allows you to capture a screenshot with its crosshairs and it will automatically upload it to the web and copy its URL to your clipboard. Did I mention that it does not require any signing up? And how about this - Gyazo is a cross-platform app with support for Mac, Linux and Windows!

screenshot capture

Let's check it out. You can start by visiting their English or Japanese site here and here respectively. Download the installer and get it installed. Once it is installed you can run it from the start menu.

screenshot capture

Then when you launch it, your mouse will turn into crosshairs like this:

how to take a screenshot

As you draw your box to select your screenshot you will see it covered in a light gray shade and the dimensions of the box will appear in the bottom left hand corner of your selection as you can see in the shot above. (note: I used Jing for these captures as it is the only thing that captures the mouse).

Upon making your selection and releasing the mouse your screenshot is uploaded to the web. You will be shown the webpage in your default browser when it is ready.

how to take a screenshot

You can then copy and paste that URL to share it with friends or colleagues.  The link that was returned was:

http://gyazo.com/4aee403789e9ba4acb0d5e6b0e3509eb.png

You can see it is stored on the Gyazo website and it has a PNG extension. You can download the image by right clicking on it and saving it. You can also use the 4 links that appear when you mouse over the upper left hand corner of your image to share your image. Gyazo supports Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr but you can hotlink or paste the URL of this image anywhere where you can insert an image.

By hitting the Twitter logo button this is what happens:

how to take a screenshot

If you are not logged into Twitter you will be prompted for your password after you add your optional tweet and hit the post button.

gy6

You can see how it looks in my twitter stream here. I do not have a Tumblr account but that is what the next button does:

sharing screenshots

You need to enter your Tumblr authentication information and an optional caption. Hit the post button and it will posted to your blog. Personally I would have preferred Wordpress (if the author is listening, I would like to use it regularly on my Wordpress website).

The last social network button is for Flickr:

sharing screenshots

Click post and your image will be posted to your Flickr page. If you are not logged in you will be prompted to.

The last button is for information. It pretty much just gives you the URL of your image and a link to the Gyazo website like this:

sharing screenshots

Do you have a quicker way for sharing screenshots and images online?  If so, we would love to hear about it in the comments!