Battle of the snappers: LittleSnapper vs. Jing vs. Skitch

Adding images to a blog post, presentation, or word processing document can help you make a point easier than using text alone. Not only that, but adding images to text makes the text come alive, and providing a bit of visual interest for your readers may make them want to stick around for more of your content.
I’ve used screen shots extensively when preparing reports, evaluations, and training documents, and I’ve used a wide variety of tools to capture images — including the old reliable (?) print screen function in Windows. I know there’s a key combination to print a screen in the Mac OS, but I’ve never been able to remember what it is. And then there’s the problem of managing the screencaps littering your desktop, and incorporating the screen captures into your workflow. Images can add life to text, but managing them was a chore.
Realmac Software, the people behind the RapidWeaver website creation application, have just released LittleSnapper, a screen capture utility that promises to help you manage your collection and improve your workflow.

LittleSnapper does something very few OS X screen capture utilities do — it allows you to capture full web pages. In addition, you can annotate images, add categories, and use metadata to enhance your catalogue, which makes retrieval easier.

You can use LittleSnapper to upload images to your server via FTP or SFTP, or you can post images to Flickr or to QuickSnapper, Realmac Software’s free image hosting/sharing service. After posting your images online, a dialogue box opens that provides you with embed codes or the direct URL for the image, which you can then embed in a blog post or web page. You can drag and drop images from LittleSnapper into office applications, and you can perform some basic image editing functions with the application.
In all, it’s a great little application, but is it enough to make me want to switch from Skitch or Jing? I can drag, drop, annotate and upload images with Skitch and Jing, and Jing even allows me to capture video. And there’s the little matter of free. LittleSnapper comes with a $39 USD price tag, and that’s high enough to give me pause, especially now that the Canadian dollar is on a downturn. Where LittleSnapper surpasses these free tools is in the rich metadata capabilities that allow you to tag and organize your images in a way that suits you, and the addition of image editing makes it a very attractive package. Still, $39 seems a bit high for this application, but if you use screenshots heavily in your work, you may think it is worth every penny.
You can download a demo version of LittleSnapper from Realmac Software, but it comes with a 30 image limit.