Draw Lines and Circles on Oictures

How to Describe on a Screenshot UPDATED (Dec ten, 2019): This post was originally written in 2013 – I used Dragon Naturally Speaking and talked about screenshots. The content is all the same relevant today and is slowly being updated. Stay tuned!

Back in 2013 when this post was originally written, I did a presentation for teachers most using technology. I used Google Slides and I threw in a couple of marked up screenshots from different web pages showing how to login or access various instructor sites. I thought it was a pretty basic presentation.

Afterward, a couple of teachers came up to me and talked about how impressive the presentation was. I call up information technology was because I put pretty arrows on the screenshots.

A long time ago, I recall adding arrows, circles, and colored rectangles (to block out sensitive data) using Photoshop. This took way longer than I'd care to admit.

Then, Windows 7 (and later versions) came with a snipping tool that let you take a snapshot of function of your screen and mark it up with a pen. I idea this was incredible. You could highlight text and manus-depict circles effectually of import stuff earlier you even saved your screenshot. You can as well exercise this now on iPhones and iPads.

The trouble is that my handwriting always looks a fiddling messy.

And so I plant Greenshot and Greenshot is fashion amend than the snipping tool in Windows because you can quickly create neat and professional person looking notes on your screenshots.

Plus, Greenshot is free. (Free for us to use, but it costs the developers coin to update and improve. If y'all use it a lot, consider donating. I did.)

Here'southward what I still honey like near Greenshot:

1. Information technology has a simplified but powerful (AND FREE) graphic editor.
   • Manner easier to utilize than Photoshop (and costless): You don't take to worry near multiple layers. Just click the choice tool and yous can edit / resize / change your markups.
   • PRO TIP: If you correct-click on an object, you can still movement the object upwardly or down so that information technology's in forepart of, or behind other objects.
   • Another PRO TIP: You lot can save (export) and load (import) the arrows, text boxes, and other objects you create. So it's easy to add identical objects on several different screenshots!
2. Super easy to draw circles around stuff.
3. Super easy to draw arrows. Greenshot remembers your last settings so all of your shapes and mark up can accept the aforementioned fashion.
4. And, super easy to add text.
5. It's like shooting fish in a barrel to highlight text. You merely describe rectangles with the highlighter tool so you tin highlight text or images.
6. You lot can mistiness out (obfuscate) part of your screenshot to remove sensitive data.
7. Add absurd edge furnishings like torn paper or driblet shadow (or at a bones rectangle.)
8. You lot can crop your screenshots earlier you save them.
9. You can add shadows to all of your arrows, boxes and text to add a professional feel to your work.

There are other absurd options.

• I have it set up so when I hitting the print screen push, it lets me capture a region, but I could also fix it upwards and so that the print screen button captures the full screen, a specific application window, or just Internet Explorer.
• I use Greenshot to create tutorials (similar this one), so I have it set up to automatically open the screenshot in the epitome editor, but I could just equally hands set the destination to automatically open upwardly in Microsoft Word, upload to dropbox, or just save to my reckoner.
• I also like how Greenshot gives me a magnifier when I'm trying to capture region, and so I can make sure that I don't go whatever unnecessary stuff.

On a Windows machine, you need to find the "PRINT SCREEN" push button on your keyboard.

Hither's the DEFAULT SETTING:

• When you type this button on y'all keyboard, it takes a snapshot of your figurer screen and saves it to your clipboard.
• If you lot go into Microsoft Discussion or Google Docs, or some program, you can paste the screenshot into your document. (The keyboard shortcut is CTRL 5)

I don't apply the default screenshot settings on my windows laptop.

• Instead, I install Greenshot considering I go more options and features (AND most importantly, OBJECTS that I can motility on. It doesn't get permanently painted onto the screenshot until I salve it every bit a JPEG or PNG image.)

How to write and highlight screenshots – PRO TIP #1:

Students would enquire me how to have a screenshot on our Windows laptops (which is different from a Chromebook), and I would tell them nigh Greenshot which was free software.

And then, inevitably, the question would come up and students would know where the impress-screen push is, and I would take to show them on a keyboard.

The "PRINT SCREEN" button is on the correct side of the keyboard.

How to write and highlight screenshots – PRO TIP #2:

My favourite part of Greenshot is that yous can save your arrows, text boxes and other stuff to your computer then load them upward later on on to apply with a different screenshot!

How to add an pointer on snipping using Greenshot

Super easy. One time yous've installed Greenshot, when you hit the PRINT SCREEN button, it volition open up a cross pilus and y'all can select the function of the screen to "snip"

I then open the paradigm in the Greenshot Editor. On the left tool bar, you tin hands…

• Add pretty arrows to your snipped screenshot
• Add boxes or text boxes to annotate your screenshot
• Blur out and pixelate (obfuscate) sensitive information on the screenshot.

The downside of Greenshot:

For me, the biggest downside of the free Greenshot editor is that correct now, y'all tin can't zoom / magnify or fit-to-window large images. I believe this is on the feature request list, but information technology's a headache when you try to add text boxes to big screenshots.

Here's an example. I took a few photos of different keyboards in my house to prove where the "impress screen" button is located. When I opened information technology in Greenshot, you couldn't see the whole keyboard because the iPhone photo was too large.

(By the way, the style I got that screenshot of the original entire keyboard photo was to open the huge 4032 10 3024 iphone photograph on my computer, and and so screenshot the photo. (Then I pasted it into the Greenshot editor and it just treats information technology like another object. Cool, huh?)

You have to use the scroll wheel on your mouse or the scroll bars on the window to motility up and downward in a large paradigm. Greenshot editor doesn't let you zoom in or out, notwithstanding.

How could y'all use screen capture software (in the classroom or beyond)?

Let's say you desire to showcase student work.

• If you lot are educatee handin work electronically, you simply open up the document of Google Docs, take a screenshot, and you can start highlight or underlined text. You can also blur out the pupil name or anything else that you don't want the class to run across.
• If the work is on newspaper, merely snap a photo of the handwritten work using your phone. Upload the image to dropbox. Open up the file on your computer and take a screenshot of the picture to get into Greenshot.

If yous're going to the computer lab, you could take a screenshot of the website that you want students to go to, and highlight or make jot notes directly onto the screenshot.

• That way, students have a visual reminder of what to do.
• Some of your students (with or without learning disabilities) will miss instructions the first fourth dimension.
• Now, after your done walking students through what they accept to do, y'all can put on the computer projector, a marked up screenshot reminding students what to practice.

If you lot teach fine art class, you could snap a photo of student work or your instructor example, and markup of import features that you lot want them to know.

If you teach in the science lab, you could snap a photograph of equipment and then add arrows to the screenshot to show important safe features.

How do you lot use screenshots in your classroom?

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Source: https://classroomteacher.ca/3192/quickly-add-arrows-notes-screenshot/