On occasion, when working online you need to grab an image of something on your screen. This includes pretty much anything from an image, a funny email or an error message.

In the general, the tedious process of grabbing a screen shot (not something everyone knows how to do in the first place) copying it into a program for cropping and/or resizing (another skill not everyone possesses), saving it and sending it off is not always wort the effort!

What’s the alternative?

**Jing Screen Capture Software**

Jing Project (or just “Jing”) is an incredibly lightweight screen capture software tool designed to simplify the process of saving and sharing the things that happen on your computer screen. The basic version is available for free at JingProject.com.

Installing Jing creates a little yellow sun icon on the edge of your screen that waits there until you need it – honestly, you’ll probably forget it’s there until you want to use it for something. To use Jing, just place your mouse over the sun icon and choose from the options that appear (Capture, History and “More”).

Clicking “capture” will allow you to select the area of your screen you want by clicking and dragging. Then it’s a simple matter of selecting whether you want an image or a video.

**Image Screen Capture**

Click and drag your mouse across the screen to select the area you want to capture. Double clicking a window on your screen automatically selects just that window. Once the selection is made, you’ll get a preview of the image you’re about to create.

Editing the image in Jing is easy as well, adding arrows and boxes – as well as captions and highlighting, can all be done before the image is saved. Once your image is good to go, all you have to do is save and share it.

Jing offers a multitude of sharing options. With a single click you can post your image to Facebook, twitter or Flickr! You can also copy the image to paste elsewhere, or upload it to an FTP server just as easily.

Basically, Jing makes it easy to quickly take any portion of your computer screen and move it to wherever you might need it.

**Video Screen Capture**

If an image is worth a thousand words, video has to be pretty valuable too… which is why Jing makes it just as easy to record video of the action on your screen as it is to capture an image.

After selecting the capture area, simply click the video button and start recording! You’ll be able to record whatever happens on your screen for up to five minutes – but you can make multiples recordings if you need to. The recording can be paused while you move between windows or prepare your presentation, and then saved in.swf format when it’s complete.

To easily share the video with others, there is a single click button to upload the video to ScreenCast.com – on of Jing’s sister products from TechSmith. Videos can also be edited in Camtasia (also from TechSmith) with a single click.

Jing Pro edition screen capture software unlocks additional features to allow for even more sharing options, and the option to record videos as.mp4 files, rather than.swf – making them more accessible to other viewing and editing programs, but for most users the basic free version is enough to save a TON of time.

Lynne and Chad are Online Business and Marketing Coaches, dedicated to helping internet marketers build their businesses successfully. On their blog, they enjoy sharing different types of internet marketing tools – like screen capture software and other useful resources.