UltraSnap
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Manual and Tips and Tricks
Download in printable PDF format here.

Invisible - in Tray

The best is to load UltraSnap on the Start Up. (Create a shortcut to Ultra Snap in the Start-Program Files - Start Up folder)
Then you of course you want to load it invisible - in the tray. Just open the menu Settings and select Advanced...
Then Check the check button.

The most used Capturing is the Region Capture (Ctrl+Shift+R). This will let you draw a rectangle on the screen - the exact rectangle you need in your capture.

Keyboard
During the capture you can use also the Arrow Keys on your keyboard for exact pixel-by-pixel steps. If you need to click you can use Enter as well.

Zoom
You can make even more precise capturing by turning Zoom on. Just simply click Right Mouse Button during Region Capture or with key Z on your keyboard. This will come very handy if you require exact - edge to edge capture.

Window capture will let you capture the exact size of the window under mouse cursor by drawing a red frame around it. But not only that, as you move the mouse cursor over windows items like list boxes, combo boxes, edit boxes, buttons, text, menus or other items you will see they can be selected as well! To capture just a combo box for example: was never been easier.

This is very useful for writing manuals for your software!

Restore After Capture

This options brings up the UltraSnap window after the capture. You can switch it off if you planning to make a series of captures.

Clipboard

UltraSnap can sends all the captured images to the clipboard when you check on the option. The image is sent to the clipboard every time you make a change. Simple rule: what you see in UltraSnap is also in clipboard.
Note: You can also Paste an image to the UltraSnap.

Disk

UltraSnap can save automatically each capture to the new file if you use the option. You can also specify the directory, file name and format. The name will increment automatically.

Effects

Effects can be applied to any capture. Just set the combination of effects you like and watch the UltraSnap screen. Each new capture will also automatically have these effects applied. For example you want to add to each capture border, drop shadow or sharpen it. This will be done automatically.

Resize

You can also let UltraSnap dynamically change the size of the image. Just click the Set button near the Resize checkbox to open the Resize properties.
You can chose the way you want to resize the image:

• Always Resize XX% of original. If you set 75% for example all your captures will be resized to 75% of the original.
• Maximum Width. If the image width is bigger than the maximum width the image will be resized to it. The proportion of the image will of course stay the same. This way all your images will have maximum specified width. If the captured image has smaller width, it will stay unchanged.
• Maximum Height. The same as for width but this time the Height is watched.
• Must fit into Width and Height. If the captured image is bigger in any direction than the specified Width and Height the image will be resized so it always fit in that rectangle. (Proportions will stay the same of course). In other way - it will never be bigger than the specified rectangle.
• Always resize to Width and Height -this will also change the proportions. The image will always be resized to that size.

Filter: Bilinear or Bicubic. Bilinear produces best results in most of the cases also works best for text or screen captures with text.
Bicubic can be used for digital pictures because it produces sharper look. However resized text would not be readable very well.

Tip: It is always a good idea to use Sharpening if you resize image.

Photo Filters

A set of filters for changes in color, Gamma or contrast. Great for pictures but also very useful for making clear and more contrast look to Windows captures.

• Auto Level Histogram will stretch the histogram to the full scale. This works best for pictures - it will improve the whole contrast of the digital image by making sure that the colors are stretched to full scale.
• Adjust Gamma. Gamma works for midtones. Moving gamma to higher numbers will push midtones towards the lighter color and vice-versa. Excellent for digital images. Bad image is usually because of the wrong gamma.
• Desaturate will simply make the image black and white.
• Color Boost will make the colors more vibrant by enhancing the in between color contrast.
• Contrast and Brightness- the overall contrast and brightness of image

Tip: You can save your favorite settings to the library of presets.

Accents

Do you want to add a mouse pointer to the image? What about a mouse pointer with a motion trail or drop shadow for better accent?
Accents are objects you can stick on the captured image. You have to select the desired object from the Accents list and then click on image where you want to place it. If you don't like what you did, you can press Clear All Accents button or just Undo the Last change with Undo Accent (Ctrl+Z)

Accent could be practically anything in any size and you can create your own with little work. For example your logo, or copyright...

How to create new Accent
All accent object are in the subdirectory Accents. The object has assigned 3 files with the same name but different extension (BMP, BMM and BMC)
The *.BMP file is a preview file - the one which displays in the Accent Window - and it can be anything -it is never placed on the image itself.
The *.BMM file is a B/W mask where white is transparent and black is opaque. Everything between is semitransparent corresponding to the shade of gray.
The *.BMC file is the image or color file itself. It will be placed on the captured screen trough the mask file. The mask and the color file must have the same size. The preview size is best 100x100 pixels (that's the size of the preview window.
All files are Windows Bitmap files (bmp), the mask and color are just renamed.

Here are 2 examples
(The border was added for better visibility)

ArrowShad.bmp	ArrowShad.bmm	ArrowShad.bmc
The preview image. This is just for preview in the dialog - the best is to be 100x100 pixel size.	The mask image, white is transparent and black is opaque. Everything in between corresponds to the gray level.	The color image. The arrow is a one pixel smaller than the mask arrow, producing the black outline. The black background trough the mask produces drop shadow.
mmb.bmp	mmb.bmm	mmb.bmc

The objects are placed on the capture image where you click your mouse and they are aligned into the middle of the object. That's why the arrow in the first example have its top in the middle. That way if you add it to the image the arrow will appear directly under your mouse cursor.

Do you want to add a descriptive text right under your image? Why to bother with image editing program? You can add it directly in UltraSnap.

And it always make sure the text will be nicely wrapped to fit right under the image. You can select font, size and alignment. Also the Text edit box has a character map so it makes easier to find all the special character you need.

The image on the left has the Description Text applied on it. Of course it will look better on a bigger image, but you have the idea... Ideal for web pages, scientific papers, graphs etc...

There are few buttons in the Browser window:
Go to Files: Auto Saved or Dragged Out - this will send the browser to the directory where the images are stored with Auto Save to Disk or to the directory where are the temporary images created by UltraSnap for Drag & Drop operation.
Delete - this will delete the selected image from disk.
Load - this will load the image to the UltraSnap for further processing (and sending to clipboard)
Close - simply close the browser.

Note: You can Drag&Drop files from the Browser file list to Windows Explorer or other applications such as E-mail client. This will bypass UltraSnap engine.
This functionality is great for example if you want to simply send or copy already processed images stored on disk to e-mail client or Windows Explorer.

You don't have to go for a plain cursors. You can add an optional eye catcher such as drop shadow (Menu Capture - Cursor - Add Cursor Shadow) to the cursor (and this works also on Win95/98) or even add a red glow (Menu Capture - Cursor - Add Red Glow) to draw attention to the cursor. To capture just plain cursor you can uncheck the "Add Cursor Shadow" or "Add Red Glow" so none of them is selected in the menu.

Note: The Print DPI number doesn't affect the quality of the output (because you have constant number of pixels in your capture), it affects only the result size.

It is usually one time process, set the Print DPI so the prints are in sattisfactory size and then just leave it.

Then anytime you press the Memory key CTRL+1...Ctr+4 or press the toolbar button the settings will be recalled. The Memory Keys are global Hot keys, that means you don't have to have UltraSnap visible in order to do the processing.
For Example we set in Ctrl+1 everything without any additional processing. Then in Ctrl+2 we set 50% resize and sharpening.
Now if you capture screen with your hot keys (for example Ctrl+Shift+W) you can then additionally press Ctrl+1 to have the image in clipboard without any processing or Ctrl+2 to have it resized 50%.

Small tool which helps a lot. Simply like that!