With Chrome’s PicMonkey extension, taking screenshots just got easier. You can take a shot of your screen and edit it on the go, without having to install or open any photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop. Here’s how to use PicMonkey: 1. Download the extension from the Chrome Web Store. 2. Once installed, you’ll see a monkey face icon on the top right corner of the browser, just beside the address bar. Click on it and it will show a thumbnail of the screenshot. Other images from the page are also shown and you can edit these as well. 3. To edit the captured image, click on the thumbnail. This opens a new tab in your browser and leads you to the PicMonkey editing board. You can now start editing the image using the tools on the left side.
Basic controls such as rotate, crop and resize are the default features when loading the editing site. There are also tools available for adding effects, text and other objects to the image. Just click on the object from the menu and it places it on the screenshot. Below are the different edit options:
- Upon applying objects on your screenshot, a dialog box will pop up on the right side of the screen to show you added control options for that particular object. In this case, I applied a shape overlay (red arrow) to my Twitter feed screenshot.
You can drag, resize and rotate an object by clicking and holding down on its corners. You can also right click on it to see other options. In this case, I had an option to delete, flip or send the image back or forward. For more precision, there is a zoom button on the bottom right corner of the screen. Click on this to zoom in and out of the image.
- When you’re done editing, just click on the Save button on the bottom left side of the screen. You should get a pop up box giving you more options before saving your work. Here you can give your screenshot a name and choose the file type: JPG or PNG. There is also an option to resize the image by changing the percentage. Another nifty feature is the last information on the bottom showing you the file size.
Click Save Photo and it should let you choose a location where you want to save the file. PicMonkey is a useful tool for basic editing but its features are expansive enough to do more advanced enhancements. Because of its wide range of effects, it can also be great for editing photos from a web page. Whether for work or leisure, this extension definitely delivers more than expected, and a great alternative to other photo editing applications.
