Amidst the flurry of excitement generated by Ambrosia's new (and by all accounts, excellent) game "Redline Racing," I was excited to get this chance to review their Snapz Pro product. The transformation of Snapz Pro from version 1.0 reminds me of that old BMW ad: "Evolution, not Revolution." In my opinion, that's precisely what this is. From version 1.0 to the current 2.0.3 version, Ambrosia has finely honed this application and polished it to a burnished luster.

Strengths

• Installation went without a hitch. I faithfully executed the repair permissions mumbo-jumbo before installing, just to maintain a clear conscience, and it was all green lights and blue skies. This excellent screen capture tool, complete with swatch on cursor and fine movie capture capabilities was a welcome old friend, but with many improvements over version 1.0. Since I installed it over a 3 year old version, it told me its predecessor had been opened a total of something like 777 times, testimony to its popularity. This product can be purchased as an online download at their site. It includes help files and online support is also available.
  
  
• The user can select image quality, in both Screenshot and Movie Capture modes. In addition, there are many codecs to choose from for Movie Capture's compression mode. For example: Apple Animation, Sorensen 3, Fixed Camera, Follow Cursor, Smooth Pan, and others. Frame-rate, Best Depth, and Image Quality can all be fine-tuned as well. One interesting tool bar option features capturing the movie or screenshot in colors other than the original, with choices ranging up to "millions of colors." Of these, the most I might use are about three choices. Which ones you choose depends upon your personal preference. The options are: "Screen," "Selection," and "Objects."
  
  
• The Movie capture function will also record sounds; just check "Include Audio Track". The quality of captured sound is quite good. Also, the shortcut option to invoke Snapz Pro (not new to this version) is nice.
  
  
• The movie capture mode is much smoother. You can optionally make it even smoother, but at the cost of higher CPU usage, as the note next to the check box indicates. This means you can capture scary-fast Applescripts as well as the "Suck" and "Genie" effects. This might impress and even win over converts from the "Dark Side" (poor misguided wretches--just kidding.)

Weaknesses

• There is no way to easily choose a default save destination, except by resorting to using the "Alias trick."
  
  
• This may not be Ambrosia's software's fault, but Tab-cycling-through-buttons does not work. As a keyboard-centric person, having to touch the mouse for anything tends to get my hackles up.

Summary
Ambrosia Software is to be commended for achieving new heights of creativity, while still retaining the valuable functionality of the old. Hats off to this fearless developer. Thanks, Ambrosia!

Thanks to: Maria Arguello and the staff at MLMUG. And of course, special thanks to my Mom for her patience and support.