Cool new tools on the Visual Communication front: a new screen capturing tool that lets you grab and record any part of your screen and weights just 400 KB. Also in my basket today: new image files batch converter, image searching tool and a color image extractor to name a few.

Photo credit: Hypermania

Here my full list of useful visual communication tools I have selected for you this week:

1. Debut: Free screen capturing software for Windows PCs
2. SlideBoom: Upload and share any PowerPoint presentation up to 30MB
3. Snapmania: Upload, organize, and edit your images online with up to 100 MB for free
4. Dipity: Create visual timelines and embed text, images, videos and webpages into the elements
5. Photo Drop: Create automatic tasks to modify and convert entire folders of images on Mac OS X
6. Color Hunter: Upload an image or paste its URL to get a 5-colors color scheme out of it
7. Kyolo: Add speech bubbles to all of your pictures online for free
8. FullPix: Free software lets you enhance your videos in four easy steps

Visual Communication Tools

1. Debut
   
   Debut is a free screen capturing software for Windows, that anyone can use to capture video or still images from any device. The setup comes in just 400kb and, after you install it, you can capture any part of your screen, or even capture from a video device like a webcam. You can export the video in any format and save the screenshots in JPG format. Debut is completely free to download and use.
   http://www.nchsoftware.com/capture/index.html






2. SlideBoom
   
   SlideBoom is a free sharing site that you can use to upload all of your PowerPoint presentation and share them on the web. You can upload any presentation up to 30MB, and it will be immediately converted in Flash to keep images, animations and sounds, so that you can embed it on your blog or website and share it everyone. SlideBoom is completely free to use.
   http://www.slideboom.com/






3. Snapmania
   
   Snapmania is an online photo manager that enables you to save, edit, and efficiently organize your images with no limitation from where they can be accessed or when. The free account offers you 100 MB, and it allows you to edit your pictures after you have uploaded them: you can change the brightness, saturation, contrast, crop the image, and also apply some special effects to enhance it. You can then create online photo albums to share with everyone. Free.
   http://www.snapmania.com/






4. Dipity
   
   Dipity is an online service that allows you to create visual timelines. After a free and simple registration, you can create a timeline made of one day to 100 years, in which every element can contain text, images, video, or even an entire web-page. Every timeline can them be embedded on any bog or website using a Javascript code. Free to use, registration needed.
   http://www.dipity.com/






5. Photo Drop
   
   Photo Drop is a Mac OS X utility that allows you create automatic tasks to modify a folder of images with a simple drag-and-drop operation. In a matter of seconds you can resize one or more images to new dimensions, convert to a new format, flip horizontally, vertically, crop, and even rotate them. The software is completely free to download and use, and runs on Mac OS X platform only.
   http://www.aramk.net/photodrop/






6. Color Hunter
   
   Color Hunter is a web-based service that you can use to create color palettes from any image. You can extract a color scheme from any image you know the URL of, and you can also upload a picture from your PC, and automatically get the 5-colors palette with its HTML color codes. Plus, the site also stores all the schemes created, and you can flick or search through them. Free to use.
   http://www.colorhunter.com/






7. Kyolo
   
   Kyolo is a free and funny service that lets you add speech bubbles to your pictures. You just upload a picture, add as many bubbles as you want, change their shape, type in some text and, when you are done, you can click save and download the image on your machine. The service is free to use and doesn't require any registration.
   http://kyolo.com/







Video Publishing Tools





8. FullPix
   
   FullPix is a downloadable software that lets you enhance your videos. With FullPix there are four easy steps involved to improve the quality of your videos: first drag and drop your video to FullPix, then you can choose either the beginner or expert mode (the former will proceed with automatic settings, the latter will let you make some advances adjustments). You can then preview your video and see how your adjustments turned out, and finally encode your video for any device. Free.
   http://www.fullpix.tv/

Originally written by Nico Canali De Rossi for Master New Media and first published on May 18th 2008 as "Visual Communication And Video Publishing - Selected Tools And Web Services - Sharewood Picnic May18 08"