DAVID COFFIN  Grabbing stills from video clips is something I do a lot of every now and then, and will do much more as I upgrade to an HD camera. And judging from the screencasts at the developer site, this app's got several features that could come in handy if you're taking a lot of stills from video. The comparison and tagging/naming screens are very nice looking. But $130?!?! This is delusional.

I'm already taking multiple stills extremely efficiently with ScreenCapper for less than a tenth that cost. I also have DV Kitchen which has a slick stills-grabbing function with some fancy bells like deinterlacing, and it "throws in" a suberb video compression app, all for under $80. I actually prefer ScreenCapper since it's got the ergonomics of taking multiple stills completely down, with mouse-wheel clip scanning and keystrokes for grabbing, and it's very easy to batch deinterlace and fix the aspect-ratio of a folder full of grabs in Photoshop. And InstantShot + QuickTime comes close for sheer efficiency for free.

SnapFlow apparently takes its inspiration (and name) from the excellent ScreenFlow, which broke ground by building an editor into a video recorder; SnapFlow builds the same into a stills-grabber. If I did this all the time, I can see that having a limited but basic editor and organizer built into the grabber would be useful, but again, it's hardly worth $130 for the privilege.

All of these points were obvious before I even launched the trail version. Now that I have, I can only add that it froze, then crashed, once, and then brought my entire system down within 20 minutes of firing it up (MacPro, 6G Ram, 10.5.6). Not encouraging…

Will watch, and wait for a Promo discount, then MAYBE…  
(Version 1.0)

DAVID COFFIN  …or your Apple TV.  
(Version 1.0)

DAVID COFFIN  Pure GOLD! Well, it suits me perfectly (I'm right in the middle of creating a huge doc with grabs from many hours of video). But I'd been looking for just this function done right and inexpensive for a lot of reasons…and here it is: Very straight-forward, scrubs the clip with the mouse wheel, grabs with a keystroke, and thanks to a quick exchange with the developer, souped up to my specs (auto-save? quality slider?) within about an hour of purchase. Yay! Thanks, Silverscripting…  
(Version 1.0)

DAVID COFFIN  Total knockout: superb results, great features, speed, flexibility, price, support. A game-changer for the Mac video-compression world.  
(Version 1.3)

DAVID COFFIN  Resisted this for a while because I already had a similar app that seemed fine (and that I'd paid for), and at first glance, Skitch seemed overly complex and confusing. Finally took a breath and a slower, closer look and fell in LOVE. In fact, I have 4 other screen-shooting apps I've paid for over the years, but Skitch is the one I use daily and recommend to friends. This is really an exceptional, never-crashed-once creation already filled with great features and lots of polished nooks and crannies. Beta? I'm totally looking forward to paying to own this. Thank you, plasq!  
(Version 1.0b7)

DAVID COFFIN  I love Yep! It’s so useful to look at/for stuff with the folder structures removed. I like it even better now that it includes free access to its more talented little brother, Leap, which finds ALL file types, not just pdfs, at least as long as Leap remains in beta. Go for it!  
(Version 1.7)

DAVID COFFIN  Love it! Works better than any other image grabber I’ve tried. Plus it’s got a VERY fast image browser which you can point at any folder and scan through it at full size with your scroll wheel almost instantly and as fast as you like; much faster than, say, with Bridge...   
(Version 1.1)

DAVID COFFIN  Haven’t tried this update yet, since I’m still waiting for my CS3 to arrive. But the mirror function alone in the CS2 version has been the backbone of so much of the Illustrator work I’ve produced over the past few years that I didn’t even consider upgrading until I was certain I could bring this function along. Sure you can eventually get the same results without the plugin, but at the cost of how many extra steps?

I’ll send $40 right away to the first person who can show me the existing function that lets you drag a mirrored copy over your starting drawing until it’s positioned against it exactly the way you want, and then fuses the two automatically when you let go.

If you regularly need to draw complex symmetrical shapes, you must check this elegant, intuitive and high-speed function out.

Can’t wait for Vincent’s equally essential Curvius to get updated; yet another God-send for technical drawing. Many thanks!  
(Version 2.5)

DAVID COFFIN  Excellent! It’s still a little wobbly here and there, but this is already the most impressive new >$100 video editor/compositor I’ve seen this year, and AFAIK I’ve tried them all. It’s elegantly laid out, multi-track, great looking, runs fast and smooth, very stable, has a really cool and powerful node editor for tweaking CoreImage filters and transitions, and above all, a responsive developer and a frequently updated Help manual. And the Media pane shows my Aperture library; nice! (sorry ‘bout the double review; it’s my first post...)  
(Version 1.0.3)

DAVID COFFIN  I had the Filters pane crash, too. Simply wrote to the developer; got a fixed version within 24 hours. This lovely little app has great potential, an elegant and deep interface (love the nodes view!) responsive support, and already runs incredibly quickly and smoothly compared to other video editors I’ve tried, such as FastCut, Videator; it’s the ONE to watch.  
(Version 1.0.3)

DAVID COFFIN  Jeez, tastes are NOT disputable, as is proven every day. But the previous reviewers who didn't appreciate this great saver remind me of that old phrase about pearls before swine...

So, what's a screen saver for anyway, these days? Well, for me, it's eye candy, pure and simple and what I want is something that's even slightly entertaining, and not actually repellant after a few days. OK, I'm a painter and digital artist, and I like kaleidoscopes, and I'm over 45, so maybe this is simply designed for me...but if you can relate, Astral Blossom is a total, 5-star knock-out! After nearly a year of enjoying it, I STILL find it a first-class productivity killer and inspiration device. Hats off to the developer for discovering one of the fundamental algorithms of visual joy...  
(Version 1.3)