Also, if you do similar markups on screenshots, and DON'T use a tablet, how do you do it? - Catherine Pellegrino

Wacom, generally speaking, makes good stuff. Make sure that it works with Mac/PC, depending on your preferred flavor. If you've never used a tablet for input, it'll take some getting used to, but it's a cool idea. - Jason Griffey

I tend to paste my screenshots into Word or Publisher and then use drawing tools and text boxes and such. - laura x

Laura: earlier, I was doing a crazy workflow involving taking the screenshot, cropping it in Photoshop, importing it and marking it up in PowerPoint, taking ANOTHER screenshot of the marked-up slide, taking that back into Photoshop to crop (again) and save as a .gif. I gave up. Cecily: all I'm doing is drawing arrows and circling things: for that, would the next-better line really be worth it? I iz NOT an artiste. - Catherine Pellegrino

i've used fullshot (about $50), and i think it was worth the money. dunno if that's cheaper than a tablet, or if you would use a tablet for something else too. - tara

Thanks, Cecily, that really helps! - Catherine Pellegrino

I just learned to use jing (http://www.jingproject.com/) for such screenshots. The arrows and text options are pretty nice. One can also make little movies, but this is just a screenshot. http://www.screencast.com/users... and it is free, too. - The Ghost of Library Past

i use Skitch (Mac only i believe) or Jing. - jambina

Oooh, hey, that Jing screenshot looks good - thank you, Joe! I knew about Jing but was under the impression it only did screencasts, not screenshots. Will look into that further... - Catherine Pellegrino

Considering I learned about Jing just 11 days ago, I really have to thank William Breitbach, CSU-Fullerton, for a demo... - The Ghost of Library Past

I guess one could also purchase Jing Pro. I would guess that the ads go away for the paid users, but I am not positive of that. - The Ghost of Library Past

I use Snagit. Not free but worth it via the productivity savings. - suelibrarian from iPhone

On Mac I use Skitch; on Windows I use "Paint" - no idea whether that comes with the OS or costs a fortune or what, it's just on our PCs here at work. - Deborah Fitchett

Seconding Snagit. Use it probably 5-6 times a day. Not just for the callout functions, although they are absolutely brilliant. There is also Fireshot in the Firefox. - Kathryn says love n peace

Thanks so much, folks - you've given me a lot to think about. I'll definitely check out Jing and Snagit; I'm not sure that Jing will do precisely what I need it to, but Snagit might. I may still buy a tablet, just for the "new toy" factor, but we'll see. - Catherine Pellegrino

Catherine: if you don't want to pay for or download any software, Aviary has a handy little image markup tool: http://aviary.com/home - Dana Longley

Y'all are awesome. I think Jing will do most or all of what I need it to, and if it doesn't, SnagIt certainly will. Thank you bunches. - Catherine Pellegrino