Create a Reverse Hightlight with Skitch

I think of reverse highlighting as keeping the original colour of the item you want to show and making everything else in the image darker. It dawned on me that there is a way to do this with Skitch although it needs a little 'outside the box' thinking (or should that be clicking).

Skitch is a free screenshot and annotation app available in the Mac App Store.


1. Normal Highlighting Text Method

Normally I think of highlighting text as:

1. Drawing a box around the item to highlight
2. Using a colour 'marker' over the item to highlight it

2. The Skitch Translucent colours

By default Skitch has two translucent colours, a yellow and a grey.

3. Click outside the box

But it suddenly dawned on me that I can fill a translucent colour outside of a boxed area:

1. Draw a rectangle around the area to be reverse highlighted
2. Choose a translucent colour then click the bucket fill
3. Click the fill bucket tool outside of the rectangle drawn in step 1

4. Variations on a Reverse Highlight

1. The rectangle drawn with a different coloured line and translucent fill outside the box
2. The rectangle drawn with the same colour as the translucent fill outside the box