DataMask

Chad M

2021-08-05

Great App! I see some reviews that had trouble, but I didn't have any trouble at all.

It appears that the PERSISTENT MASKING, which is clutch for screen recording, is only for the Pro version. Still not a deal breaker for me.

A few tips I found that may help you:
- You'll be notified to refresh the page to open the tool. FYI
- Refresh on the Toolbox resets the page, like a super-undo. It appears that undo or removing edits individually is a Pro version upgrade for the Chrome extension, but is an option inside the Editor after taking a screenshot.
- For just a quick edit on a live window within Chrome, I usually just use the 'Auto' button and it takes care of the entire page.
- Now a lot of the time you won't want EVERYTHING blurred or scrambled, so select the 'manual' button. Drag your mouse over the page and you'll see red boxes detect areas on the page to individually blur.
- Move it around and sometimes it will detect a more favorable size.
- It detects pics, logos, text, etc.
- Click your area and a menu pops up with several options, but only two that are selectable; 'Blur' and 'Scramble.'
- 'Blur' blurs. (Duh.) 'Scramble' shuffles the letters around into gibberish, but I like how this looks sometimes to make a page look more natural without obvious blurred areas.
- If you select scramble on a photo it just blurs it, so Scramble is just for text.
- Sometimes pictures don't show the red selection box, but as long as you have 'manual' selected it will do the same thing.

Now, it is my personal preference to use the screenshot and edit it outside of the live page and load the image to my articles.

When you open the DataMask toolbox on a live window and screenshot it, it opens the image in a new window inside the DataMask Editor. Here you have the additional options of PIXILATING, BLACKOUT, CUSTOM PEN TOOL, CROPPING, and saving the image. Dragging boxes over an image is nicer in my opinion than the selection box, but both work.
-- TIP: Blurring in the Editor defaults the blur size to 20. I recommend 3-5 for small text and images and to make the text unintelligible while not making photos look like soup.

It appears that the additional options in the Manual Selection Toolbox are for the Pro version, though I haven't started the 7 Day Free Trial.

Martin Parnham

2019-09-20

I couldn't blur/scramble any data that was actually confidential when trying to screenshot in Sheets. Didn't seem to work at all for what I needed it for and having to refresh the page to take off the scrambling effect is very annoying.

Gamemote

2019-08-14

It's a good extension for making videos or taking pictures to blur out stuff that you don't want in it. But to take out the blur effect you will have to refresh the tab.