Google’s pioneer browser, Chrome has updated it’s screenshot add-on, Awesome Screenshot to include a range of new features enabling users to take their screenshots to the next level. Users will be pleased to embrace a diverse palette of capturing, editing and sharing functions  light years away from the rather rudimentary CTRL+Prnt Scrn function in Windows, or CMD+Shift+4 in Mac OS X, and thereby has earned itself pole position in this week’s Softwareload browser tips.

On downloading and installing Awesome Screenshot, users will be able to select from a list of capturing, editing, annotating and sharing buttons, accessed by clicking on the screenshot button located next to the combined URL and search bar. Select the crop tool to crop a section of your screenshot, annotate it with rectangles, circles, arrows, straight lines, as well as marking the screenshot with free lines. Other tools include a blurring button for rubbing out sensitive/unnecessary information.

One of the big pluses has to be the share function in Awesome Screenshot, allowing you to save your screenshot locally to disk or uploading to a URL to share with friends and colleagues, accompanied by built-in share functions for Twitter, Facebook, Buzz, Yahoo!, Gmail and Hotmail.

If you’re interested in trying Awesome Screenshot out, download Chrome here, and get the Awesome Screenshot Add-on here.

Hers’s Google’s short introduction video to Awesome Screenshot: