Gorkee

Okay, I’m saying it…the Mac OS X has some very cool features.  Today I’m going to talk about one of those features - the screenshot.  This easy-to-use functionality is built right into the operating system - totally awesome - and since my life bears a striking resemblance to that of a bag of chum in the midst of a shark feeding frenzy, I need easy.

In this article I’d like to introduce you to some exciting tidbits you may not know about this feature.  First of all, there are several keyboard combinations that can be used to take the screenshots.  Many of them involve more than two keys, so you may want to warm up first using some yoga finger exercises.  If you are a hand model and don’t want to upset your fingers before an upcoming photo shoot, you can easily remap the keyboard shortcuts to your liking by going into Mac System Preferences.  Just search for the phrase "Keyboard shortcuts" in the search area (upper right corner) and change away.

However, if you haven’t remapped the keyboard shortcuts, here are the default settings for taking screenshots in Mac OS X:

Command+Shift+3: Capture a screenshot of the screen, and save it as a file on the desktop

Command+Shift+4, then select an area: Capture a screenshot of an area and save it as a file on the desktop

Command+Shift+4, then space, then click a window: Capture a screenshot of a window and save it as a file on the desktop

Command+Control+Shift+3: Capture a screenshot of the screen, and save it to the clipboard

Command+Control+Shift+4, then select an area: Capture a screenshot of an area and save it to the clipboard

Command+Control+Shift+4, then space, then click a window: Capture a screenshot of a window and save it to the clipboard

I’m still working on the command to capture the elusive red-winged screenshot.

One handy trick to know when using the dragging methods (Command+Shift+4) is how the cursor crosshairs work. To delineate an exact pixel region, the cursor crosshairs should overlap the top and left edges of the area you want to capture, but extend one pixel below and to the right of it. This technique works with the selection crosshairs in other applications as well.

There are some limitations to the key commands in the table above, such as the inability to capture cursors.  To do that, you can fire up Apple’s Grab utility (located in /Applications/Utilities/), to get the job done.  There are several other third-party programs that offer even more features.  Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to get into those.  I have a photo shoot I have to get ready for.

Another problem is that if you try to take the screenshot and save it as a file on your desktop (Command-Shift-4, for example), you may notice that the image is not an extension that you like or prefer.  If you are using Mac OS X 10.4 or later, this can be fixed - say hurray! - but it can be done only from the friendly Apple Terminal application (located in /Applications/Utilities/).  Say woohoo!

1. Open up the Terminal 2. Type this: sudo defaults write com.apple.screencapture type image_format3. Type this: sudo killall SystemUIServer

The parameter, image_format from Step 2, can be many different image formats.  For example, it can be jpg, tiff, pdf, png, bmp, or pict, to name a few.  I personally always change mine to jpg, but feel free to change it to anything you’d like.

That’s it, folks!  I hope you learned a thing or two about the Mac screenshot functionality today.  Have fun taking screenshots of anything and everything on your Mac desktop.  Hey, I know, take a screenshot of this article and send it to everyone you know.  That’s your homework assignment, now commence!