Submit Hint Search The Forums LinksStatsPollsHeadlinesRSS
14,000 hints and counting!

10.3: Use improved camera screen capture mode System
We all know that if you press Command-Shift-4 followed by the space bar, the camera cursor shows up and you can easily take exact snapshots of various UI elements, like windows, icons, menu bars, etc. Well, I'm not sure about it, but I think its behavior has changed since Jaguar.

To get the picture (pun not intended) of what I'm talking about, do this: open two Finder windows, make one larger than the other, and put the smaller one over the larger. Now, fire up our little camera friend, and tell it to take a snapshot of the larger window beneath. Most people would expect the smaller window to show up in the picture, but surprisingly it removes anything obstructing the selected object off of the final shot.

Also try it with other UI elements, like dock icons and the Exposé blue blob! You'll find out it not only removes objects over the selected target, but also takes out anything behind them!
    •    
  • Currently 1.29 / 5
  You rated: 1 / 5 (7 votes cast)
 
[9,097 views]  

10.3: Use improved camera screen capture mode | 6 comments | Create New Account
Click here to return to the '10.3: Use improved camera screen capture mode' hint
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
10.3: Use improved camera screen capture mode
Authored by: DeltaTee on Nov 10, '03 01:21:33PM

This seems like a great tip.

Now, is there anway to access a single article view on this site if no comments have ben yet? If so, it is not obvious, and makes it difficult to bookmarks hints.



[ Reply to This | # ]
10.3: Use improved camera screen capture mode
Authored by: popguru on Nov 10, '03 03:44:14PM
You can click on the Print hint link below the hint and then remove &mode=print from the end of the URL of the resulting page. There probably should be a direct link from the main MacOSXHints page, but there isn't.

[ Reply to This | # ]
10.3: Use improved camera screen capture mode
Authored by: aranor on Nov 10, '03 04:27:21PM

This is a cool change, but it has a problem: you can't take a picture of the dock easily. You lose all the items now. Instead, you have to use the rect selection to get a picture of the dock.

Some interesting tidbits:

* If you mouse carefully, you'll notice that the shadow under the menubar is a window itself

* If you mouse to the right side of the menubar, the menuextras portion is its own window (although taking a picture of it snaps the whole menubar)

* If you take a picture of the menubar, the menu extras are missing.

* Take a picture of a drawer. It looks quite interesting.



[ Reply to This | # ]
10.3: Use improved camera screen capture mode
Authored by: leenoble_uk on Nov 11, '03 04:20:28AM

I'm glad someone noticed this change of behaviour. Saves putting a large empty textedit document behind browser windows when taking screenshots.

---
So, I said ... well, I can't actually remember exactly what I said. But it was one of the most enormously cruel and frighteningly witty put downs ever.



[ Reply to This | # ]
10.3: Use improved camera screen capture mode
Authored by: ocs on Apr 12, '04 01:00:07PM

Most witty, sure. And so it was, around 1992 or even before, when NeXT offered the feature as part of the Grab application. It was Apple who broke the functionality when they changed NeXTStep into Mac OS X, now they are bringing it back... not too soon, after more'n a decade!



[ Reply to This | # ]
10.3: Use improved camera screen capture mode
Authored by: UberFu on Aug 11, '04 12:03:35PM

There used to be a limited form of the Window capture mode back in OS 9 and 8_ Command-Shift-4 with the Caps Lock ON_

It only caputured the fontmost active window - but I used it all the time when i grabbed screen shots before OS X_ And mostly all I needed was the info in thatt specific window anyway_

But this is cool_ I can stop using the custom crop function of Command-Shift-4 now_ I have a tendancy to drag from the top left to the bottom right if I'm not paying attention and the window control butttons [minimize - resize and close] remain active during a screenshot and will sometimes screw up my shot - so I end up having to do it again and pay attention the second time around_

Been using Macs since their original release and 10.3 is really starting to shape up not only with all the cool new stuff - expose and so on [i'm really diggin' that one - at first I was skeptical and also forgot about it] but also things that we totally loved about OS 9 and earlier that they had left out for the sake of having a functional OS in vX.xx are slowly migrating back in_ For tthe first time since OS X came out back in '99 - I am actually finding myself looking forward to 10.4_ And I'm learning UNIX - old dog - new tricks_



[ Reply to This | # ]