Control-Command-Shift-4

Hi Rob.Blaze,

Just to note, holding down the Control key does nothing extra. Command Shift4 is all you need. One thing on that which is extra, after pressing Command Shift4, then press the spacebar and you can take a shot of any window without having to draw a marquee around it.

The default file for screen shots is PNG (Ping). It's nowhere near as bad as JPEG, but is still a lossy, compressed format. To change that choice, download and install OnyX. Make sure to grab the right one as the author has different downloads for Tiger, Panther, etc. Run the app and click on the Parameters tab. You'll see a drop down menu about the middle right for "Format Screen Capture:". Change it to TIFF to get a lossless format.

Hi Again Rob!

It's an extra step, but if you use the Command + Shift + 4 keys, to create a png file on the Desktop, as I previously posted, another method of converting the png file, is to, open it in Preview, and from the File contextual menu, select Save As...".

In the window that appears, for Format:, select TIFF, or any of the other choices, which include Photoshop.

ali b

Hi, Kurt and Ali (and Rob). Every time I use the Command-Shift-4 key combo on my Tibook running OS X 10.3.9 — which is often — it gives me a .pdf file, not a .png. I have no recollection of having changed any default setting for this, and I really prefer to get .pdfs instead of .pngs, so I'm not complaining. I note that you're all running Tiger. Did the default screenshot format change from .pdf to .png between Panther and Tiger?

Message was edited by: eww

Hi ali

Just a technical note. If you start with a lossy image (.png) and save it as a lossless image (.tiff) that will not restore any jaggies to smooth, rather it will just preserve what it is given, such that any future editing and saving of that new format will be maintained as lossless. It will not reverse the compression process used to create the lossy in the first place.

Hi eww

I am still with Panther as well. For those with Tiger (or Panther) who may wish to change the format of the Grab, it is possible using Terminal;

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type .pdf

Also able to use .jpg if you wish. You need to log out and log back in again for the command to take effect.

regards roam

Hi eww,

As far as I knew, .png was the default for Tiger. I installed Tiger from scratch on a drive I first erased, so there were no old preferences for it to possibly pick up. Screen shots have always saved as .png files since I installed Tiger. I did nothing to change the settings. Hmm. :-P

Hi Rob!

If you press the Command + Shift + 4 keys, to create a png file on the Desktop, is that image usable, and have better quality?

ali b

Hi eww!

"Did the default screenshot format change from .pdf to .png between Panther and Tiger?"

Yeah it did, and I'm not sure I like that!
But we learn to adapt don't we? 😉

ali b

Another reason to be glad I never sprang for Tiger! ;o)