Keyboard shortcuts for screenshots

Do you see something like this? If so, try tapping the "Restore Defaults" button in the lower right.

Normally to look at the current shortcuts you would open System Preferences then select "Keyboard" icon, then select "Shortcuts" tab and then select "Screen Shots" in the list on the left. It will show the current setting for "Save a picture of screen as a file" which is normally Command+Shift+3 as well as "Save picture of selected area as a file" which is normally Command+Shift+4

Perhaps these "shortcuts" have been somehow redefined to something else? If so use whatever the shortcut is or redefine them to the normal default (but that will likely cause problems with whatever or whoever changed them from the defaults to their current value.

Good luck...

You should find an application called "Grab" in your Applications > Utilities folder. That should work for you to capture all or part of the screen.

Perhaps that would be a reasonable workaround for you.

Sorry - you didn't mention that TIFF was the issue.

If you do this you will see what is going on:

defaults read com.apple.screencapture

If you want to change the default format for saving images you need to do this from the Command line in Terminal window (Terminal.app is located in /Applications/Utilities)

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg

killall SystemUIServer

should do the trick - you can also specify png or pdf or tiff or gif or psd

Here is an article explaining in more detail:

http://www.macissues.com/2014/03/27/how-to-take-a-screenshot-in-os-x/

Bon chance...

ps - I wonder if someone else used the computer and set the type to tiff and forgot to mention it? If they did you might want to tell them that you changed the default back to whatever you chose.

Good Morning Paris France...

Here is a simple thing to do:

1. Have a Terminal window open and type in the following:

sleep 10 ; ps -axwwww | grep screencapture

2. Very quickly (faster than 10 seconds) type the Command+Shift+4 and then don't do anything - if 10 seconds is not long enough, then change the 10 above to something longer and wait that long in the next step

3. After 10 seconds from #1 you will see something like the following:

Bubbas-MBook:Preferences bubba$ sleep 10 ; ps -axwwwww | grep screencapture

5134 ?? 0:00.03 /usr/sbin/screencapture -id -tjpg /Volumes/Yosemite/Users/bubba/Desktop/Screenshots/Screen Shot 2015-01-21 at 10.42.04 PM.jpg

5136 ttys002 0:00.00 grep screencapture

Bubbas-MBook:Preferences bubba$

You can type the "esc" key to abort the screen capture if you want or go ahead and really do it.

This tells you the arguments that were used to do the screencapture command - in this case "-tjpg" means create a jpeg file and the location of the file that the capture will be saved to is named " /Volumes/Yosemite/Users/bubba/Desktop/Screenshots/Screen Shot 2015-01-21 at 10.42.04 PM.jpg"

If you don't get the type you had setup in the "defaults write ..." command then double check with this command (in Terminal):

defaults read com.apple.screencapture

You should see something like this:

Bubbas-MBook:Preferences bubba$ defaults read com.apple.screencapture

{

location = "/Volumes/Yosemite/Users/bubba/Desktop/Screenshots";

type = jpg;

}

Bubbas-MBook:Preferences bubba$

What do you get for the above two tests??

Also take a look at this discussion about getting screen captures for using in Mail messages:

Tiff to JPG or PNG converter

Use this command in Terminal to show what the current state of screen capture options is:

defaults read com.apple.screencapture

and post the resutls. The result of the Command+shift+4 should be a funny cursor on the screen, not a "funck" sound - you don't get that till you either drag out an area and release or tap the space key to highlight the desired window then click in it. Anyway, that's how my Mac works.

Did you make sure to

killall SystemUIServer

after you do the "defaults write ..." command - otherwise the defaults don't take affect. You can also log out and back in if you prefer.