Control-Shift-Command-4 format JPG

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Control-Shift-Command-4 format JPG

When I use the Control-Shift-Command-4 and I copy a portion of the screen to the clipboard, it always saves the image as PNG format. Is there any way to have the image saved as JPG format?

Posted on Aug 13, 2018 1:11 PM

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Answer 1

Aug 13, 2018 1:33 PM in response to AndyBajka

Dock : Launchpad : Other : Terminal.

Copy and paste the following into the Terminal and press return:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg

You can verify that this was set:

defaults read com.apple.screencapture

Future screen captures will be written as jpg, whether to the clipboard, or depending on the screencapture keystrokes, to a jpg file.

See System Preferences : Keyboard panel : Shortcuts : Screen Shots.

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Answer 2

AndyBajka Author

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Aug 13, 2018 1:27 PM in response to dialabrain

Hello, thank you for the reply. Unfortunately the link you provided does not address the question I asked about. The Control-Shift-Command-4 is used the get a PORTION of the screen, it is different to a screenshot.

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Answer 3

AndyBajka Author

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9 points

Aug 13, 2018 1:39 PM in response to VikingOSX

Hello VikingOSX,

I have tried the above terminal command and it does not work to change the image format from PNG to JPG, the Control-Shift-Command-4 command sends the PORTION of screen to the clipboard and remains in PNG format. The command you linked only works if saving the image to file.

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Answer 4

AndyBajka Author

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Aug 13, 2018 1:42 PM in response to dialabrain

Hi dialabrian,

Sorry I should have been more clear. The Control-Shift-Command-4 command sends the PORTION of screen to the CLIPBOARD and even after trying the terminal command you mentioned it remains in PNG format. The command works fine if saving the PORTION to file.

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Answer 5

Kurt Lang

Level 9

62,184 points

Aug 13, 2018 1:57 PM in response to AndyBajka

If you mean you want the clipboard data to be a JPEG rather than PNG, there's no such thing. Both of those are a file format. What's on the clipboard is uncompressed raster data waiting to be saved as something.

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Answer 6

Aug 13, 2018 2:59 PM in response to AndyBajka

What I posted works to send .jpg data to the clipboard, or to a file. Tested before I posted.

Set the screencapture to jpg per my first item. Then, perform a control+shift+command+4 partial capture to the clipboard. In the Terminal, immediately do the following:

pbpaste > ~/Desktop/foo.jpg

And from the Finder, click once to select this foo.jpg file on your Desktop, and press option+command+i. The file type is reported as jpg.

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Answer 7

Kurt Lang

Level 9

62,184 points

Aug 13, 2018 3:14 PM in response to VikingOSX

What I posted works to send .jpg data to the clipboard, or to a file.

Not really. You opened a JPEG so it could be viewed in Photoshop, Preview or whatever you were using to view the file, and then do screen shot of that displayed image.

Thing is, you can't actually display a JPEG. In order to view the image, it must be decoded/uncompressed before it can be presented by the app you're using to view it. It is now an uncompressed image again. Likewise, the screen shot of that uncompressed image is also uncompressed data.

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Answer 8

dialabrain

Level 10

125,351 points

Aug 13, 2018 3:24 PM in response to VikingOSX

VikingOSX wrote:

And from the Finder, click once to select this foo.jpg file on your Desktop, and press option+command+i. The file type is reported as jpg.

If it was an actual jpg file Preview could open it.

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Answer 9

Aug 13, 2018 3:29 PM in response to dialabrain

Objective-C will show a public.jpeg URI type on the clipboard after the screenshot is sent there, but when one chooses new from clipboard in Preview, it appears as a .png.

If one pastes from the clipboard into Pages v7.1, the image tab in the sidebar reports the pasted image as "pasted-image.jpeg.” So, it may depend on how the individual application was written to accept data from the clipboard. When I do this with Pages '09 v4.3, it comes in as droppedimage.tiff.

Yes, you are right. Give an empty file a .jpg extension and it will lie up a storm. My bad.

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Answer 10

AndyBajka Author

Level 1

9 points

Aug 13, 2018 3:35 PM in response to dialabrain

Thank you all for your support in this.

My goal is to be able to do a Control-Shift-Command-4 and select a portion of the screen, then navigate to an editor much like the one I'm typing in now and paste that clipboard content. When the post is saved (using a forum software called XenForo which uses an editor called Froala) the image becomes a PNG attachment. My goal is to have it save the image attachment as JPG. Why, for one reason is that adding a border around the image is much easier when the image is a JPG.

So I don't know where exactly this uncompressed raster data is defined as PNG, is it in the macOS, Froala or XenForo?

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Answer 11

dialabrain

Level 10

125,351 points

Aug 13, 2018 4:41 PM in response to AndyBajka

What I meant was since I'm not familiar with them I don't know what formats they accept, if you can upload images or have to paste images, I don't know why pngs would be any harder to add a border than jpgs, etc.

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