Pixel precise screenshoot
Ivan | Thu, 2009-06-18 20:10I'm sure you knows how to make screen shoots in OS X: press the Apple-Shift-4 (Cmd-Shift-4) key combo to select just a part of the screen.
However, you may not know that once you started dragging the cursor to select a rectangle you can press Space to move the starting point of the selection.
Also you can press shift to fix the horizontal or vertical dimensions and only resize the selection to one direction.
Notice that while you move your cursor the starting point or dimensions of screenshoot are shown in pixels.
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The additional modifier key hints do not seem to work in Tiger.
Leo only.
In 10.4.x if you hit 'Apple-Shift-4' and then the 'Space Bar' before starting your selection it turns the selector into a camera that allows you to take perfect snapshots of a given window.
Well I guess I'm not a newbie anymore after over ten years, but that one is new to me. There's always something Apple hides. Thanks. And @pub3abn: I use 10.5 Leopard, so maybe it is new.
A good priest learns until his death.
wow, that's incredibly handy! thanks ivan!
"Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent."
— Joe Sparano
That's really cool and very handy. I didn't know about the space bar option, thanks!
Thanks, Ivan!
Craig Michael Patrick
http://cmpatrick.com
And if you're resizing the box vertically or horizontally using the Shift key you can snap the box size to your cursor by hitting the Control key. This is definitely akin to just releasing all the keys but you can quickly snap without having to interrupt fixed sizing.
And how do you take a screenshoot of the cursor?
I never found a way to do that.
I've never understood why the resolution of a screenshot is not 72 pixels/inch. A quick check via Image Size in Photoshop shows the resolution at 72.009 pixels/inch. Anyone know why this is?
The resolution doesn't make sense for screenshoots because it's measured in pixels.
Or is this not what you're asking...?
I don't know why it's 72.009, but like Ivan said, it's an irrelevant detail unless you will be printing your screen capture on press. The resolution is a moot point for on-screen/website use. And in fact, 72 ppi for screen is an outdated standard. Most displays these days are 100 ppi or better. (But it varies with your resolution settings and physical monitor size.)
Thanks guys.
It just didn't make sense to me why the resolution came out to that number. More of an observation than a question. I wonder what 9/1000 of a pixel actually looks like.
I digress. It isn't relevant. And you're right, pub3abn, 72 ppi is an outdated standard for screen resolution. But wouldn't it make sense for the screenshot resolution to match the resolution of the monitor?
Who knows.
Probably it does make sense. But again, it's irrelevant. Each screen is different dpi.