Hi there…I’m Serge Siou and Welcome to MacStudioA.
In Episode 1 from "my Mac OS X Adventures" Series We demonstrated how to take screenshots
using your keyboard.
In This Episode, We'll be demonstrating how to take screenshots using Mac Applications.
TOPICS COVERED: The Two preinstalled Mac Applications included
with OS X for screen capture.
And...The Differences between the two Apps.
"Let's Get Started"
If you prefer to take screenshots using Mac Applications instead of using keyboard keystrokes
as demonstrated in Episode 1
then you'll be happy to know that OS X comes preinstalled with two screen capture
apps that you can use.
Namely the "Grab" and "Preview" Applications
Let's look at the Grab App first: To launch the Grab app, simply click on Launchpad
and click on the Other Folder, and click on the Grab icon to launch it.
The Grab app, does just that...grabs you screen and creates a screenshot.
Before starting a screen capture, Grab has a couple of cool tools that you can launch,
one allows you to see the
dimensions of your screenshot after a screen capture and the other allows you to choose
from 6 different Cursors to be
included or not in your screenshot.
Incidentally, when using the Selection capture, the cursor option is not available.
Now, on the Grab menubar, click Capture, you will notice that you have 4 screen capture
options available, these are,
capture a Selection, a Window, the Full screen or perform a timed screen capture, which we'll be getting to in a moment.
which we'll be getting to, in a moment.
Probably the best feature in the Grab app, is the Timed Screen option, this option has
a 10 seconds delay before the
screen capture is taken, allowing you to set up the screen just the way you like it before
the 10 seconds is up.
We'll demonstrate this by Capturing the Gadget Widget Option screen and also choose a Cursor
to be included in the screenshot.
We'll just save this screenshot and come back to it later.
The Grab app has several limitations, Firstly, it can only save screenshots in the
Tiff file format, we'll show how to save it in a different format using the
Preview app a bit later. Secondly, You are unable to edit or add any
special effects like annotations to your screenshots And thirdly; you are unable when doing a selection
screen capture to move the rectangle around.
You may ask, then why use it, well unless you want to include different cursors or perform
a time delayed screen capture,
then that's probably the only time you would use it.
The second screen capture Mac app included in OS X is the Preview App...
As of OS X 10.4, Preview now includes a Grab Submenu to create screenshots.
In my opinion, it's best to use the Preview App from the get go, as it allows more options
not available in Grab, in
particularly, saving your screenshots in countless formats, 13 in all.
To launch Preview...click launchpad then click the Preview icon.
Now from the Preview menubar, click File and scroll down to the Take a Screen shot option,
you are now presented to take a
screen shot from Selection, Window or the Entire Screen.
We'll just perform a Selection screen capture for this example.
Incidentally, when performing a Selection screen capture using Preview,
you can use the same manipulation techniques used in
option 3 from Episode 1 to move the rectangle around, as mentioned before, this is not possible
to do using the Grab app.
Once the screen capture is taken, you are now able
to edit and manipulate it using many effects, such as, adding labels, annotations, cropping
and many more, as shown here.
We'll just save the screenshots by clicking File on the Preview menubar and choose Save...
TOP TIP: When saving screenshots in Preview, you are shown only a limited amount of formats,
6 in all...but if you hold
down the Option key while you click the popup menu for format...you are presented with all
the available formats that you
can choose to save your screenshots, a total of 13 in all.
Remember the Grab screenshot taken earlier, in order to save the Tiff file in a different
format, do a Quick Look of your
screenshot by pressing the space bar and click the Preview Button in the top right hand corner,
as shown here. You are now
able to edit the screenshot then save it by going to the menubar, click File and click
Export, then choose the format you
wish to save the screenshot in...and that's that. (By the way, the original Tiff screenshot
is still preserved).
And there you have it, you now have three methods for screen capture when using OS X...using
your keyboard as shown in
Episode 1 and using the Grab or Preview Apps as shown in this Episode.
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Thanks and Peace