Tech Tip: Take a Quick Screenshot of One Window.

Here's a trick I rely on all the time. The keyboard shortcut to take a screen capture of a specific, isolated, window in Mac OS X:

Command+Shift+4, then tap the Spacebar.

Most designers know the Command-Shift-4 shortcut which gives you a small crosshair you can use to crop in on a specific part of your window. Tapping the Spacebar afterwards switches to a camera icon that takes a cropped picture of any window you click on.

The full version of this tip includes examples of how this technique can be used to capture menus, windows, and even dashboard widgets. All with full transparency retained.

Full Tip: Take a Quick Screenshot of One Window.

Source: This was our very first tip that kicked off this weekly tips newsletter back in August 2004. At CreativeTechs we've become pretty adept at various screenshot techniques over the years.

Creative Tip: Clean up Shadows in Leopard Screenshots.

Continuing with our screen capture theme: If you've used this window grab technique over time, you may have noticed a significant change in Leopard. Apple now includes the window's shadow in your resulting screen capture (in previous versions of Mac OS X, only the window itself was captured).

Including the shadow isn't necessarily a bad idea, but that change causes disruption for some designers (and tip writers) who regularly use these screen captures in documentation.

What's more, in Leopard those shadows are big! The shadow alone adds 70 pixels to the height and width of your window. And worse, the shadow size varies depending whether your window is in the foreground or background.

In the full version of this tip, we have a couple Photoshop scripts we use to clean up Leopard screenshots:

Full Tip: Clean up Shadows in Leopard Screenshots.

Source: We use these scripts almost every week when preparing screenshots for our weekly tips newsletter.

Your referrals wanted! Referrals from our clients and readers are what keeps CreativeTechs healthy and in business. As a small thank-you, every week we send a Free Mini-Workshop Pass to new Seattle-area subscribers, plus the friend or colleague who referred them:

Designer Amy Lenoir with Market Fitz.
Via new CreativeTechs member client, Market Fitz.

Virginia Piper at Vandenberg Communications.
Referred by IT director Alex Bates at Pyramid Communications.

Designer David Pusey, an friend of CreativeTechs from years back.

CreativeTechs QuickTips is a free weekly newsletter for creative professionals who use Macs. Each week we publish a fresh mix of left-brain and right-brain tips based on our real world experience supporting hundreds of creative teams in the greater Seattle area. For a complete archive of previous tips, visit www.creativetechs.com/tips

For IT Professionals supporting Mac users, visit Make Mac Work. This weekly technical blog focuses on IT issues facing Macs in Enterprise environments. It is written by CreativeTechs' lead enterprise engineer, Jordan Bojar. For an archive of previous topics, visit www.makemacwork.com

Your referrals wanted! CreativeTechs relies on word-of-mouth introductions. If you know a Seattle-area creative team who might benefit from our unique expertise providing computer support for creative professionals, please introduce us. We are never too busy for your referrals. Email help@creativetechs.com, or call us at 206-682-4315.

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