Mac 101: Capture sharp screenshots

Earlier this week, we described several ways to create screenshots with your Mac. Using the keyboard shortcuts in the Finder is great, but you may have noticed that the results aren't very sharp. Ivan at creativebits noticed that, too, and figured out how you can correct the problem.

He explains that a basic screenshot creates a JPEG with a resolution of 60 by default. As is often the case, the solution is just a couple of Terminal commands away. Set the default format to png, pdf or tiff for much better results.

If you're not the Terminal type, check out Skitch, which takes simple, great-looking screen captures.

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Source: http://creativebits.org/mac_os_x/screenshoot_blurry_os_x

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Tips and tricks Terminal Tips Mac 101

Earlier this week, we described several ways to create screenshots with your Mac. Using the keyboard shortcuts in the Finder is great, but...

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Dave

PNG is a lossless compression for photos, JPEG is lossy. I've no quality issues with the default PNG, but depending on what you're capturing, PNG may or may not be better for sharp looking pictures. 72dpi seems small; but what is the screen's dpi? Is that quality setting adjustable?

July 07 2008 at 12:44 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Tritone

Someone made a mistake on the internet!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is an outrage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

July 04 2008 at 11:16 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

don montalvo

It always amazes me how people customize their system, lose track of the changes they make, then complain when things go wrong. The default format for screenshots (as many have already pointed out) is PNG...not JPG.

Don Montalvo, NYC

July 04 2008 at 5:19 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Davy Fields

Yeah, what in the hell is this? How about y'all collaborate and put out a Mac 101 together once every week or two and make sure you check eachother's work out before it ships out... this is just lousy.

July 04 2008 at 3:41 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

alex_dlc

the screenshots are fine, theres nothing wrong with them. they look blurry because they are scaled down, if you go to view and then to actual size, they will look perfect

July 04 2008 at 1:58 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

mark

Or you could just use Grab which lives in your Utilities folder. It has no real preferences at all, it saves everything as an in focuse .tif

July 04 2008 at 12:25 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

imatt

Guys, chill, Dave might come here and call one of you a dick like Addicted to Love did earlier this week.

Back to what I was originally going to comment on though... do you think you have a long enough name for your mac? jeez!

July 04 2008 at 11:53 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Chris

These Mac 101 articles are great. Always have been. I'm not a recent swither by any means, but once in a while I learn little tricks or hints from these articles.
Now, that being said, these Mac 101 articles should at least be accurate. I read this and by the second paragraph I knew it was completely inaccurate. Now imagine that I had been a completely new Mac user looking to a post like this for help or advice...already frustrated...and now being fed inaccurate information via a very prominent Apple blog. Hmm....

July 04 2008 at 11:31 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Ondra Soukup

the editor shall be fired for incompetence.

July 04 2008 at 11:30 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

James Donevan

There are any number of Utility apps that allow you to change the screenshot format. I suspect Dave did this some time ago on his machine and forgot his customization.

Just another day at TUAW... always an entertaining, if not accurate and informative, read.

July 04 2008 at 11:27 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply