Filed under: Tips and tricks, Terminal Tips, Mac 101
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.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
LuminousNerd said 10:06AM on 7-04-2008
The default filetype is not JPEG, it is PNG. At least that was the case on my Mac Pro (Tiger, and later a fresh install of Leopard), my White iMac (Leopard), and my iMac G4 (Tiger).
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Boydbme said 10:22AM on 7-04-2008
...He explains that a basic screenshot creates a JPEG with a resolution of 60 by default....
Are you sure that's right? on my mac, ever since I got it, the default has always been a .png file from taking a screenshot.
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Dennis said 10:35AM on 7-04-2008
PNG is the default on my machine too.
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eric said 10:43AM on 7-04-2008
whahoo. another tuaw article that's completely wrong.
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Johnny Dangerously said 11:03AM on 7-04-2008
No kidding. "...a 60% JPEG"? WTF? Seriously, some fact-checking — before mindlessly posting something for the sake of posting — would go a long way towards TUAW's credibility.
Ugh.
YoJIMbo said 10:48AM on 7-04-2008
Do you guys actually use macs? It is a PNG and has been for a long long time...
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fileai said 10:52AM on 7-04-2008
The default screenshot file type in OS X has been PNG since Tiger (10.4).
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jt said 11:44AM on 7-04-2008
Actually, it was PDF in 10.4. PNG came in to play in the 10.4.9 release ;)
James Madley said 9:03PM on 7-04-2008
No, it's been PNG since 10.4.0. I have several PNG screenshots right here that say 10.4.3, 10.4.6 and 10.4.8.
Leif said 11:08AM on 7-04-2008
Also, a "resolution of 60" is complete nonsense. Event if it *was* a JPEG file, you would talk about a *quality setting* of 60 *percent*.
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James said 11:46AM on 7-04-2008
are you still using Grab.app or something weird like that?
or snaps pro perhaps?
Leopard is PNG and an alpha channel
Tiger was PNG no alpha
Panther/Jag/Puma were PDF
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Kim said 11:58AM on 7-04-2008
It USED to be jpeg but has been PGN since 10.4
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iheartbeer said 11:16AM on 7-04-2008
72dpi lossless PNGs, and before that they were PDFs. Before that (OS 9) they were Pict files. I don't think they've ever been JPGs.
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deevee said 11:21AM on 7-04-2008
maybe you should have use this link!
http://creativebits.org/mac_os_x/change_screenshot_format_in_tiger
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Bender Bending Rodriguez said 11:25AM on 7-04-2008
You can also change the default type and where the screen captures are saved to with one of the many Utility apps for OS X, like Onyx.
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Bender Bending Rodriguez said 11:59AM on 7-04-2008
Note: Up through Panther screen captures were saved as PDFs. Tiger uses PNGs. I can't locate the default for a new Leopard build as removing the com.apple.screencapture.plist file in ~/Library/Preferences still keeps the choice you had previously.
James Donevan said 11:27AM on 7-04-2008
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.
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Ondra Soukup said 11:30AM on 7-04-2008
the editor shall be fired for incompetence.
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Chris said 12:19PM on 7-04-2008
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....
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imatt said 11:54AM on 7-04-2008
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!
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