Back to: Blog

I Hate Taking Screenshots

For some reason I hate the ‘take new screenshots’ portion of every new release. I’ve even got a little Photoshop action that resizes everything for me, but it still drive me nuts. If I didn’t know that people love screenshots, I’d try to skip the whole thing.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Posted February 26th, 2005 @ 1:01 AM

19 Replies

Ryan adds this Comment:

I’m glad to know I’m not alone in this! Taking screen shots is a major pain for some reason.

February 26th, 2005 at 1:47 am
Abhay adds this Comment:

What do you use, especially when you want only a part of the screen, or want to focus on a widget?

Anyhow, having done UI stuff, mocking up stuff and taking screenshots has now become cool.

I figure I have to do it anyway, so might as well enjoy doing it.

February 26th, 2005 at 3:58 am
Alex adds this Comment:

I use Cmd+Ctrl+Shift+4 to grab a portion of the screen to the clipboard.

February 26th, 2005 at 9:50 am
JF adds this Comment:

Funny you mention this today, as I have to do some of that today.

Are those commands on a Mac? Tried on PC and doesn’t work (?)

February 26th, 2005 at 10:53 am
Alex adds this Comment:

Yes, those are on a Mac (there isn’t a Cmd key for Windows). I also use the Mac to take Windows screenshots, via remote desktop.

February 26th, 2005 at 11:39 am
JamesZ adds this Comment:

The cmd+shift+4 works for portions of a screenshot on macs and also for cmd+shift+3 for full screen shots.

A little trick for al other mac users out there is cmd+shift+4 then space_bar and it will grab the window that the cursor (now a camera icon) is hovering over.

It’s the little things like this that make all the difference.

Also: on PC there is some deal that I remember from long ago about alt+shift+screen_print copying the full screen to the clipboard. But don’t quote me on that.

February 26th, 2005 at 2:13 pm
Alex adds this Comment:

Cmd-Shift-4 will create a PDF of the selection, Cmd-Ctrl-Shift-4 will copy the selection to the clipboard.

February 26th, 2005 at 2:18 pm
Phil Boardman adds this Comment:

Not having a screenshot is one thing that will easily cross you off my list of things to try when I’m after a new product.

February 26th, 2005 at 4:02 pm
Alex adds this Comment:

Bingo.

February 26th, 2005 at 4:07 pm
Jon S adds this Comment:

My process for screenies on XP:

Get my window, often a browser sized how I like it.

Hit Alt-Print Screen to capture the window to the clipboard. Using print screen by itself will grab the whole screen(s).

Paste in Photoshop. Repeat for as many screens as I need. The result is a multilayered PSD w/ all screens. Save.

Crop the browser chrome out of the image. Hit Photoshop’s “save layers as files” to crank out jpg’s of each layer.

February 26th, 2005 at 4:22 pm
Greg adds this Comment:

The best app I’ve found for doing screen captures (for windows anyway) is SnagIt — snagit.com.

You can set it up to grab a specific region/size starting from an offset of the upper left corner of the sceen and dump the capture into a file, the clipboard, to the printer, etc. It will also resize images for you. It’s a real timesaver when it comes to doing documentation.

February 27th, 2005 at 12:15 pm
Alex adds this Comment:

Poor Windows people.

February 27th, 2005 at 3:30 pm
Tim adds this Comment:

Poor mac people, who don’t have something as awesome as Snag-It

Seriously, it’s great. And as a doc writer, I can say that screenshots are worth a 1000 words.

February 27th, 2005 at 6:40 pm
Jon S adds this Comment:

I think I’m with the “poor mac people” camp. CMD-Shift-3, what the heck is that?

Having a single button on the keyboard labeld “Print Screen”. Makes more sense to me.

February 28th, 2005 at 12:13 pm
Alex adds this Comment:

Perhaps, but on Windows there isn’t a free built-in utility to take screenshots, or built-in functionality to capture directly to .PDF, or built-in functionality to allow you to crop just the area of the screen you want. There is a reason I do all of my screenshots (including PC screenshots) on the Mac.

February 28th, 2005 at 12:20 pm
alexking.org: Blog adds this Trackback:

Tasks Pro™ 1.5 and Tasks 2.5!
I’m very pleased to announce the release of Tasks Pro™ 1.5 and Tasks 2.5. These releases are the first major upgrades since the initial release of each product.

As promised, customers who puchased a license on or after October 1, 2004 have …

March 7th, 2005 at 9:55 am
Phil adds this Comment:

I don’t like take screenshots too often but sometimes I have to do…
In Windows I use Quick Screen Capture from etrusoft now. I use Snagit too but it looks some too big for me. I also tried some free tools but also not satisfied.

the urls may help:
http://www.etrusoft.com
http://www.snagit.com

March 30th, 2005 at 3:25 pm
Alex adds this Comment:

Maybe they’ll help others - those utilities aren’t helpful for me. I guess some people are willing to just take a screenshot directly to an output file and stick it on their web page or in their documentation, but I find I need to process each one in Photoshop first to get the polish and consistency I want.

Also, I’m on a Mac.

March 30th, 2005 at 3:32 pm
hautenegro adds this Comment:

For anyone who stumbles upon this site, this is for you: The mac comes with a built in program called Grab.

May 23rd, 2006 at 1:19 pm

Add a Comment

Please note: Use of a non-personal web site or blog in the field below and/or comments that are off-topic, personal attacks, or support requests will likely be removed at my discretion.