Take And Customize Screenshots On MacBook Pro

There are three main screenshot types present in the OS X. These are; capture the selected window, capture the defined area, and capture the entire screen. That said, the first thing you need to know is that all these can be triggered using keyboard shortcuts on your MacBook Pro. You can achieve this by going to System’s Preference folder>Keyboard>Keyboard Shortcuts tab. At this point, you can select “Screen Shots”. This will portray four stock screenshot shortcuts and the privilege of toggling in between them. You can turn them on or off. In default mode, they are enabled. Here is a step-by-step guide of how these shortcuts can help you take and customize screenshots on MacBook Pro.


• Click Command+Shift+3

This shortcut assists to take the photo of the entire screen. If there are multiple displays, it will treat each independently and take a full-screen screenshot of each.

• Click Comand+Shift+4

Pressing this shortcut takes a screenshot of defined area. The cursor turns to a crosshair with the pixel information. You just need to place the crosshair at one of the ends from where you want to capture the image and drag across the section you want to capture. It is important to note the coordinates given before you drag the cursor at (0, 0) represents the pixel of the screen while those shown after dragging represent the selected area.


• Click Command+Shift+4+Spacebar

This shortcut takes the screenshot of a selected area. You will first define an area before pressing the spacebar to create a crosshair that turns into a camera icon. Drag this icon over the area and you will realize it turns to a blue shade. Click the track pad or the mouse to take a screenshot of just that window.


The procedures named above will guide you to have a screenshot file on your desktop. These are liable to be stored elsewhere based on your personal preference. If, for instance, you combine the procedures above with the control key function the individual screenshots will be stored in the clip board instead of being developed as an image file. If you navigate to the applications and then click on utilities you will be able to locate the Grab app which is useful in screenshot properties of the MacBook pro. This application is able to perform the functions described above as well as giving timer options. This entails taking of screenshots every ten seconds after the app has been launched.

Changing the image type description

The most preferential file format for a screenshot is the PNG file format. This is because it is interphase user friendly. To change the default file format, your device uses navigate to the Terminal function and key in the format that you may wish to apply to your screen shots. This may as well range from the png, bmp, psd, tga among the many formats present in market today.



Changing the destination of the screen shot file

The default file path for the Image files is on the desktop. Since you do not wish to disorganize your MacBook pro you may select an alternative path for the file. Navigate to the terminal and put your preferred destination in the FILEPATH function. This is only applicable for images that are developed without pressing the control function.