Screen capture to Clipboard parameters

Hi All,
I'm experiencing a problem when I capture my screen via Grab or any other ScreenCapture tools I've found.
What I want, is to paste those captures into a Lotus Notes document (or mail), but the size of the capture is always huge !!
For example, if I capture the same picture within Windows XP, the mail size will be at least 10 time smaller.
I suppose there is a picture format and compression quality parameters involved, but I've been unable to find how to manage this...
Am I the only one who face this problem ?
Thanks a lot,
Patrick

You mean the actual file size or the size of the captured image?
If its the file size you could try capturing in another format or opening the image in Preview and re-saving it at a lower quality or other format.
If its' the image, are you capturing the whole image or just a selection?
I'm assuming it's capturing in TIFF, you can change it via the terminal by tyoing;
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg
Or whatever format you want in the place of the 'jpg'
It's probably much easier to use either Cocktail, (cheap), or Onyx, (free). They also give you a number of other useful utilities.
Message was edited by: gumsie

Similar Messages

Since Firefox 6.0 copying images, by either Win 7 fxn or by screen capture fxn's, no longer works

-- At least, this is the way it seems... a letter I wrote first to the VMN Toobox staff (and to Firefox)...
Hi VMN Staff/Inventor – and Hi to my favorite browser’s staff at Firefox,
I must say that I really love your Screen Capture fxn for the VMN Toobox 4.25! I use it ALL of the time! Hopefully, I have sent you some money already. Tonight however something is really wrong! When I fired up the computer this afternoon and, as usual, was doing research for my office, some webpage logos wouldn't copy, so as usual I dropped down the VMN Toolbox selections, selected Screen Capture and arranged the capture bars over the image, got the yellow flash-across the selected area and pasted the picture in to the document. I looked and looked, reshot the image several times but unbelievably … THE SCREEN CAPTURE IMAGE on the document WAS BLANK!
This NEVER occurred before. And, even after restarting the computer it still did not work.
Then I happened to be in a document where VMN screen capture images had been added - they were ALL blank! Checking other documents - all screenshot images in all documents are blank, totally whited out, with the black lines of where the images used to be right there, emphasizing that something is gone. Like a painting stolen from a museum wall and the photon shadow is all that remains.
I had not used Awesome Screenshot for quite a while, but there it was up on my toolbar - tried that - same damn thing! What's going on? I am pretty certain I let Mozilla FireFox go ahead and update from v5.x to v6.0 as soon as I signed on, and several add-ons were suddenly "no longer compatible," but as far as I can tell your software doesn't rely on any plug-ins. The Awesome Screenshot extension add-on for Firefox was still enabled, yet it did not work.
Further troubleshooting - as I was at my desktop on the network in the office, I then fired up my laptop. This time I DID NOT allow Mozilla Firefox to update from v5.x to 6.0. The VMN toolbox screenshot worked fine! Uh, oh Firefox…?
So, I will be sending this message to Firefox also - I detest Microsoft, only use their software at all only because I HAVE to, I almost never use IE v8.x or 9.x or wherever it is now - but can your people at VMN (and y'all at Firefox) explain how the only browser I use, Firefox, could possibly reach in to my documents file and cause the screenshots downloaded to the clipboard, then to documents, to suddenly no longer be able to be seen? Is this even possible?
Lastly, maybe you know something about this - is there any way to actually "see" the clipboard - what's on it at any given time? I cannot find any way to access either file names or images existing on the clipboard no matter how much is on it, or what program I'm using. (An IT level/web developer person I am not, just a physician.)
I have Windows 7 Professional on my desktop, 4GB RAM, the network/server can only use a 32-bit system type, and everything is highly maintenanced by myself and our IT team, so absolutely everything else is fine. On my laptop I have a Windows 7 Home Premium OS installed and working fine on a brand new HP Pavilion g4 Notebook PC w/ 4GB RAM, 64-bit system type.
Any time to send me any ideas? Thanks. And you too, Firefox - what's going on?
Thank you very much,
Robert Schmidt, D.O.
Woodlands Healing Research Center 5724 Clymer Rd. Quakertown, PA 18951 [email protected] and [email protected] ph: 215-536-1890 fx: 215-529-9034 cell: 267-221-1818

-- At least, this is the way it seems... a letter I wrote first to the VMN Toobox staff (and to Firefox)...
Hi VMN Staff/Inventor – and Hi to my favorite browser’s staff at Firefox,
I must say that I really love your Screen Capture fxn for the VMN Toobox 4.25! I use it ALL of the time! Hopefully, I have sent you some money already. Tonight however something is really wrong! When I fired up the computer this afternoon and, as usual, was doing research for my office, some webpage logos wouldn't copy, so as usual I dropped down the VMN Toolbox selections, selected Screen Capture and arranged the capture bars over the image, got the yellow flash-across the selected area and pasted the picture in to the document. I looked and looked, reshot the image several times but unbelievably … THE SCREEN CAPTURE IMAGE on the document WAS BLANK!
This NEVER occurred before. And, even after restarting the computer it still did not work.
Then I happened to be in a document where VMN screen capture images had been added - they were ALL blank! Checking other documents - all screenshot images in all documents are blank, totally whited out, with the black lines of where the images used to be right there, emphasizing that something is gone. Like a painting stolen from a museum wall and the photon shadow is all that remains.
I had not used Awesome Screenshot for quite a while, but there it was up on my toolbar - tried that - same damn thing! What's going on? I am pretty certain I let Mozilla FireFox go ahead and update from v5.x to v6.0 as soon as I signed on, and several add-ons were suddenly "no longer compatible," but as far as I can tell your software doesn't rely on any plug-ins. The Awesome Screenshot extension add-on for Firefox was still enabled, yet it did not work.
Further troubleshooting - as I was at my desktop on the network in the office, I then fired up my laptop. This time I DID NOT allow Mozilla Firefox to update from v5.x to 6.0. The VMN toolbox screenshot worked fine! Uh, oh Firefox…?
So, I will be sending this message to Firefox also - I detest Microsoft, only use their software at all only because I HAVE to, I almost never use IE v8.x or 9.x or wherever it is now - but can your people at VMN (and y'all at Firefox) explain how the only browser I use, Firefox, could possibly reach in to my documents file and cause the screenshots downloaded to the clipboard, then to documents, to suddenly no longer be able to be seen? Is this even possible?
Lastly, maybe you know something about this - is there any way to actually "see" the clipboard - what's on it at any given time? I cannot find any way to access either file names or images existing on the clipboard no matter how much is on it, or what program I'm using. (An IT level/web developer person I am not, just a physician.)
I have Windows 7 Professional on my desktop, 4GB RAM, the network/server can only use a 32-bit system type, and everything is highly maintenanced by myself and our IT team, so absolutely everything else is fine. On my laptop I have a Windows 7 Home Premium OS installed and working fine on a brand new HP Pavilion g4 Notebook PC w/ 4GB RAM, 64-bit system type.
Any time to send me any ideas? Thanks. And you too, Firefox - what's going on?
Thank you very much,
Robert Schmidt, D.O.
Woodlands Healing Research Center 5724 Clymer Rd. Quakertown, PA 18951 [email protected] and [email protected] ph: 215-536-1890 fx: 215-529-9034 cell: 267-221-1818

How do I perform a screen capture to print or save?

How do I perform a screen capture to print or save?

Press the Shift, Command, and 3 keys to capture the whole screen.
Press the Shift, Command, and 4 keys to capture a draggable part of the screen, or follow it with the spacebar to capture a window.
Open the PNG on the desktop. Alternatively, combine either of the above with the Control key to put the screenshot onto the clipboard instead of the desktop.
(116647)

Changing file type format in Screen Capture (shift command 4)

You'd think this would be in a preference menu! But it's nowhere to be found in any apps preference or system preferences.... I've seen posts how to do it in Terminal... and people sell programs to do it.... but Tiger and Leopard have t built in.. sort of....
The default file format when using SCREEN CAPTURE (ShiftCommand4) was a .pdf ... but then it was changed to .png Some people can't read .png... so I wanted my captures to be in .jpg format.
You can change the file format type of your SCREEN CAPTURE to any of the following:
JPG, JPG-2000, TIFF, BMP, PDF, Photoshop, PICT, SGI, PBG, TGA
But first you have to have a file you want to change (say it is a png).
Open the file using Preview.
Once open, under File (in the menu bar) go down to SAVE AS.
There's you'll see FORMAT and a pull down menu. Choose which one you want...
Screen capture will now open your captured pictures in that format.
Crazy, huh?

The OP here was using a keyboard shortcut, not Grabber.
I did some further exploring. I just tried TinkerTool again, and again was able to change the file format of saved screencapture files to jpeg. TinkerTool modifies the com.apple.screencapture.plist file the same way that the Terminal command does.
This clearly works for command-shift-3 and command-shift-4, which save the screencapture image as a file. However, on looking more closely at the O.P.s initial post in this thread, he/she actually said
I use keyboard shortcut control/command/shift/4
When you include the control key in the command, the screencapture image gets saved to the clipboard instead of to a file, and you wouldn't normally be aware of its format until you pasted the clipboard contents somewhere else. I don't know where the OP was pasting it, but as was noted in the thread cited above by Baltwo, pasting a sceencapture image from the clipboard into a mail.app message results in a .tiff file being pasted. I also find this to be true in my system - perhaps this is what the OP was doing all along.
However this is an issue caused by the receiving app, not by the screencapture function. It's possible to look directly at the contents of the clipboard via:
Finder>Edit Menu>Show Clipboard
With my screenshot format set to jpeg by TinkerTool, I used control-command-shift-4 to save a screenshot to the clipboard. Looking directly at the clipboard in Finder as above, the clipboard image was a jpeg. When I then pasted the clipboard contents into a mail message and used Mail>File Menu>QuickLook Attachments, the pasted graphic in the mail message was a .tiff.

How to print screen & recommendations for clipboard extenders?

How do i print screen on my new iMac & can you recommend clipbaord extenders similar to the PC products Clipmate or SnagIt??
As you can guess I'm a PC convert. Just got my new 24" iMac on the weekend and trying to get back to productivity. LOVE the product generally.
TIA
Barry

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
When you say print screen, do you mean screen capture to image, or print the contents of the screen?
For screen capture, you can follow these directions:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh338.html
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh344.html
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh1634.html
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh364.html
A timed capture is avaialble with the Grab Utility found in your Applications folder. For many more screen capture functions, see this utility:
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/snapzprox/
Note: some content on the screen may be copyright, so be careful only to copy that which you have rights to do so.
To print a Finder window directly to printer, there is this utility:
http://searchwaresolutions.com/products/printwindow/
For clipboard extention, see this utility:
http://inventive.us/iClip/
You may find others on http://www.macupdate.com/ or http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/ which are more tuned in for your use.

Is screen capture in Yosemite the same as in previous versions of 10.x?

Not really a problem, just a question. I can only find screen capture instructions for Mountain Lion, on Apple support.
I have MacBook Pro 8.1, with the latest version of Yosemite (10.10).
Thank you
Anne

Yes, they have not changed.
OS X Screen Capture Shortcuts
(⌘⬆︎) Command-Shift-3 Capture the screen to a file
(⌘⬆︎⌃) Command-Shift-Control-3 Capture the screen to the Clipboard
(⌘⬆︎) Command-Shift-4 Capture a selection to a file
(⌘⬆︎⌃) Command-Shift-Control-4 Capture a selection to the Clipboard

How do I paste a screen capture? Edit-paste or command-V do not work.

How do I paste a screen capture? Edit-paste or command-V do not work. Tom

how did you take the screenshot?
if you used a key combo like command+shift+ a number it will be saved as a file on your desktop
you need to add control* to whatever key combination you pressed to put it on your clipboard
*sorry for saying shift before i meant control

Color changes (darkens) in screen capture - color sync gamma setting?

I encountered this weird effect that the color darkens when I did a screen capture in one Mac but not the other.
In fact, it darkens more with shift-ctrl-cmd-4 (selection capture) than with shift-ctrl-cmd-3 (whole screen capture).
The knowledge base mentioned the gamma setting in http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3712 but the color darkens in the clipboard, so there is no way to change the color sync if it is not a file. I tried to re-calibrate my display using different gamma setting, but it didn't change any color.
In my other Mac, I can do a screen capture and the color is preserved as is. It is only in one Mac that did this. The color darkens so much that it practically becomes black-and-white.
Any suggestion would help. I think it has something to do with the color sync profile setting.

I found out that the darkening of the color in screen capture is caused by screenshot captured into jpeg. The darkening happens when the lines are thin, due to the averaging effect of jpeg. If the lines are thick, then the change in color is not apparent.
Now, the problem is, I can't change screen capture to capture in png. I used Tinker Tool, and deleted com.apple.screencapture.plist , nothing would change it back to capture in png.

Changing file type in screen capture to .jpg using Terminal

I am having trouble changing my screen capture function to .jpg. For some reason it is set to .tiff and
despite opening Terminal and typing in "defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg"
(no quotes) hitting return and restarting, it remains a .tiff
I have also tried: "defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg" (return)
"killall SystemUIServer" (return) and restarting.(No quotes)
Can someone tell me how to accomplish this? I use keyboard shortcut control/command/shift/4 and I'm running 10.6.4
Thanks

The OP here was using a keyboard shortcut, not Grabber.
I did some further exploring. I just tried TinkerTool again, and again was able to change the file format of saved screencapture files to jpeg. TinkerTool modifies the com.apple.screencapture.plist file the same way that the Terminal command does.
This clearly works for command-shift-3 and command-shift-4, which save the screencapture image as a file. However, on looking more closely at the O.P.s initial post in this thread, he/she actually said
I use keyboard shortcut control/command/shift/4
When you include the control key in the command, the screencapture image gets saved to the clipboard instead of to a file, and you wouldn't normally be aware of its format until you pasted the clipboard contents somewhere else. I don't know where the OP was pasting it, but as was noted in the thread cited above by Baltwo, pasting a sceencapture image from the clipboard into a mail.app message results in a .tiff file being pasted. I also find this to be true in my system - perhaps this is what the OP was doing all along.
However this is an issue caused by the receiving app, not by the screencapture function. It's possible to look directly at the contents of the clipboard via:
Finder>Edit Menu>Show Clipboard
With my screenshot format set to jpeg by TinkerTool, I used control-command-shift-4 to save a screenshot to the clipboard. Looking directly at the clipboard in Finder as above, the clipboard image was a jpeg. When I then pasted the clipboard contents into a mail message and used Mail>File Menu>QuickLook Attachments, the pasted graphic in the mail message was a .tiff.

How to set default file type for screen capture?

I want to change the default from .jpg2 to .jpg when doing a screen selection
capture (cmd-shft-4). Where is the place to do this?
Thank you,
todd

Todd,
OnyX has 10 screen shot options available in Parameters>General>Screen Capture format:
;~)

Restore screen captures from Preview app

I have had to wipe my drive clean and re-install the OS. Before it was re-installed, I had quite a few Preview screen captures that I forgot to save to the drive. When I would quit the app, they would re-appear, so they were being retained somewhere. Is there any way to restore those images from my backup? I can't restore the app as the software won't allow it, and I can't open the backup in Time Machine. Is there any way to get those images back? TIA,

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then try the action that you're having trouble with again. Select any messages that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
☞ The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
☞ Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

How to screen capture in Mac OS

Can anyone advised me how to do screen capture please? Thanks.

Hi joengz!
Command-Shift-3: Take a picture of the screen
Command-Shift-4: Take a picture of the selection
Command-Shift-4, then press Control while selecting: Take a picture of the screen, place in Clipboard
Command-Shift-4, then Spacebar: Take a picture of the selected window
Additional instructions, that can be found in Mac Help.
"To take a picture of the whole screen, press Command-Shift-3.
To take a picture of part of the screen, press Command-Shift-4, then drag to select the area you want
in the picture.
To take a picture of a window, the menu bar, the Dock, or other area, press Command-Shift-4, then
press the Space bar. Move the pointer over the area you want so that it's highlighted, then click. (If you
decide you want to drag to select the area, press the Space bar again.)
If you press Command-Shift-4 and decide you don't want to take the screen shot, press the Escape
key.
Screen shots are saved as PDF files on the desktop. If you want to put the screen shot in the Clipboard,
rather than create a file, hold down the Control key when you press the other keys. You can then paste
the picture into a document."
"You can also take pictures of the screen using the Grab application (in the Utilities folder)."
ali b

Screen capture not working right in 10.6.2

Since installing 10.6.2, screen capture of a window puts a black border around the captured window instead of the shadow. Any idea's why?

there have been many posts about this. could be a bug.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10559347&#10559347
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10217973&#10217973
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10553006&#10553006
you can try a few things suggested in those threads. first, go to the directory homefodler/library/preferences and delete the files com.apple.systemuiserver and com.apple.screencapture.plist. (the second file may not exists) and run the following terminal command
killall SystemUIServer
try taking a screencapture again. if that does not help install Onyx
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/systemdiskutilities/onyx.html
and use the parameters tab to either turn off the shadow in screenshots or change the image format used for screencaptures to png.

DVD Screen Captures Cannot Be Processed

They can't be saved as a JPG - they just give a totally black blank image.
They can't be resized or cropped.
Enhance/Auto Levels does not work - blanks out the image.
I want a screen capture in order to create a DVD label.
I record a TV program on my DVR.
Then I copy it to a DVD using my Panasonic DVD Recorder.
I play it on my Windows XP PC using Windows Media Player.
I pause it when the program's title is on the screen.
I hit the [Print Screen] button.
(ACDSee image capture does the same thing - that is, same problems.)
I go into PhotoShop Elements 2 and select File/"New from Clipboard".
The image does not behave like other images.
I cannot save it as a Jpeg.
I can save it as a PNG or GIF.
I go into my SureThing CD Labeler Deluxe program.
But I cannot resize or move around the image in order to get a good label.

Ron,
I get the same results from Media Player.
Try importing from the DVD into Windows Movie Maker. Play it in the preview pane and pause where you want the picture. Click Tools, Take Picture from Preview. Save it and open in PE. The best I could get was 800 x 600.
I tested this using a movie already on my hard drive but it should work.
Bob

Screen capture & MenuItem

Hi,
I have a dialog which i want to capture a screen copy of and send to the system clipboard. To capture the screen, the dialog has a menu bar, with a "File->Capture screen" menu item. When this menu item is clicked the dialog is copied to the clipboard.
All this works fine, but at the time of screen grab, the menu is still dropped down, and is seen in the image on the clipboard.
Does anybody have any suggestions on how to hide the dropped menu before screen capture ??
Thanks

I'm not sure why, but the dialog has to be visible for this to work...
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.datatransfer.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.awt.image.*;
import java.util.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import java.util.List;
public class ComponentToClipboard {
    static JDialog dialog;
    static JFrame frame;
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        JFrame.setDefaultLookAndFeelDecorated(true);
        JDialog.setDefaultLookAndFeelDecorated(true); //=> paint() does title bar + border
        JMenuBar mb = new JMenuBar();
        JMenu menu = new JMenu("menu");
        JMenuItem launch = new JMenuItem("launch dialog...");
        JMenuItem capture = new JMenuItem("capture dialog to clipboard...");
        menu.add(launch);
        menu.add(capture);
        mb.add(menu);
        launch.addActionListener(new ActionListener(){
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {
                getDialog().setVisible(true);
        capture.addActionListener(new ActionListener(){
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {
                componentToClipboard(getDialog());
        frame = new JFrame("ComponentToClipboard");
        frame.setJMenuBar(mb);
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        frame.setSize(400,100);
        frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
        frame.setVisible(true);
    static JDialog getDialog() {
        if (dialog == null) {
            dialog = new JDialog(frame, "the dialog");
            JPanel cp = new JPanel(new GridLayout(3,3,3,3));
            cp.setBorder(BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder(10,10,10,10));
            for(int i=0; i<9; ++i)
                cp.add(new JLabel(String.valueOf(i)));
            dialog.setContentPane(cp);
            dialog.setSize(200,200);
        return dialog;
    public static void componentToClipboard(Component comp) {
        int w = comp.getWidth();
        int h = comp.getHeight();
        BufferedImage image = comp.getGraphicsConfiguration().createCompatibleImage(w, h);
        Graphics2D g = image.createGraphics();
        comp.paint(g);
        g.dispose();
        try {
            Clipboard cb = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getSystemClipboard();
            ImageSelection selection = new ImageSelection(image);
            cb.setContents(selection, selection);
        } catch (IllegalStateException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
class ImageSelection implements ClipboardOwner, Transferable {
    private BufferedImage image;
    public ImageSelection(BufferedImage image) {
        if (image == null)
            throw new NullPointerException();
        this.image = image;
    public DataFlavor[] getTransferDataFlavors() {
        return new DataFlavor[] {DataFlavor.imageFlavor};
    public boolean isDataFlavorSupported(DataFlavor flavor) {
        return DataFlavor.imageFlavor.equals(flavor);
    public Object getTransferData(DataFlavor flavor) throws UnsupportedFlavorException {
        if (!isDataFlavorSupported(flavor))
            throw new UnsupportedFlavorException(flavor);
        return image;
    public void lostOwnership(Clipboard clipboard, Transferable contents) {
}

Screen capture to Clipboard parameters

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for