Screen Grabs - Mac vs PC
I spent the better part of the last hour trying to A) Get Photoshop Elements to stop CRASHING (quitting for you macfolks) and B) figure out how to make a screengrab on the mac (G5 - dual 2GHz processors, 1GB RAM, 160GB HD...AR! AR! ARRRRR!)
After several panicked emails to Mike H and IMs to Derek, I went to the Adobe forums and then trashed the PSE prefs. If it starts crashing again, you'll hear much screaming and gnashing off teeth emanating from my office.
Then there's the screen grab issue. On the pc, there's a nice little key on the keyboard that says 'PRNT SCRN'...PRINT SCREEN!! This saves a copy of your entire screen to the PC's clipboard. I then open a new file in Photoshop and click 'Edit < Paste'. Ta Da! And in just 4 steps!
On the mac, it's a different story. Apparently, there is no keystroke/shortcut to do a screengrab in OSX. You have to open the 'Grab' utility. Then I couldn't figure out how to keep PSE on top while I opened Grab. Finally, I got it to take a screen grab using the 'Timed Screen'. After 10 seconds, it makes the screen grab, then you have to save the file, and THEN you can open it in Photoshop. Seems a bit involved, doesn't it?
UPDATE: Derek sent me a link from apple.com that explained how to do a screengrab to the clipboard using SHIFT+CTRL+COMMAND+4 , and it worked! Though I feel like I'm putting some sort of left-handed vulcan nerve pinch on the keyboard...
Thanks to Derek and Mike for the help!
Comments
You don't need to use Grab, I told you that.
Command-Shift-3 -- take the entire screen as a screen shot
Command-Shift-4 -- will give you a cross-hair, select a region of screen, and you will have an image
When I do these on my machine, a file "Picture XXX" (where XXX is a number) appears on my desktop, although it may alternatively appear in your ~/Pictures of ~/Documents folder (not sure if that's something you configure somewhere, I haven't changed anything to my recollection).
But that happily creates a screenshot for you without any 3rd party utilities or timing nightmares or figuring out how to get the right app on top, blah blah blah.
Posted by: Derek | November 18, 2004 6:55 PM
Apple-Shift-3 does a screenshot on the mac, no?
Posted by: Jeremy Zawodny | November 18, 2004 9:13 PM
From what Mike H said, that use to work but not on OSX. I tried it and it didn't seem to work.
Hence the frustration.
Posted by: Tera | November 18, 2004 9:24 PM
Derek - I tried both of those and neither one seemed to work. That's when I emailed Mike H. (mac guy in Chicago) and he said that the Command+Shift+3 thing stopped working for him a while back and that the 'grab' utility was what he used now.
Posted by: Tera | November 18, 2004 9:27 PM
Yeah, I haven't been able to do the three-fingered screen grab in quite a while, so I suspect it's gone as of OS X. If there's still a way to do it, let me know!
But I have gotten to like Grab, since it's a bit more flexible in *what* you can grab.
Er... that didn't sound right.
- Mike
Posted by: Mike H in Chicago | November 18, 2004 9:47 PM
As of 10/13/2004, Apple still claims it works:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75459
Of course, I've been a "Snapz Pro" user for a while, because of the really cool features it adds, so I can't actually test it myself.
Posted by: Derek | November 18, 2004 11:03 PM
Well, I'll be dipped. Command+Shift+3 DOES work for me now. As does Command+Shift+4, although for that it just seems to copy the selected range into the Paste Buffer. You need to go to an application and Command+V (or Edit-Paste) to get it to dump.
What throws me the most is that stupid "camera shutter" sound that USED to be there when you grabbed a screen. Without that, it doesn't feel like anything got grabbed!
- M.
Posted by: Mike | January 2, 2005 11:05 AM
tee-hee, amazing what a google search will find. I feel compelled to add that in addition to the Apple Shift 3 and 4 screen grabs you can subsequently press space bar to get a screen grab of just the active window. The grabs are all saved in numerical order so you can take as many as you wish without leaving the app you are using.
Posted by: Pete | October 5, 2007 4:18 AM