How to take Screen shot in Mac

Unlike in Windows Mac OS has its own way of taking the screen capture. As you know there is no single button key for taking screen shot in Windows keyboard. Mac has a different way and it is very quick once you started using this option. There are several keyboard combinations that can be used to take screenshots in Mac OS X. Below shows the combination of key strokes that can be used to take screen shots

• Command-Shift-3: Take a screenshot of the screen, and save it as a file on the desktop
• Command-Shift-4, then select an area: Take a screenshot of an area and save it as a file on the desktop
• Command-Shift-4, then space, then click a window: Take a screenshot of a window and save it as a file on the desktop
• Command-Control-Shift-3: Take a screenshot of the screen, and save it to the clipboard
• Command-Control-Shift-4, then select an area: Take a screenshot of an area and save it to the clipboard
• Command-Control-Shift-4, then space, then click a window: Take a screenshot of a window and save it to the clipboard.

By default Mac OS X later version saves the screen shot in the desktop with a PNG extension, if you want to change the format of the file by inputing the following code in the terminal

 defaults write com.apple.screencapture type pdf killall SystemUIServer

Or you can choose jpg, tiff or png. Once you’ve killed the SystemUIServer you’ll have to wait a few seconds for it to restart, and be able to make more screenshots in the new format. If these keys don’t work f, then check the Keyboard Shortcuts tab of the Keyboard & Mouse preferences to see if there is a shortcut conflict or if those shortcuts have just been disabled.

Another method for capturing screen shots in Mac OS X is by using the bundled Apple utility,Grab, located in the Applications > Utilities folder. Grab is useful if you need to include a cursor or a menu in your screen shot, or if you want to save your screen shot to TIFF format. To include a cursor, first go to Grab Preferences and select the cursor icon you wish to have in your screen shot. To capture the screen with Grab, run Grab, then choose of the capture modes from the “Capture” menu: Selection, Window, Screen, Timed Screen.

Third Party Applications

There are a huge number of third party applications that can be used to take screenshots. Several popular ones are listed below:

• Jing Great for screen shots, video recording and has an extremely useful online sharing feature.
• Snapz Pro X is very popular and can even record movies. It has a large range of features, and is shareware.
• SnapNDrag is also popular and offers several features in addition to those offered by the default screen capture tools. With SnapNDrag, users take a screenshot, then drag it to their destination. SnapNDrag is freeware, but also has a pro version.
• Screen Mimic is shareware that can be used to record animations of your desktop to .swf files for tutorials, software demonstrations, etc.

Ref: MacRumors