Veerle's blog

Many people have asked how I record those tutorial movies so much that it is probably a good idea to do an article about it. Let’s talk “screen shots” or “screen captures.”

On Mac OS X you have several options at your disposel for taking screen shots. The first options are the build-in system shortcuts.

• To capture the entire screen use Command+Shift+3
• To capture part of a screen use Command+Shift+4. The cursor will then turn into a cross-hair icon. Click and drag over an area to select it. When you release the mouse button, the image is taken, and you'll hear a snapshot sound.

You can capture a window or object by using this last method but what if you want a more precise screenshot?:

• Press Command+Shift+4. Again, the cursor turns into the cross-hair icon.
• Press the spacebar and the cursor turns into a camera icon.
• Move the camera cursor over the window or object that you want to capture. When you move the cursor over an object, it becomes highlighted.
• After you highlight the window that you want, click the mouse anywhere on the window or object to take the screenshot.

If you use the Command+Shift+4 shortcut you can press Escape to cancel the operation.

The second option is to use Grab, the program found in your Application - Utilities folder.

• A selection of the screen is Shift+Command+A
• To grab a window use Shift+Command+W
• The entire screen is Command+Z
• A timed screen is Shift+Command+Z

Those are the options that come for free with the Operating System. My preferred choice is an application from the shareware world called Snapz Pro X 2 with the movie capture feature. I have been using this application since the Mac OS 9 days. Luckily for us Ambrosia has completely rewritten Snapz Pro X from scratch and added many new features in the process rather then just porting it.

Grab only saves in TIFF format but in Snapz Pro X 2 you have versatility in terms of the file formats it can save to, you can save in .bmp, .gif, .jpg, .pdf, .pict, .png. .psd and .tiff. But wait it doesn't stop there just yet! For each of those formats you can specify an application as you can see in the screen shot. You also have precise control over image compression. Screenshots can be scaled, cropped, color depth-changed, and dithered. Snapz Pro X can also add borders, generate automatic thumbnails, overlay watermarks/copyright notices...

Once invoked you get a palette with the 4 main buttons: Screen, Selection, Objects, and Movie. When you've made a choice Snapz Pro X 2 grays out the screen, except for the part of your selection. Objects are the application windows on your desktop. Using the Objects option is a quick way of selecting a specific window instead of having to drag a selection around it manually. You can capture more then one object by holding down the Shift key.

Another new great new feature is called FatBits. It is a window where you see a magnified view of the area around the cursor for more precise selections and additional information about the capture like the current location (X and Y values) of the mouse pointer, the size of the selection and RGB value of where your mouse pointer is at that time.

Save the coolest part for last I always say and that's the movie feature that I use for my tutorials. Several options are available like different frame rates, 3 different camera modes: Fixed camera, Follow cursor, and Smooth pan. With this last feature it is possible to capture visualizations from iTunes or a game. The whole movie capture part is Altivec accelerated so it works best on G4 and G5's.

You have the option to include sound from any microphone connected to your Mac or to record the Mac audio track. So any audio (such as music playing in iTunes) that is played by Mac OS X can be recorded. To stop recording you use Command+Shift+3 again and you'll get a window to set the different codecs. All the options of QuickTime are at your disposal, so if you have the Sorenson Video 3 Pro Codec installed you can use that too. A nice touch is the little preview window when it is compressing and the movie info.

Snapz Pro X 2 runs as a background service when you login or start your Mac. This way it is always ready and waiting until you hit Command+Shift+3. Don't worry about memory or CPU usage because it only uses 0,20% of the CPU and 9,95MB when you don't use it. I'm not only using the application for my tutorials but also to demo or help our clients in getting their way around in the CMS that we have built. For personal usage it's maybe a bit overkill but business wise you can't go wrong with Snapz Pro X 2 and all its features for $69.