taking a screenshot in quicktime x 06. Jul 2010

If you are watching a movie in Quicktime X and you take a screenshot with ⌘⇧4 the result looks this:

Quicktime X screenshot 1

Okay, so how can I get rid of those annoying controls? The answer is amazingly simple! If you double click in the window before making the screenshot the controls vanish and the result looks like this:

Quicktime X screenshot 2

Okay, so how can I get rid of the shadow and the rounded corners without using Photoshop? The answer is simple but not really elegant. Execute the following statement in the Terminal:

screencapture -ow ~/Desktop/Screenshot.png

Then your resulting screenshot on your desktop looks like this:

Quicktime X screenshot 3

Okay, so how can I do this more elegantly? You can create a shell script and launch it with a keyboard shortcut. Enabling this involves several steps. First create a folder in your home directory, let’s call it Scripts. Open your favorite text editor and create a file named TakeScreenshotWithoutShadow.sh in this folder with the following content:

screencapture -ow ~/Desktop/Screenshot-`date +"%H%M%S"`.png

Go the Terminal and make the script executable:

chmod +x ~/Scripts/TakeScreenshotWithoutShadow.sh

Now create an Automator action to launch the shell script.

  1. Open Automator
  2. Choose to create a new Service
  3. Add a “Run Shell Script” item from the Utilitites folder
  4. Replace the default text with ~/Scripts/TakeScreenshotWithoutShadow.sh
  5. From the “Service receives select” dropdown menu select “no input”
  6. Save the action as “Take Screenshot Without Shadow”

Automator screenshot

Finally to create the keyboard shortcut open System Preferences and select the Keyboard panel. Then switch to the Keyboard Shortcuts tab and select Services from the left column. Then scroll down to the bottom of the right column. There you will find your newly created Automator action. Select “Take Screenshot Without Shadow” and double click on the right side of the item to create a keyboard shortcut. Select a reasonable shortcut, for example ⌘⇧5.

System Preferences screenshot

You have to wait a little for the Shortcut to be active. After a minute or so go to Quicktime X, select the desired frame and press the chosen Shortcut. Voilà!

Okay, now go and watch the brilliant music video by director Keith Schofield!

 

Kommentare (3)

  1. Alex Kessaris 71 days later

    Even better, you can download Quicktime 7/Pro for snow leopard:

    http://support.apple.com/kb/dl923

    (It’s also available on the DVD)

  2. K 287 days later

    Thank you!!

  3. nomisum 429 days later

    why bother with quicktime, just use VLC. it can take screenshots via shortcut in no time.

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