Screenshots in Tiger default to .png format. This can be changed now by opening a Terminal window and typing:

for pdf

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type pdf
for jpg

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg
for gif

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type gif
then log out and log back in.
Command-Shift-3 etc should now produce the format of your choosing. To go back to png use

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type png

nice! Thanks for sharing

Cool beans! Just the thing I'm looking for!

When I make a screenshot (CMD-SHIFT-3 or CMD-SHIFT-4), Tiger makes PNG files on the desktop of them, even after typing your code in the Terminal.. What do I do wrong?? :confused:

Copy/Paste this into Terminal;

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg


Then log out and back in and try.

Hi Bob

I've tried the above and had success changing from png to pdf, but I can't manage to get the jpg option to work ! Any thoughts ?

Cheers


Mark

Good info to know. Anyway to tell it where to send the shots instead of the desktop?

Often this is even better: After pressing CMD-SHIFT-4 and while dragging over the part of the screen you want a dump of with the mousebutton pressed, keep the CTRL key pressed before you let go the mousebutton.

Instead of saving it to a file on your desktop, OS X will put it on your clipboard and you can paste it in photoshop, illustrator, etc.