Macworld - USA (2020-09)

116 MACWORLD SEPTEMBER 2020

HELPDESK MAC 911

A thin border is supplemented in these

screenshots by a drop shadow that

provides contrast against a background.

That’s a faux-real or skeuomorphic effect,

as if a window is floating and casting a

diffuse shadow, but it does make the

window pop out more effectively when

including it in documentation or an email.

macOS puts those elements in by

default when you use the Command-

Shift-4 keyboard

shortcut and then

press the

spacebar while

hovering over a

window or menu

to select it, and

then clicking your

mouse or

trackpad or

pressing Enter or

Return.

You can

remove the

border and drop

shadow by

holding down the

Option key while

clicking. This lets

you retain it when

you want and

disable it

otherwise.

If you never

HOW TO GET RID OF THE
SCREENSHOT DROP SHADOW
IN MACOS
To follow up on previous advice on
controlling how macOS takes screenshots,
as described in “How to take better
screenshot selections in macOS, (go.
macworld.com/btsc)” you can also choose
to include or exclude a border and drop
shadow when you want to grab a window.

The default macOS screen capture of a window includes a border and

drop shadow (top), but you can easily change this for each capture or

permanently (bottom). A thin gray border was added in both cases to

show the extent of the image.