Mac OS X 10.7 Lion: Apple modifies how window captures work

 

In Mac OS X it is very easy to take a "screenshot" of what is happening on the desktop(s): simply pressing the keyboard shortcut command + shift + 3 provides a faithful reflection on the desktop of what we are doing.

 

For specific screenshots, those that allow you to capture only a portion of the screen, the keyboard shortcut changes: Command + Shift + 4 will bring up a crosshair that, by clicking and dragging, will allow you to capture only a fraction of the screen. But there are changes to this option.

 

If we press that keyboard shortcut, and then, while in crosshair mode, press the spacebar, a camera icon will appear, allowing us to capture only one application window. Since this feature was integrated, it was possible to capture the window in question or a pop-up submenu associated with it separately. However, in Lion, Apple seems to have "forgotten" this option and now captures the entire window, not the submenu or the underlying window separately. Perhaps it's an oversight on Apple's part, or perhaps they've abandoned a system feature, but for those of us who found it very useful, this disappearance forces us to do additional image editing to isolate those submenus in separate images.