- November 28, 2017
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- 2 min
The native screenshot utility in OSX is very handy, and I use it on a daily basis while creating documentation for our clients and staff. I am, however, not a big fan of the drop shadows that are included in screenshots. They use extra space in documents and the shadow establishes a spatial model that can detract from other information.
Shadows added to screenshots can be disabled with a few terminal commands, but a single command is better, so I’ve created a small shell script named dropShadow to make the process of disabling and enabling drop shadows easy.
Download dropShadow
dropShadow is located at Valiant’s Github page. Click here to download dropShadow, and then copy the dropshadow.sh file to a folder on your Mac. I like to keep small utilities like this in a cc folder (a holdover from my Windows admin days) on my Mac, but you can place it anywhere that works best for you.
Disable Screenshot Drop Shadows
To disable drop shadows, run dropshadow.sh in a terminal window and answer ‘n‘ when prompted. The script will apply the necessary settings to disable screenshot drop shadows and restart finder for you.
Screenshots, much like the ones used in the animation above, will no longer have drop shadows applied to them.
Enable Screenshot Drop Shadows
Restoring screenshot drop shadows is just as easy. Run dropshadow.sh from a terminal window and answer ‘y‘ when prompted. The script with re-enable settings for drop shadows and restart finder.
dropShadow is a small utility that makes working with screenshots in OSX a lot easier. No more editing shadows out of screenshots anymore; just run a single command and you’re set!
dropShadow is available as a free download via Github as open source under the MIT license.
Please feel free to use, share, and improve!
