Remove margins in Affinity Photo

[beatrixwillius]

Hi,

how do I remove margins from images?

For whatever reason my MacBook Air with Big Sur/M1 still makes screenshots with shadow even after doing a Terminal command to get rid of the shadows. Of course, I can remove the shadows manually. But do a lot of screenshots. Therefore, I want to do a macro in Affinity Photo. But I can only add margins and not remove them. Did I overlook anything?

[carl123]

1. Can you upload a screenshot with the margins(?) you want to remove via a macro

2. Are all your screenshots the same size?

[beatrixwillius]

1. Sure,  h ere are 2 typical screenshots from my application. 

2. The screenshots don't have the same sizes. But the shadow seems to have the same size each time. 

[carl123]

I don't use a Mac but I can see the problem

Try this macro on a few screenshots to see if it does what you want

Install it via the Library panel

nuketheshadows.afmacros

[loukash]

2 hours ago, beatrixwillius said:

even after doing a Terminal command to get rid of the shadows

This? defaults-write.com/disable-screenshots-shadow-mac
Could be that something has changed in Big Sur. I can't tell as I don't have a Big Sur compatible Mac.

Otherwise try bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html which is always being updated for the current MacOS.

[beatrixwillius]

@carl123: Thanks, I'll try the macro.

@loukash: I tried several times with the Terminal command. I've used in on all versions of macOS that came before BS. TinkerTool uses the same Terminal command under the hood and correctly shows that the shadows are off. And I still get the shadows.

[loukash]

Just now, beatrixwillius said:

TinkerTool uses the same Terminal command under the hood

Of course.

Just now, beatrixwillius said:

And I still get the shadows.

That's weird.
A Bug Sur big? … er, I mean: a Big Sur bug?

On El Capitan, this setting is stored in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.screencapture.plist

[Old Bruce]

7 hours ago, beatrixwillius said:

how do I remove margins from images?

When I make the screen shot I use the Option Key held down when I click on the window and that gets rid of the shadow. Standard Mac OS Command + Shift + 5 then the option when I go to click.

[Jeremy Bohn]

4 hours ago, loukash said:

This? defaults-write.com/disable-screenshots-shadow-mac

Should be this:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow true

killall SystemUIServer

From MacWorld

[loukash]

4 minutes ago, Jeremy Bohn said:

From MacWorld

Speaking of adding a bitmap border, Fleishman is wrong that you'd need to buy a 3rd party app to add one.
You can do that in Preview as well:

1. make your window screenshot directly to clipboard
2. open Preview > New From Clipboard
3. Tools > Adjust Size > add a few pixels for each side (stretches the images but don't worry)
4. add a solid color rectangle that covers the whole screenshot (I said don't worry!)
5. paste (see? you didn't need to worry because the screenshhot was still on the clipboard)
6. center the pasted screenshot
7. save

Either that, or if you don't mind to crop a few pixels from your screenshot, simply add a rectangle with a border but without a fill directly over the the captured screenshot.

Preview is more powerful than most people think.

[jmwellborn]

I have the IT qualifications of a squirrel (or maybe less) but could this be the answer?  Tried on my MacBook Pro, Big Sur, M1 chip.

[loukash]

@jmwellborn, both cmd-shift-4 methods are correct as is.

The issue discussed herein is that there's a hidden option to disable the window shadow for the spacebar-click method. This is possible either via command line or via 3rd party utilities since… uh don't remember… decades, but it doesn't seem to work for @beatrixwillius on Big Sur.

But:

For what it's worth, I have temporarily disabled the hidden preference and checked @Old Bruce's suggestion about the option key.
And, lo & behold, it works. At least on El Capitan. Didn't know that.

So, to create a window screenshot without the window shadow using the standard setting:
cmd-shift-4 + spacebar (camera icon) + option-click

In any case: if you want to change the hidden preference either via command line or via TinkerTool, you must then either log out or restart the SystemUI Server for the change to take effect.

[Old Bruce]

24 minutes ago, jmwellborn said:

I have the IT qualifications of a squirrel (or maybe less) but could this be the answer?

me too...  This is on Mac OS 10.14.6          

Command + Shift + 4 

hold space bar and Option

No shadow.

[jmwellborn]

Thanks @loukash and @Old Bruce!  Hooray!  New wrinkle.   Works like a charm in both High Sierra (iMac) and Big Sur (MacBook Pro).  Who knew?  I'm back to scrounging for acorns!🐿️

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Command + Shift + 4 

hold space bar and Option

No shadow.

Nice tip! Surprisingly, using the option with the spacebar is not mentioned in https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/take-screenshots-or-screen-recordings-mh26782/10.15/mac/10.15 (or in any of the other OS versions it covers).

[beatrixwillius]

18 hours ago, loukash said:

Of course.

That's weird.
A Bug Sur big? … er, I mean: a Big Sur bug?

On El Capitan, this setting is stored in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.screencapture.plist

Yup. Seems so. Going to make another Feedback report. Because they already fixed so many of my bugs.

The trick with the option key uses too many of my fingers.

The macro works fine!