Macs have always had a cool facility for taking a snapshot of the screen built-in: just press Command-Shift-3 and youÆll hear a camera click sound effect, then a PICT file called picture 1 appears in the root directory of your hard drive.

But this method gives you the entire screen, including stuff thatÆs probably irrelevant to the point youÆre trying to make; itÆs irritating to have to crop and edit the images. The PICT file format also has its limitations, as anyone whoÆs had to edit one in Photoshop will attest.

Suffer no longer. The super-duper screen capture in Mac OS 7.6 or later adds these features for an easier life:

ò Command-Shift-4 turns the cursor into a crosshair. Click and hold this crosshair at the upper left of an area you want to capture and drag down and to the right, and the Mac will capture only the area of the screen you select.

ò CapsLock-Command-Shift-4 turns the cursor into a bullseye. Place this bullseye over an "active" screen area, such as a window, a dialogue box or an error message, and you can capture only that area, neatly cropped so you donÆt have to bother.

ò But I know you want more ù add the Control key to any of these key combinations and, instead of a PICT file in your hard driveÆs root directory, the screenshot is placed directly in the clipboard, ready to be pasted into Photoshop or any other application.