macOS Catalina Delivers Convenient Editing of Screenshots

One of the things I like about iOS devices is that when you take a screenshot, a thumbnail hovers for a few seconds, allowing you to crop and annotate it. That convenient feature is now available on Macs as part of the macOS Catalina update. 

I discovered it quite by accident while taking a screenshot this morning in preparation for a different post. 

When clicked upon, the same annotation and editing tools previously found in Preview appear. What is different though about iOS and Catalina is that on the mobile platform, screenshots are saved to the Photos app. On Macs, the screenshots automatically save to the desktop just as they have in the past. 

Annotation and editing tools now are easier to access while working with screenshots on a Mac. 

The Untapped Power of Apple's Preview

Hands down my favorite feature of Keynote is the Instant Alpha tool. It takes out background color and really makes a huge difference when creating presentations with icons and logos. I also do a ton of creative layout and design work in Keynote. With Instant Alpha it functions just like Photoshop.

My only complaint was that although I could export slides as images, I couldn't export images with transparent backgrounds.

I shared this with my buddy Jon Corippo the other night and he mentioned using Preview to do it. I had really only ever used Preview to view .pdf files on my Mac. Jon explained that he builds in Keynote, saves as an image, and then opens it in Preview. The same Instant Alpha in Keynote exists on the "Edit Toolbar" in Preview (VIEW - Show Edit Toolbar). Once you alpha out your background you can export (under FILE) as a .png.

I had no idea.

The Edit Toolbar also allows you to add text and shapes, as well as crop and adjust your image...all for free.