Plasma secrets: Remove shadows in screenshots

Screenshots without shadows. Like Doctors Without Borders, only far less important. I've written this short tutorial explaining how to take screenshots of windowed applications in the Plasma desktop without any shadows or border transparency, including theme edits, compositing, GIMP and Gnome screenshot alternatives, some other tips and tricks, and more. Enjoy.

https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/plasma-screenshots-shadows.html


Cheers,
Mrk

 

I use gnome-screenshot on Kubuntu 16.04 like this:

Code:

Name=WholeScreen GSS
CommandURL=gnome-screenshot -p -f /home/vasa1/Dropbox/Screenshots/"GS$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S)".png
Key=Meta+Ctrl+W

Name=Active GSS
CommandURL=gnome-screenshot -wp -f /home/vasa1/Dropbox/Screenshots/"GS$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S)".png
Key=Meta+Ctrl+A

Name=Delayed GSS
CommandURL=gnome-screenshot -p -d 10 -f /home/vasa1/Dropbox/Screenshots/"GS$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S)".png
Key=Meta+Ctrl+D

Name=Interactive GSS
CommandURL=gnome-screenshot -a -f /home/vasa1/Dropbox/Screenshots/"GS$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S)".png
Key=Meta+Ctrl+I

 

Thanks very much for the article, Mrk.
Apart form from the options mentioned in your article, could Shutter or KSnapshot offer viable options for creating screenshots without shadows?

 

Not yet, I hope they release a togglable feature soon.
Mrk

 

Ow, pity.

Yes, let's hope so.
Thanks, Mrk.

 

Funny, I've never come across this with Spectacle. Works perfectly here on Kubuntu 16.04 with Naked theme.

 

I did mention themes can affect this - also do you use compositing?
Mrk

 

Yes, I do. Check screenshot - there is no solid black border.

 

But there's no window border - what if you do take window borders also.
Mrk

 

Ok, here with window borders..

 

So you do have a significant transparency area around the window borders.
Mrk

 

Actually you are correct, I didn't notice because I usually select 'rectangular region'. If I select 'active window' there is a narrow transparent border, but being transparent it is not shown when pasting for example in an email.
If I select 'rectangular' region there are no borders, transparent or otherwise.

 

Well, hopefully, they will fix it and give us a switch.
Mrk

 

A late reply, but perhaps it can be helpful to someone.

In Kubuntu 18.04, I have been using Shutter screenshot tool.
For Kubuntu 20.04, I decided to choose GNOME Screenshot, mentioned as option 4 in Plasma secrets: Remove shadows in screenshots.
Instead of pinning it to task manager, as suggested, I added it to the Plasma menu, Kickoff Application Launcher, as shown in the How to add and pin custom applications in Plasma article.
For the command, I used the one mentioned in Plasma secrets: Remove shadows in screenshots:
gnome-screenshot --interactive
Works great.
Thanks very much.

 

As the border issue is still the same with Spectacle in Kubuntu, and as Shutter is not in the Ubuntu 18.10+ repositories and as I am not overly enthusiastic about using a limited Shutter snap version nor about using the unofficial PPA, I was using GNOME Screenshot instead, as I mentioned earlier.

I thought GNOME Screenshot was OK. However, yesterday, I noticed the 'Select area to grab' option results in screenshots with a blue tint to it that shouldn't be there. Web searching, I find more reports of such issue with GNOME Screenshot (1),(2),(3). I didn't notice before. Perhaps I never used GNOME Screenshot's 'Select area to grab' option before? Or something changed, now causing that issue for me. Anyhow, that issue makes GNOME Screenshot unusable to me.

Now I use Xfce4-screenshooter instead. It's mostly like GNOME Screenshot, but without the blue tint issue.
Xfce4-screenshooter was also examined in the dedoimedo OCS Mag article Xfce apps - In the land of Tux, where the shadows lie.


[Edit: links to reports added; 1,2,3]

 

New versions of GS now also add alpha for no good reason. The xfce one does the job (or an older version of GS).
Mrk

 

Thanks. I see that you mentioned that in the Fedora 33 essential post-install tweaks article, last December.
Let's hope no one is gonna mess up Xfce4-screenshooter as well.