Quickly Create a New Image File from Clipboard Contents with Preview
Jun 29, 2011 - 8 Comments
With Preview you can quickly create a new image file from your clipboard contents. On it’s own that might not be too enthralling, but this feature extends beyond Preview, meaning any image that you have copied from anywhere using Command+C will work as the source image to create a new image file. This includes images copied from all web browsers, other Mac apps, and even files in the Mac OS X Finder.
Once you have an image copied to the clipboard:
- Open Preview
- Hit Command+N to create a new image based on the clipboard (or access via the File menu as screenshot demonstrates)
- Save the File as usual in your preferred format
I use this frequently when saving images from the web since it cuts out any digging around in the Finder for a saved image file. Instead, I can just copy an image to my clipboard from Safari, and go straight to Preview to create a new file which can instantly be edited or converted.
You can also use the selector tool in Preview to highlight and copy aspects of an image to create a new document from those. That is what I do for quick edits and crops.
That will be one of YOUR images saved from the web I hope , and not a copyrighted images your about to steal.
I wish apple would give us a clipboard with a history function.
Try one of these, Mike..
Clyppan
Open source and free
Simple
Jumpcut
Open source and free
Even simpler
thanks
I use Jumpcut… but I found the default hotkeys interfere with other hotkeys so I changed mine to ALT-⌘-V.
I use this to save desktop backgrounds from Flickr all the time, great little trick
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