CleanShot
I've always been a fan of the Unix “One Thing Well “ mentality: Apps should do one thing, and they should do it as best they can. So I keep an eye out for apps that live that mandate. It's so satisfying to find something that does what it's supposed to do and does it without making a fuss.
So I'm here to tell you about one I just discovered: CleanShot.
CleanShot is a capture tool. Intended to act as a stand-in for Mac OS's built-in screen capture capabilities, it improves them in small but impactful ways.
As the name implies, CleanShot cleans up your desktop for you, so that when you take a screenshot it doesn't reflect the actual messy state of your desktop. By default it hides desktop icons, but if you want it can also replace your desktop wallpaper. When you take a single-window screenshot it places your window serenely on a background of your choice, centered and un-cluttered by anything else you actually had open when you took the screenshot.
it's the difference between this:
and this:
I didn't actually close any windows between the two, CleanShot just hid them.
I realize this is a tiny little one thing well, but the presentation makes all the difference sometimes. This is a nice little tool to add to your belt.