We’re all familiar with the built in OS X shortcut commands. Command+Shift+3 for grabbing the full screen, Cmd+Shift+4 for grabbing and area, and Cmd+Shift+4 and then hitting the spacebar to grab an application frame, which crops the screenshot to the exact dimentions, including the shadows and transparency intact. 

But what happens when you need to grab different UI elements from the screen? Many a times I have found myself taking multiple screenshots and aligning them inside of Photoshop. Enter, Layers. 

This brilliant piece of software, captures you entire screen, and saves it as a layered photoshop file. Just hit the keyboard shortcut, and your work is done. You can also grab the frontmost application if you want, but that’s just added functionality. 

The layered file

What amazes me is the amount of detail that is put into the file. Every window and screen element is neatly marked with its correct name, and these are all clubbed into layer groups. You can for instance at once turn off all the desktop objects, or click away elements from your menubar. You can even remove the window reflections from the dock!

Advanced Capture

Bringing up the Inspector from the Layers app, you get an advanced menu for capturing desktop elements. The UI is very intuitive, with a slick core animation to show you what exactly you are saving. For instance, I could save only the spotlight menubar icon by clicking its name and hitting save. Using the menubar controls, you can also grab just the shadow, application frame, or an pure white shot of a window if you need it. 

The inspector allows you to select which display you want to capture from, save the screenshot as a composite, or a bunch of images. 

The final word

If you need this kind of functionality, Layers will not disappoint. At $15 for a license, it is very adequately priced. Casual users of course will not need this as snapping one window at a time is good enough for most part. Check out the trial anyway, you might just be floored.