Screenshot Helper 2.0

Screenshot Helper shows a full screen window with a solid color or a desktop picture so that you can take clean screenshots without having irrelevant windows and desktop icons in the background.

The easiest way to get a clean desktop for screenshots on Mac OS X is to create a brand-new user account and log in as a brand-new user. But if you need to use your own user account for whatever reason and you have a messy desktop like I do, you can use Screenshot Helper to hide the actual desktop in order to take clean screenshots. You can also make the entire screen solid black, white, red, green, or blue to check dead or stuck pixels on your LCD screen, or for a blue or green screen chroma key. Typically, open the Screenshot Helper application, check the "Always cover the entire screen" and "Cover the desktop icons only" checkboxes in the Preferences panel, close the Preferences panel, press command - option - H to hide other applications, click the application icon on the Dock to open the application you want to take screenshots, and press command - shift - 3 to take screenshots.