Hawk Wings » photos

iPhoto2Gmail: Integrating iPhoto with Gmail

Tim Gaden — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 10:47:54 +0000

Juan Ignacio Leon’s excellent iPhoto2Gmail plugin has been updated and now offers even smarter ways for Gmail users to email photos from iPhoto.

Basically, it adds a pane to iPhoto’s “Export…” dialog:

The updated version offers a Contacts button that pulls down your Gmail contacts so that you pick the recipient(s) from that list.

Other new features include:

- A bugfix for RAW and other non-jpeg files that were not properly renamed when scaled.
- A fix for some situations in which the plugin would try to send message without recipients.
- Re-written code to be Object Oriented and Modular for maintainability.

You can get the revised version from Juan’s web site .iphoto, gmail, photos, webmail, plugin, web 2.0, integration, emailSimilar Posts:

Roll your own postcards in Mail.app

Tim Gaden — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 10:35:39 +0000

Postcards is an utility that lets you roll your own postcards or e-cards and send them easily with Mail.app.

To get started all you need to do is drop an image from your iPhoto library (or from anywhere for that matter) onto the app’s main window.

You can resize and reposition it, add a message in the pane to the right (adjust the font and text size to suit), and then add a stamp to the top of the postcard:

You can add a stamp from the library that comes with the app in the slide-out drawer on the right, or you can double-click on the stamp on the postcard.

You then get the chance to make your own stamp, using the built-in stamp editor:

Even the postmark can be customised.

When the postcard is finished, â‡§-âŒ˜-A opens it up in a new Mail.app message, ready to go.

The developer also provides a zip file of handwriting fonts to add that extra touch of hand-crafted realism.

In an extra nice touch, the app can capture an image from an iSight camera. Since mine is built-in into the top of the screen, I can grab an image of wherever I am and send it.

In minutes you can knock up a postcard to a loved one or a swanky promo for your pet project:

Postcards is shareware (USD 10) and available from the developer’s web site . You can try before you buy, but the postcards are watermarked “unlicenced” until you pay.

[Thanks, Anthony!]mail.app, apple mail, postcards, ecards, photos, iPhoto, roll your own, plugins, addons, anti-productivity, iSight, George BushSimilar Posts:

On Emailing Photos with Mail.app

Tim Gaden — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 13:58:49 +0000

Apple has published a tip on re-sizing photos in Mail “on the fly” which was picked up by TUAW (and others).

It points out that if you drag a full-sized photo into a new message window, you can then resize it using the drop-down menu in the bottom righthand corner to Large (1280×800 pixels), Medium (640×400) or Small (320×200) sizes:

Now, obviously, any Mail tip is a good one by definition and any resizing is better than none for your Sent Mail folder, your bandwidth and your recipient, but there is one thing that the tip doesn’t mention.

Mail sucks at resizing images.

A year ago, Rob Griffiths ran the tests and did the sums when the same tip was posted on macOSXHints. He discovered that Photoshop is between 61% and 73% more efficient at the same tasks. Even iPhoto itself does a better job.

Not everyone owns or likes sledge hammer apps like Photoshop, but if you do this a lot, you could consider utilities like Downsize or Scale to Mail, which will resize your images efficiently without the need to fire up the monster.

If you are reading this but for some perverse reason don’t use Mail, resized photos may still be within your grasp. If you use Claris Emailer, GyazMail, Mailsmith, Outlook Express, PowerMail or QuickMail Pro, Simon Jacquier’s iPhoto Mailer Patcher lets you hack iPhoto to set your email client as the recipient of resized photos.iphoto, mail.app, apple mail, images, photos, resizing, mailsmith, powermail, gyazmail, tipsSimilar Posts:

iPhoto2Gmail: Email photos with Gmail

Tim Gaden — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 12:26:32 +0000

A plugin for iPhoto exists that extends the range of email clients you can use to email photos from iPhoto, but nothing so far plugs that gap for webmail services.

Juan Leon stepped up to the challenge. He has produced an iPhoto plugin that uses Gmail to send photos.

After you install the package, you will find a new pane in iPhoto’s Export menu (File > Export in iPhoto 6, Share > Export in iPhoto 5):

The only possible pitfall here are the options for sizing the images. If the image you want to send is less than 800 pixels in width or height, the plugin enlarges it to that size. In that case, just select “Send original”.

Juan says that the plugin “is still a very early piece of software, probably has many bugs, and is rough around the edges”. I emailed a dozen photos of varying size and format tonight and it seems to work fine.

The resulting emails look good:

He welcomes constructive criticism at the email address you can find on his web page where you will also find the plugin, which is donationware.gmail, iphoto, email, photos, exporting, sharing, plugin, googleSimilar Posts:

iPhoto Mailer Patcher 4.1: Use iPhoto with more email clients

Tim Gaden — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 12:28:50 +0000

Simon Jacquier’s iPhoto Mailer Patcher is been updated so that it will work with any version of iPhoto 4.0 to 6.0.4.

By default, iPhoto’s “Send photos by email” feature only supports AOL, Eudora, Mail.app and Microsoft’s Entourage. iPhoto Mailer Patcher adds support for Claris Emailer, GyazMail, Mailsmith, Outlook Express, PowerMail and QuickMail Pro. Only Thunderbird misses out, due to its “unscriptability”.

Getting Simon’s hack to work with iPhoto 5 or 6 used to involve manually editing the ClientAppSignatures.plist file in iPhoto’s package. It was messy. Now it is all automated by the Patcher’s installer.

iPhoto Mailer Patcher is donation-ware and is available from Simon’s web site .iphoto, mail.app, apple mail, thunderbird, GyazMail, mailsmith, powermail, quickmail pro, email in general, photos, email, appleSimilar Posts:

Gmail adds photos to contacts

Tim Gaden — Fri, 12 May 2006 02:03:07 +0000

Gmail users will soon be able to add photos to their Gmail contacts.

Google has announced that the feature will be rolled out into users’ accounts, starting now.

They will look like this, apparently displayed as a tool tip.

The announcement continues, “you can pick ones for yourself, see which ones your friends have chosen, and set certain pictures to show up for specific people in your Gmail account. Best of all, you can even send picture suggestions to your friends.”

A further note in the Gmail Help Center explains that “Gmail pictures can be configured to show to all users who you email or who email you, or they can be limited to only those users who are able see when you’re online.”

[Thanks, Sebastian!]gmail, contacts, photos, google, emailSimilar Posts:

Emailing photos in Mail.app

Tim Gaden — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 12:52:39 +0000

MegaPixel Maven posts a tip on resizing photos in Mail.app using the “Image Size” drop box in the bottom right-hand corner of the Compose window.

As the author points out, you can use this function to reduce an image in the Compose window to Large (1280×800 pixels), Medium (640×400) or Small (320×200) sizes.

Three points:

Mail does a really bad job of reducing the image. Rob Griffiths ran some tests on this when the tip was posed on macOSXHints last year. He discovered that Photoshop is between 61% and 73% more efficient at the same tasks. Even iPhoto itself does a better job.

Another option is to use a utility like Downisze or Scale to Mail, which will resize your images efficiently without the need to fire up a monster like Photoshop.

If you use Claris Emailer, GyazMail, Mailsmith, Outlook Express, PowerMail or QuickMail Pro, Simon Jacquier’s iPhoto Mailer Patcher lets you hack iPhoto to set your email client as the recipient of resized photos. Instructions can be found in an earlier Hawk Wings post.

iphoto, mail.app, apple mail, images, photos, resizing, mailsmith, powermail, gyazmail, tips Similar Posts:

iPhoto 6 bug with emailed pictures

Tim Gaden — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 13:25:37 +0000

Pierre Igot at Betalogue has noticed an odd bug in the way iPhoto 6 sends some photos to Mail.app for emailing.

If you change the orientation of a photo in iPhoto and then try to email it by sending the image to Mail.app, the orientation change gets lost.

It only happens the first time you try it though. If you kill the email and try again from iPhoto everything is fine. Odd. Similar Posts: