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The Ultimate Guide for switching from a PC to a Mac
(Part 2 - coming soon)

Monday, May 28, 2007

Editing photos in a separate application!

iPhoto is a great application for managing a relatively large photo library as well as for importing from your digital camera. When it comes to editing however, even with the super secret advanced editing mode (see previous tip), it is still lacking many features. This is where applications such as the Gimp (the Gimp is a free open-source photo editing application requiring X11) or Photoshop comes into play. Unfortunately, neither of these applications offer a quick and easy way of bringing the photos from iPhoto and returning them to your library once the editing is done. Well it seems like Apple didn't forget this issue and included a very well implemented solution.

First, go to "iPhoto" and "Preferences...". In the "General" tab, there is an option called "Edit photo:". From there, choose "In application...". A dialog window will pop up where you can choose any editing application (Photoshop, the Gimp, Seashore). The only downside now is that every time you double-click on a picture, that application will launch. If you would rather have the iPhoto editing by default and be able to choose when to send the picture to Photoshop, switch the "Edit photo:" back to "In main window" (or the other options if you prefer).


Basically what you did was you told iPhoto which application you want to use as your "external editor". Now, you will still be brought to iPhoto editing mode when double-clicking on a photo, but when you right-click on a picture, the option "Edit in external editor" is no longer grayed out.


It basically adds an "on demand" separate editing application from within iPhoto! What is really awesome about that is when you hit "Save" in the editing application, the photo will change automatically in iPhoto.

4 Comments:

Blogger Ben said...

Thanks! That's a really useful feature :)

May 28, 2007 at 5:01 AM  
Blogger BJM said...

Yes - a very useful tip! I followed your instructions: I clicked on "Adobe Photoshop CS2" then realized I had to do it again (i.e. the next level down) in order to OPEN the file. It worked exactly as stated. Thank you for this!

May 28, 2007 at 5:44 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

When I edit a picture with iPhoto, it always saves a copy of the original picture so whenever you want, you can revert to the original picture. When you edit like you said, let say in Photoshop, then save the file, does iPhoto saves a copy of the original too? Thank You

May 28, 2007 at 6:18 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

That's brilliant! Would never have worked that out.I use Seashore - much easier for me than The Gimp but also free.
http://seashore.sourceforge.net/ and for quick re-sizing for web I like Image Well.
http://xtralean.com/IWOverview.html

May 29, 2007 at 4:58 AM  

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