Apple iPhoto 11 brings big changes to the task of emailing photos
iPhoto 11 works with email in a new way. Rather than using an Application to send the email as before, what they have done is handle the email within iPhoto. So, you input your Email Account details - the name of your service, the account name, password, etc, and iPhoto uses that information to send the email via your account.
There’s an element of swings and roundabouts in this.
He isn’t kidding.
Having recently upgraded to iLife 11, I’ve found most of the changes to be welcome, however the task of emailing photos has changed dramatically and not necessarily for the better for everyone. We (iPhoto users) have all gotten used to selecting the photos we want to send, pressing the Email button in iPhoto to share photos with friends, family, etc. This used to open a dialog box where you would choose the size of the photos, then open a new email message in either Mail or Entourage with your photos neatly attached.
With iPhoto 11, this simple, widely used method is no longer there. iPhoto 11 sends emails directly from within iPhoto, rather than switching you to your email program. Using this new way to email photos is completely different and rather frustrating. There is no option to send a plain email message with photos attached - you have to select a template, which is in itself a jpeg file that is created with thumbnails of your images contained within, presented on a nice elegant background.
There are several problems with this method.
First, and possibly most frustrating for me, the thumbnails included in the non-editable template in your email message are not the entire photo. iPhoto 11 crops the images to fit the template’s thumbnail box and you have absolutely no control over the cropping. The end result may or may not convey the intent of the actual photo.
Second, iPhoto attaches the photos as a zipped archive. While this might be a standard way of emailing attachments for many, it means that the recipient of your email can no longer click on an image in your email to open it in Preview or whatever image viewer they use on their computer, PC or Mac. They first have to expand the zip archive to get to the photos. Again, standard practice for many, but confusing as hell for Grandma, Grandpa or anyone that is not a more advanced computer user, and that is a very large percentage of overall computer users. Everyone you regularly send photos to via email will have to change their way of viewing them.
There are other issues with this application that are being discussed on Apple’s Support Discussion Forums, but the two mentioned above are the most glaring.
Fortunately, there are a few ways to work around the use of these templates and send the type of email message you are used to sending. In the linked discussion above, user Terence Devlin explains how to create an Automator action to accomplish what you used be able to do by pressing the Email button in iPhoto. This may be a bit challenging for many, but it is the most comprehensive way to mimic the previous behavior.
Another method is described in this discussion by user Old Toad:
Create your email in Mail and use the Photo Browser button at the top to peruse your library and select the photos to use. Then use the Image Size menu at the bottom to set the size to send.
He includes a screenshot to make this easy to understand. This method may be the easiest way to replicate the old behavior.
Another way to do this without using the Photo Browser is to select the photos in iPhoto 11 and copy them, then switch to Mail, create your message, paste in the photos and then use the Image Size menu at the bottom of your message window to set the size.
I understand the reasoning behind the change, but it definitely takes some getting used to. I hope that Apple allows for a no-template method for emailing photos in a future update to iPhoto/iLife 11. In the meantime, I will learn how to work around this rather inconvenient new feature.