Sending Images for MEW from Apple Devices

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

A request not a question!

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

This post is not a dig at Apple users, it's just that over the last few weeks several contributors (and my wife) have struggled to send me images from the i-stuff using email. To be fair this does seem to be an Outlook vs. Apple issue.

For some unfathomable reason, when people with a Mac, iPad or iPhone send me images, they get embedded in the email. While this is great for sharing selfies, it isn't very useful for publications.

This usually means they are compressed, losing quality, saving becomes rather involved (you can't drag and drop them like attachments) and also they lose their filename. If you send me twelve neatly numbered pictures I get twelve un-named images.

As guessing which is which usually means getting it wrong, this then results in a lot of messing around to ensure they are properly captioned and placed.

There are some very long-winded cures for this on the web, as attaching images instead of embedding them appears to be 'deprecated' by Apple.

The ideal is to number images (photo01, photo02 etc. to match the caption list and placeholders in the text) and put them in a zip folder which you should be able to attach in the normal way.

Keep the zip folders less than about 8Mb because if they are bigger the email bounces and I don't get any notification.

If you have a lot of or very large images, consider using dropbox or wetransfer t send them instead.

I don't recommend Google cloud as the upload/download process seems to be clumsy (you have to visit a separate webpage for each image, it seems) and it seems to lose files sometimes.

Thanks

Neil

[VicParticipant @vic]

I think it may depend on file type. If folks send me JPEGs from any platform to my Mac they appear on screen with the text. It's simply a matter of right clicking on the image to save it, open it in a new window or open it with a specific application. Other file types may appear as an icon that requires "opening". Curiously PNG image files show up fine but only offer a "copy" option. If your email client doesn't offer similar functionality perhaps it's time to try another. As a point of interest my Mac doesn't compress images unless I ask it to do so, the options are: full (original) size or I can reduce the images to small, medium or large. If I choose to reduce the image it resizes it on screen and indicates the file size. I suggest you ask for TIFF or maybe DNG files if you can handle them. If you like I can send you some test files in different formats.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Neil,

Yes, it's all getting rather frustrating … Apple seems determined to force the 'Photos' App on us !

Incidentally; It's not a 'universal panacea' but, an App called Photogene4 is well-worth the modest cost.

**LINK**

Photogene ⁴ by Omer Shoor
https://appsto.re/gb/7ECQv.i

… It's a very powerful tool

MichaelG.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Vic on 03/10/2016 14:47:01:

I think it may depend on file type. If folks send me JPEGs from any platform to my Mac they appear on screen with the text. It's simply a matter of right clicking on the image to save it, open it in a new window or open it with a specific application. Other file types may appear as an icon that requires "opening". Curiously PNG image files show up fine but only offer a "copy" option. If your email client doesn't offer similar functionality perhaps it's time to try another. As a point of interest my Mac doesn't compress images unless I ask it to do so, the options are: full (original) size or I can reduce the images to small, medium or large. If I choose to reduce the image it resizes it on screen and indicates the file size. I suggest you ask for TIFF or maybe DNG files if you can handle them. If you like I can send you some test files in different formats.

Right click and save is a pain as you have to navigate to the destination folder every time, but more than that because they don't have file names It is very hard to keep track of which photo is which – you cut out 30 photos from a long article then try and match each one up with its reference in the text! I am sure that they often get either over-compressed or redownsampled, often severely, but this may be down to individual user's settings.

TIFFs and PNG tend to be so large they need multiple emails, and I usually have to convert them to jpg anyway as I can't upload individual files larger than 6Mb to the MTM server.

The zip folder route solves all these issues at a stroke.

Neil

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 03/10/2016 14:52:39:

Photogene ⁴ by Omer Shoor
https://appsto.re/gb/7ECQv.i

… It's a very powerful tool

MichaelG.

If you have a Mac?

I already have more photo-related programs than photos,(at least it feels like it).

Neil

[VicParticipant @vic]

I naturally assumed that as you're using a PC that you can't drag and drop as on a Mac. If you're saying you can (normally) drag and drop then again perhaps it's time to try another email client. It's a shame I'm not still at work, actually no, not really! but I never had any problems transferring files to and from Mac's and PC's for common file formats. Apple do use the "attach" file option in Mail by the way, it's just easier to drag and drop the image onto the email.

[VicParticipant @vic]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 03/10/2016 14:58:40:

Right click and save is a pain as you have to navigate to the destination folder every time.

Neil

I can see how irritating that could be. On a Mac if you save a file to a particular folder the next time you save a file it takes you back to the last folder you saved to.

[Steve PaveyParticipant @stevepavey65865]

This problem is sometimes blamed on the way Windows (probably Outlook specifically) handles rich text formats, and sometimes on the way OS X handles images. If you drag and drop a photo from a finder window into a compose mail window it should normally treat it as an attachment, whereas sending the image from the OS X Photo application will embed it.

The workaround for Mac users is to either pop the photos into a zip folder as Neil suggests, to add the photo as an attachment from the menu, or to go into Terminal and force the photos to always be attachments with this:

At the command prompt type : defaults write com.apple.mail DisableInlineAttachmentViewing -bool yes

The workaround for Windows users is to upgrade to a Mac.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Vic on 03/10/2016 15:35:50:

I naturally assumed that as you're using a PC that you can't drag and drop as on a Mac. If you're saying you can (normally) drag and drop then again perhaps it's time to try another email client. It's a shame I'm not still at work, actually no, not really! but I never had any problems transferring files to and from Mac's and PC's for common file formats. Apple do use the "attach" file option in Mail by the way, it's just easier to drag and drop the image onto the email.

? drag and drop; has worked with Windows and most windows applications for as long as I can remember.

You can only drop files into a folder, you can drop embedded images into a document, but not a folder (Imagine it was text and the distinction becomes obvious). In Outlook if I drop an image file on an email it becomes an attachment, if I drag an image out of a document, it gets embedded.

The attach file option in mail embeds jpegs in the email by default, it can be changed but it's 'under the hood tinkering' not a simple settings change that most people won't want to do. I know because I scared a few people by sending them a 'how to' link.

File exchange between both platforms is simple, its just Mail's refusal to attach jpegs instead of embedding them that keeps causing grief.

Neil

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 03/10/2016 16:15:44

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Vic on 03/10/2016 15:44:26:

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 03/10/2016 14:58:40:

Right click and save is a pain as you have to navigate to the destination folder every time.

Neil

I can see how irritating that could be. On a Mac if you save a file to a particular folder the next time you save a file it takes you back to the last folder you saved to.

Windows remembers the last used directory for each app, but for some reason it assumes that 'save as' with a picture should always be the pictures folder. But it's the loss of filenames & downsampling that's the issue.

[VicParticipant @vic]

I've just checked on my Mac (I mostly use an iPad these days) and yes, as expected you can drag and drop an image from Mail into a folder. It also retains the original file name as you'd expect.u

Steve, an alternative for Neil is to just to wait for Microsoft to add these features to Windows.

You can also simply right click and "compress" (Zip) an image file. Perhaps that would work for you Neil.

[VicParticipant @vic]

Drag and drops been on a Mac a lot longer than Windows.

https://www.quora.com/History-of-Apple-Inc-Who-invented-the-drag-and-drop-paradigm

[Enough!Participant @enough]

Posted by Vic on 03/10/2016 16:31:54:

Drag and drops been on a Mac a lot longer than Windows.

Oh goody – I'm so glad you cleared that up.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Vic on 03/10/2016 16:22:37:

You can also simply right click and "compress" (Zip) an image file. Perhaps that would work for you Neil.

The main pointy of this thread is that I am asking mac users to do this, as experience shows zipping is the easiest way most Mac users can send me images.

Neil

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 03/10/2016 15:00:03:

If you have a Mac?

.

… If you have an iPad, actually

MichaelG.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 03/10/2016 19:24:34:

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 03/10/2016 15:00:03:

If you have a Mac?

.

… If you have an iPad, actually

Sorry if you have a Apple device.

N.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Clearly not worth trying to help.

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

Neil

You have my sympathy!

I don't receive as many emails from Apple users as you do but the ones I do get are a real pain. I don't blame the Mac or IOS users themselves because they seem to be discouraged from sending pictures as attachments. The contacts I have that regularly send me embedded pictures are not computer whizzkids and my requests to 'attach' might work for a couple of weeks and then its back to bad habits again.

I'm not sure whether problems like this can ever be satisfactorily solved. All the big companies want you to work in a way that suits them. In the past I have installed apps and installed and tried new programmes, but it invariably just gets more complicated and bloated, now I just live withe it.

Ian P

with embedded pictures

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 03/10/2016 19:49:27:

Clearly not worth trying to help.

Sorry… you have to understand that despite being trapped in a house full of iAddicts, I lack a basic understanding of what works with what – are you saying iPad apps don't work on an iMac or a Macbook?

I thought that Apple were into a one-for-all policy that Microsoft were copying with W10 which works the same across all platforms – phones, tablets and computers – or have MS got there first this time?.

Neil.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Ian,

You may like to try this [found on an Apple discussion about this Outlook problem]:

Another workaround is to save the message as HTML, which will produce a folder for resources, one of which is your image.

 

.

The post is a couple of years old; so things may have changed … but it should be simple enough to test.

Ref: **LINK**

 

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 03/10/2016 21:22:21

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 03/10/2016 21:05:44:

… are you saying iPad apps don't work on an iMac or a Macbook?

.

Yes

iOS and OS_ are rapidly converging, but they're currently two discrete systems.

MichaelG.

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

Michael

I tried the suggestion with an email I received earlier this evening, it has three embedded images which were scanned in and sent from a Mac. I saved the email as .htm but no folder seems to be created and on opening the htm the picture placeholder links are dead

Maybe things have changed in two years.

Ian P

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Thanks for trying, Ian … It all adds to the pool of knowledge; even if it's not the answer we might have liked.

MichaelG.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

I think I will stick with asking people to use zip folders – it's simple to do, easy to explain and it works.

Neil

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