Seashore (Free) is another image editor based on the GIMP’s technology, but has an interface that fits more with Mac OS X. It also focuses on providing basic image editing tools for most users. Make Photoshop your default image editor in Windows 10; 02. Make Photoshop your default image editor in Mac OS X; 03. How to create a new document in Photoshop; 04. How to open images in Photoshop; 05. How to open images into Photoshop from Adobe Bridge; 06. How to change File Type Associations in Adobe Bridge; 07. How to open images into Camera Raw; 08.
Did you know that your Mac’s Preview app can double up as a photo editor? It’s sure to save you the hassle of using more complex programs like Photoshop or even Apple Photos for basic editing tasks.
Let’s see how you can use Preview to edit photos. Keep in mind that the edits your make with Preview are destructive. So if you want to retain the original photo for future use, you should make a copy before editing it with Preview.
How to Crop Photos With Preview on Mac
To crop a photo, you’ll first need to select the part of it you want to keep. That’s where the rectangular marquee selection tool comes in.
The tool is active by default; all you have to do is click and drag the mouse over the relevant area to select it. It’s convenient that you can see the dimensions of the selected area at the edge of the cursor.
Want to move the marquee selection to a different part of the photo? Click and drag the selection to where you want it to show up.
If you want to limit the selection to a perfect square, hold down the Shift key during selection. Hold down the Option key if you’d like to scale the selected area up and down from the center.
Once you’re satisfied with the selection, click on Tools > Crop to crop the photo. If you want to crop out the area you selected and keep the rest instead, click on Edit > Invert Selection.
Selecting Specific Areas of a Photo
Want to select irregularly shaped portions of a photo before editing? The rectangular marquee selection tool isn’t much help for that.
But the Lasso Selection and Smart Lasso tools are. They let you manually draw a selection marquee around any object in a photo. You can access them via the Markup toolbar, which we’ll get to later on.
How to Resize or Rotate Photos With Preview on Mac
If you want to resize a photo instead of cropping it, you’ll need to click on Tools > Adjust Size. (Of course, you don’t need to select any part of the photo first.)
In the tool window that shows up, you’ll see that you can resize the photo to various preset dimensions or choose custom values. The tool also displays the file size pre- and post-resizing.
By default, the resize tool scales your image proportionally and resamples it too. If you don’t want that to happen, you can deselect the relevant checkboxes. After the resize settings are in place, click the OK button to trigger the resize action.
As for the rotate and flip actions, you’ll see them in the Tools menu. You’ll also find a Rotate button in the primary toolbar.
Preview also lets you add shapes and text to your photos. Look for the annotation tools under Tools > Annotate. On that note, you might want to go through our simple guide to annotationsThe Simple Guide to Annotations: How to Annotate PDFs, Ebooks, Images, and WebsitesThe Simple Guide to Annotations: How to Annotate PDFs, Ebooks, Images, and WebsitesWhat exactly is annotation all about? And how should you annotate what you read? Here are the best tools for common document types.Read More to make the best use of them.
How to Adjust Image Colors in Preview on Mac
If you want to, say, sharpen a photo or change its brightness or saturation, you can do so with Preview’s light and color adjustment tool. It’s nothing fancy, but it does the job. To bring up this tool, click on Tools > Adjust Color.
The color tool comes with sliders to adjust various parameters such as exposure, contrast, and saturation. You can use them to create:
- Grayscale images: Drag the Saturation slider all the way to the left.
- Sepia-toned images: Adjust the Sepia slider.
- Warmer or cooler- looking images: Drag the Temperature slider to the left (cooler) or to the right (warmer).
As you adjust the sliders, you’ll see that the image updates itself in the background. If you’re not happy with the changes you see, you can trace your way back one change at a time with the undo shortcut, Cmd + Z.
If you’d rather revert to the original photo, click the Reset All button at the bottom in the tool window.
You might need to play around with the sliders a bit to get a realistic, better-looking photo. The shortest route to a somewhat improved image is the Auto Levels button. It fixes a few basic color and exposure problems for you.
How to Batch Resize Photos in Preview on Mac
If you want to resize multiple photos to specific dimensions, you can do so with Preview.
Select the relevant photos in Finder and drag them onto the Preview app’s Dock icon to open them. You’ll now see the thumbnails of all selected photos in Preview’s sidebar. Select them all by clicking on Edit > Select All or by hitting Cmd + A.
Now use the resize tool to set common image dimensions. Once you hit the OK button in the tool window, Preview resizes all the images for you. The app might be unresponsive for a while if you selected many photos to get through.
You can also use this batch-editing trick to export images to a common format.
Get Familiar With the Markup Toolbar
While you can access the edit functions above from the menu bar, it’s more convenient to do so from the Markup toolbar.
This special toolbar stays hidden by default. To reveal it, click on the Show Markup Toolbar button to the left of the search box in the primary toolbar.
The Markup toolbar gives you access to most of the important editing actions like Crop, Adjust Size, and Adjust Color. It also displays selection and annotation tools.
You can edit images, take screenshots, split and merge PDFs, and do a lot more with Preview on your Mac, which is why it’s one of the default Mac apps you don’t need to replace.
If you’ve used the app only for viewing PDFs and images, it’s time you took a closer look at it. Start by testing out our essential Preview tips and tricks10 Essential Tips and Tricks for Preview on the Mac10 Essential Tips and Tricks for Preview on the MacPreview is an unassuming app that can do the job of half a dozen standalone utilities.Read More.
Image Credit: tomeversley/Depositphotos
Explore more about: Image Editing Tips, Image Editor, Mac Tips, Preview App.
Does anyone know if you can search JPEG photos by annotation keyword?
Been on PCs for a few decades. Mac for about an hour.
El Capitan 10.11.5. This is how I cropped a photo.
1) Make a duplicate of the original image
2) Select the portion that you want to keep
3) 'Invert Selection,' which will cause everything to be selected except the portion you selected
4) 'Delete,' which deletes everything except the portion you originally selectedyou can use your mouse to copy sections and then open them up in new files. you can also drag your mouse over parts of the image to delete them.
I use Preview frequently. Especially for jpeg images I am putting on Facebook for fun for instance.
But a problem has cropped up. WHen I make a sepia image, it isn't saved in sepia, it returns to
B/W...what's up with this?HOLA COMO ESTATU
FOTO
Photos for OS X is designed to appeal to a broad audience, with simple editing tools that let anyone improve their photographs. But is that it? Even though it’s a 1.0 product (replacing iPhoto and Aperture), a lot of editing power is actually hidden beneath that user-friendly surface.
For example, when you edit a photo and click the Adjust button, you’re presented with sliders for improving light and color. Dragging a slider makes the image brighter or darker (Light), or more or less saturated (Color); you can also click the Auto button that appears when the mouse pointer moves over the tool. Clicking the down-facing arrow icon, however, exposes individual controls.
That’s just the beginning.
Jump into editing
To access the editing view, normally you click the Edit button when viewing an image, but there’s a better way: simply press the Return key. This shortcut also works in the Moments view when a photo is selected.
Shortcuts also go directly to specific tools, even if you’re not yet in the editing view. Press C to open the Crop tool, F for filters, A for the Adjust tool, R for the Retouch tool, and E for the Red-eye tool. While you’re editing, press the arrow keys to switch to the previous or next photo without leaving the editing view.
To compare your edits to the original version of the photo, press the M key for a quick before-and-after.
Choose which version to edit
If you shoot with your camera set to Raw+JPEG format (which records both a raw image and a high-resolution JPEG version), Photos treats the two separate images as one. However, the application defaults to editing the JPEG instead of the richer raw version.
What Is The Default Image Editor On Mac
To switch, open the photo in the editing view and choose Image > Use RAW as Original. (The option is disabled unless you’re in the editing view.)
Add more adjustments
The Light, Color, and Black & White adjustments in the Adjust tool are just the most common adjustments. Several more are available by clicking the Add menu (see image below). I find having the Histogram visible to be helpful, for example. If you use some controls regularly, such as White Balance, choose Save As Default at the bottom of the Add menu; those adjustments will appear every time you edit a photo.
Extend edit ranges
A funny thing happened one day when I accidentally pressed the Option key while editing a photo: The tick marks on several of the adjustment controls moved.
Many of the controls use a scale that ranges from –1.00 to +1.00, with the image’s original value sitting in the middle at zero. The Exposure control, for example, darkens the image significantly at –1.00, but doesn’t turn it black. When you hold Option, that range changes to between –2.00 and +2.00, letting you darken the photo even more (or go the other direction and brighten a dark photo).
This feature is also useful when you’re looking for more pop or an extreme treatment for a drab photo. In the images below, I’ve taken a photo of dried leaves and pushed the contrast to its initial maximum value of 1.00. With the Option key held, however, I can push that higher and get a more dramatic effect.
Multiple levels of Levels
The Histogram is good for identifying the color and tonal values in a photo, but it’s there just for reference. The Levels adjustment, however, lets you manipulate those values in some sophisticated ways. Choose Levels from the Add menu to view it.
Looking at a histogram, the left side represents dark values (with black at the far left) and the right side represents light values (with white at the far right). The colored areas within indicate the distribution of red, green, and blue (RGB) pixels within the scene. If you want to isolate and edit any of those channels, click the options menu that appears when you move your mouse cursor over the controls. You can also choose Luminance to view only the brightness values.
The teardrop-shaped handles at the bottom of the Levels histogram control (from left to right) the black point, midtones, and the white point. To brighten an image, for example, drag the white point to the left—the values to the right of the white point get pushed to their full luminance, increasing the overall brightness of the photo (see below).
Similarly, dragging the black point makes the image darker, and dragging the midtones lightens or darkens the values that fall between the light and dark extremes; the smaller handles that flank the midtones control affect shadows (left) and highlights (right). Sometimes, for instance, it may be better to adjust the midtones to brighten an image to avoid clipping, which is when pixels are pushed all the way to pure white or black.
There’s more to the Levels adjustment, however. The handles at the top of the Levels adjustment allow you to fine-tune the edits made with the bottom handles. In the image below, I’ve reduced the white point setting (by moving it to the right) so the lightest areas aren’t blown out, and then also dragged the top-center control to brighten the midtones. The result is a brighter, more saturated sky, but also detail in light areas such as the pyramid-topped building in the center of the skyline. You can also hold Option and drag a top handle to also move its connected bottom handle in unison, maintaining the relationship between the two.
Copy and paste adjustments
After you’ve edited a photo to your liking, you probably have similar shots taken at the same time that would benefit from those adjustments. Rather than try to replicate everything by hand, it’s much easier to copy the work you did on the first one and paste it onto another.
Image Editor For Mac Free
While you’re still in the editing view, choose Image > Copy Adjustments (or press Command-Shift-C). Next, switch to the unedited photo and choose Image > Paste Adjustments (or press Command-Shift-V). All the changes you made to the first apply to the second.
Looking ahead
These advanced or hidden editing features exist in the current 1.0.1 version of Photos for OS X, and there’s more to come. An update arriving with the upcoming OS X El Capitan will support editing extensions: third-party developers can create modules that will enable you to edit your images within Photos for OS X using the developer’s tools. This capability already exists on iOS—you can use the editing tools of Pixelmator or Camera Plus, to name just two examples, without leaving the Photos app on your iPhone or iPad.
For now, though, Photos for OS X turns out to be a much more capable photo editor than it first appears, which is a good place to start moving forward.