shownotes_MC20121116

Opening
  Apple's Image Capture sits there in most people's OS X Applications folder going unnoticed and unused. You might be surprised though, this seemingly benign little app has a number of tricks if you only dare double-click.
Image Capture
  You'll find it right there in your /Applications folder
  It does some basic stuff
  It will recognize and camera or camera like device and allow you to browse the images on it
    SD card
    iPhone, iPod, USB Camera
  Devices show up in the left hand column
  There is a list view and a thumbnail view
    The list view shows 17 columns of metadata
    Aperture, depth, width and height, EXIF, focal length, shutter speed, location data, etc.
    Can sort by any column and when you return to thumbnail view it will retain that sorting
  Slider at the bottom to control the image size. Also button to allow rotating.
    Can select multiple images and rotate them all at once
Importing
  Drag individual or groups of items directly out of image capture to import them
  You can also use the 'Import' or 'Import All' buttons
  Under the 'Import To:' setting you can specify one of 3 presets
    Pictures, Desktop, or Documents
    There is also an 'Other' option and you can choose any folder or volume you'd like
  In the 'Device' settings panel (lower left) you can set the checkbox for 'Delete after Import'
  Deleting can also be done by selecting images and clicking the "delete" button at the bottom of the window.
    Will delete directly off you device
  In the 'Device settings' panel you can also set the Application that launches, or doesn't, when a particular device or camera is connected to your Mac.
    iPhoto, Image Capture, Preview, Auto Importer
    Also Other… to specific an App of your choice
    And my personal favorite, 'No application'
Auto Importer
  This is a special little app that will automatically import your images from a device to a specified location when you connect it
  Set it under the 'Connting this opens' options
  The next time you connect that device the app will run and import your photos
  How do you control the location?
    If you're quick, while it's running you can go under it's application menu and choose 'Preferences'
    Be quick about change setting though because the app quits when it finished importing
  Actually the App is in /System/Library/Image Capture/Support/Application/AutoImporter.app
    If you launch it you can get to the Preferences
    Set the Import folder
    Option to create a subfolder each time you import
    Drag in tokens to append to folder name, date, camera name, user name, sequence #
    Also can set if you want to delete items from the camera after import.
Import to Application
  Import to iPhoto, does exactly that opens up iPhoto and imports the images
  Import to Preview
    Can be handy if you want to do some quick processing of an image
    Crop, adjust color
    Save out to a different format using Export (TIFF, PNG, PDF, JPG)
    Add annotations. Lines, speech and thought bubbles
    Images are imported into the root of your ~/Pictures folder
    On OS X Lion and newer edits auto saved. My images came in locked, so you have to unlock or duplicate before editing.
    Preview has a File > Import from Camera option.
      Basically opens up a mini version of Image Capture
      Select the device to import from
      Can import, rotate before import, delete images from camera
  Import to Mail
    Go straight from Camera to email. As far as I could tell images weren't imported
    A quick way to visually see and select photos to Mail to someone.
    Fix a camera rotation before sending to to Mail
    In Mail you can then choose the 'Small', 'Medium', 'Large' or 'Original Size' options.
Create a Contact Sheet or Prints
  Import To: Make PDF
  Opens the MakePDF app (/System/Library/Image Capture/Automatic Tasks/MakePDF.app)
  Will bring in the imported images and place them on a sheet based on layout options
  Contact Sheet, Crop to standard sizes, fit to standard sizes
  Create and save your own layouts by choosing New Layout…
    Set paper size
    Crop or fit options for photo sizing
  Save as a PDF or print it.
  Images are imported to the ~/Pictures folder
Create a web page
  Import To: Build a Webpage
  Opens the Build Web Page app (/System/Library/Image Capture/Automatic Tasks/Build Web Page.app)
  Will import the images to the ~/Pictures folder and then create a web gallery and open it in Safari
  You get thumbnails of each image 3 across with the file name as a title
  You can click on an image to see a page with a larger version and clicking that image returns you to the thumbnail page
  The app copies and scales all the images, generates the HTML for you, and places all of it in a 'Webpage' folder in your ~/Pictures folder
    There is an index.html file at the root of the folder
    Also a 'web files' folder that has the page html files and resized image files
  You should be able to upload the folder to a web server for sharing
  The Build Web Page app opens briefly while to processes and creates the files, but then closes. It does have some options though
    Open the app from /System/Library/Image Capture/Automatic Tasks/Build Web Page.app
    Go to Build Web Page > Preferences
    Set the Background color (default is a dark grey)
    Set the Image name font color, but not the font
    Toggle showing image names
    Set the thumbnail and full size image widths
    All images are generated as JPGs
  You can also use the app directly to open a folder or group of images. File > Open.
  Some other things to note
    The upload to a web server isn't automated
    The 'web files' folder that contains the assets has a space in the folder name, so that might not be compatible will all web hosting servers
    Despite how they are rotated in Image Capture, all photos are added to the webpage in landscape. The original photos are imported into the Pictures folder at full size and in the right orientation
Use for Scanning
  ImageCapture supports scanning
  You may find you prefer it's simple interface vs the scanning app that came with your scanner.
  When you launch Image Capture and you have a supported scanner attached then it should show up in the list of Devices
  When you select the scanner it will make an Overview scan and bring up the interface
  There are two modes.
    A kind of "quick scan" with just a couple options at the bottom of the window
    Or a more advanced mode with the option on the right hand side
  "Quick Scan" mode
    Control scan size
      Detect Separate Items will try to find edges and make multiple scans if you have multiple items on the scanner bed
      Detect enclosing box will try to scan all the items in a single image but cropped to the outer edge of the combined items
      Scan to full scanner bed size
    Scan to lets you set a location to save the scans
      Pictures, Documents, or Desktop folders
      iPhoto, Preview, or Mail
      Set your own folder
  Click the 'Show Details' button to see all the options
    Kind: Color, B&W, or Text
    Colors, sets the number of colors or level of greyscale
    Resolution
    Size and rotation
    Auto selection
      Off, Scans the entire bed or lets you click and drag to define areas to scan. you can also set rotation on each selection and select multiple areas
      Detect Separate Items
      Detect enclosing box
      If you use auto options the bounding boxes are displayed and you can still manually adjust them
    Set the scan locationr
    Set the default filename. It will auto append a number to the name to avoid conflicts
    Control format
      JPG, TIFF, PNG, GIF, BMP, PDF
      PDF and TIFF options let you combine multiple scans into a single document
    Apply image correction before scanning
      Brightness, Tint, Temperature, Saturation
  This can be a great way to revive an old scanner if it no longer has software support
  Image Capture supports something called TWAIN, so as long as there are drivers that provide a TWAIN it should work with Image Capture
    BTW, TWAIN isn't an acronym for anything, but some will say it's "Thing Without An Interesting Name".
  If you can't find TWAIN support for your old scanner there is a project called SANE (Scanner Easy Access Now)
    And for OS X Lion and Mountain Lion there is the TWAIN SANE Interface for OS X
    You need to install 2 packages: SANE backends and the TWAIN SANE Interface
    Can also install the SANE Preferences Pane, which will allow you to enable, disable, and configure backends for specific scanners
    This is open source, so it can be a bit fiddly, but I have been able to use my old Canon CanoScan N670u
  I have had a few quirks using Image Capture and TWAIN SANE
    Scans will sometimes be garbled. I can sometimes fix by adjusting the settings, changing the format or crop area, etc.
  If scanning with TWAIN and Image Capture fails there is always the awesome VueScan ($39.95 std or $79.95 pro)
Closing
  So who knew you could do so much with this little app? We'll now you do.
  Feedback to member@maccast.com or call 281-622-4269 (281-MAC-I-AM-9)