iPhoto '08: The Missing Manual

chapter 14: screen savers, applescript, and automator 335

it, the Color Picker appears, so that you can specify the color in which to frame

your little picture.

 •Tile. This option makes your picture repeat over and over until the multiple im-

ages fill the entire monitor. (If your picture is larger than the screen, no such tiling

takes place. You see only the top center chunk of the image.)

And one last thing: If public outcry demands that you return your desktop to one of

the standard system backdrops, open System Preferences, click the Desktop & Screen

Saver icon. There, click the Desktop button if necessary, choose Apple Backgrounds

or Solid Colors in the list box at the left of the window, and then take your pick.

Exporting and Converting Pictures

The whole point of iPhoto is to provide a centralized location for every photo in

your world. That doesn’t mean that they’re locked there, however; it’s as easy to take

pictures out of iPhoto as it is to put them in. Spinning out a photo from iPhoto can

be useful in situations like these:

 •You’recreatingaWebpageoutsideofiPhotoandyouneedaphotoinacertain

size and format.

Figure 14-2:

If your photo doesn’t fit the

screen perfectly, choose a

different option from the

pop-up menu in the Desktop

& Screen Saver preference

panel.

While you’re in the Desktop

& Screen Saver or Screen

Effects preferences pane,

you might notice that all

of your iPhoto albums are

listed below the collection

of images that came with

your Mac. You can navigate

through those albums to

find a new desktop image.

This approach isn’t as fast

(or fun) as picking pictures

in iPhoto, but if for some

reason iPhoto isn’t open on

your Mac (heaven forbid!),

you can take care of busi-

ness right there in System

Preferences.

One-Click Desktop

Backdrop

336 iphoto ’08: the missing manual

 •Youshotabunchof10-megapixelphotos,you’rerunningoutofdiskspace,and

you wish they were all 6-megapixel shots instead. They’d still have plenty of resolu-

tion, but not so much wasted space.

 •You’regoingtosubmitsomephotostoanewspaperormagazine,andthepublica-

tion requires TIFF-format photos, not iPhoto’s standard JPEG format.

 •Somebodyelseonyournetworklovesoneofyourpicturesandwouldliketouse

it as a desktop background on that machine.

 •Youwanttosetfreeafewofthephotossothatyoucancopythemback onto the

camera’s memory card. (Some people use their digicams as much for showing

pictures to their friends as for taking them.)

 •YouwanttosendabatchofpicturesonaCDorDVDtosomeone.

Exporting by Dragging

It’s amazingly easy to export photos from iPhoto: Just drag their thumbnails out of

the photo viewing area and onto the desktop (or onto a folder, or into a window on

the desktop), as shown in Figure 14-3. After a moment, their icons appear.

The drag-and-drop method has enormous virtue in its simplicity and speed. It does

not, however, grant you much flexibility. It produces JPEG files only, at the original

camera resolution, with the camera’s own cryptic naming scheme.

Figure 14-3:

The drag-and-drop technique produces full-size

JPEG graphics, exactly as they appear in iPhoto.

Their names, however, are not particularly

user-friendly. Instead of “Persimmon Close Up,”

as you named it in iPhoto, a picture might wind

up on the desktop named 200205040035140.

jpg or IMG_5197.jpg.

Exporting and

Converting Pictures