With the introduction of iPhoto ’11, Apple has allowed users to easily send emails from within iPhoto. Similar to the way you might send emails from apps on iOS, the feature sends photos without launching the Mail application. Now, with the update from yesterday, Apple has given users the ability to use third-party email clients to send photos, and included a few added extras for iPhoto users.

iPhoto 9.1.1 adds a preference allowing photos to be emailed using an external email application, adds "Classic" and "Journal" themes to email, and gives users the ability to select photo sizes of small, medium or large. Lets take a look at these new feature a little more in-depth.

Changing the Default Email Client

iPhoto’s ability to send email templated messages is great for sprucing up those family photos. But if you're not interested in any garnish, you might want to just send the photo as a plain attachment.



To get started, head over to iPhoto > Preferences > General. Once there, locate the drop-down menu labeled “Email photos using”. From this drop-down, select your email client of choice located on your Mac. If you decide to change your mind about your decision to use an external email client, simply select “iPhoto” from this drop-down menu.



Now, when you choose to share pictures through email, a new dialog will pop up asking for the image size you’d like to send, and the metadata to include (titles, descriptions, and location information).



When you click "Compose Message", a dialog box will pop up with your photo, ready to send away.

New Templates

iPhoto 9.1.1 also introduced two new email templates for iPhoto users using the built-in email client in iPhoto.


The “Classic” template gives you a blank email with the pictures you selected attached. This no frills theme is what many iPhoto users have been wanting since version 9 was released as a part of the iLife ’11 suite.



The “Journal” template is one of the more simplistic templates, shrinking the photos slightly, and giving you a writing area to the right of the photo. This template also lets you insert a title for the email.

Resizing Photo Attachment Size

Also new to iPhoto 9.1.1 is the ability to resize attached image sizes (assuming you’re using the built-in email client). From any template (except, oddly the Classic and Journal themes), click the “Attach photos to message” checkbox under the template listing.

With this checkbox enabled, you will get a new drop-down menu for the Photo Size. By default, iPhoto will select the Optimized size, but you can manually specify a size through this drop-down.

You can choose small (faster downloading), medium, large (higher quality), or actual size (full quality).

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