A little known fact about the Mac OS X Preview application is that you can use it to import photos and movies from your iOS devices to any place you choose that is accessible to Finder. Preview's usefulness doesn't stop there and this weeks tips will show you how to get the most of of this hidden Mac OS X gem.
You can use Preview to import photos and videos by launching it from the Applications folder on your Mac after you connect your iOS device to your Mac.
Once you are connected go to File>Import from XXX..., from the menubar. XXX is the name of your iOS device.
This will open an import window like the one below:
Next, select the location you want to import your media to to the Pictures, Desktops, Documents folders, or really anywhere accessible by Finder. This is where imported photos will be saved. They will not be removed from your iOS device after being imported.
You can now select one or all of the photos or movies in your iOS device's Camera Roll to import them. Just select one or more and press Import to import your selections or Import All to get import all of them. Your photos and movies will be quickly exported to the location you chose.
You can use Preview to preview photos on your iOS devices Camera Roll within the Import from window while it is open. However, it will not allow you to preview movies.
You can view them in either list or thumbnail view by selecting the view using the two buttons on the lower left side of the Import from window. The slider on the right allows you to adjust the thumbnail view size.
You can click any photo and click the Import button and it will immediately be loaded into Preview for you to examine. If you notice that the photo isn't rotated in the proper direction prior to opening it in Preview simply click the left or right rotation button. The photo will be rotated in the direction you choose in the thumbnail view. However, the change is non-destructive and the original image remains intact even when imported or opened in Preview.
Preview's Import from window doesn't do a lot to help you manage your iOS device's Camera Roll since all it will do is allow you to delete media from there. You can delete items from Preview before importing them.
Simply select one or more images and press 
and the photos or movies will be deleted.
This is useful prior to importing because it could be used to delete extra photos of the same subject that are deemed to be of bad quality, redundant, or otherwise unwanted. Clean it all up before importing to save time and disk space.
You can preview a photo or movies embedded media attributes while in the list view. The attributes you can see for each item include: filename, date image was taken, file size, aperture used, depth, color space, width, height, DPI, EXIF, focal length, shutter speed, ISO, location, flash, maker, and model.
These attributes are located at the top of the Import from window.
ssj152
March 04, 2011 at 2:22am
Terrific! What a great tip - who knew that preview could do this. The only improvement would be for it to work over WiFi.
Thanks folks!
