Image Capture needs a little love
If you’re reading this on your Mac - and I hope you are - I want you to open up your Applications folder right now.
Go ahead. I’ll wait.
Ok, now scroll down until you see something called Image Capture. I know what you’re thinking.. “But I don’t have any
application called Image Capture.” Yeah you do. And it wasn’t something you grabbed off Versiontracker or leeched off
some warez site. It’s been there since your Mac came out of the box and you’ve been ignoring it this whole time. Shame
on you.
Image Capture is one of the most underused and
overlooked Mac applications Apple’s ever given us for free (if you don’t count the cost of the operating system).
I’m here to tell you that Image Capture is a real gem with a wealth of wicked-cool features you probably didn’t even
know about.
Did you know that Image Capture will let you selectively download images and video clips from your camera or
memory card? And then it can send the files you select to iPhoto or another compatible app or just save them into a
folder for you. Image Capture is no one-trick pony, though. It can also crop your images, build slideshows and create
simple web pages to show off your pics.
As if that wasn’t enough, Image Capture knows how to share. You can let others browse, download,
and delete images from your digital camera via a web browser over Rendezvous or over the internet, and
you can even share a scanner. Image how useful that can be.
But here’s what I think is the coolest feature: Image Capture’s Remote Monitor. Apple has given you free, barebones
webcam software. With a supported digital camera, you can use Remote Monitor to snap a picture every 60 seconds and
those pictures can be shared over the web once you have the web sharing preference enabled.
I don’t know why Apple doesn’t promote these features
more, but I thought you should know about them. I suspect Apple had additional plans for Image Capture and dropped
them at the last minute but it already does plenty and now that you know, I hope you’ll take Image Capture for a spin
yourself.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jonathan Schroeder said 4:15PM on 6-16-2005
yeah, go image capture!...
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john said 4:15PM on 6-16-2005
yeah, the note is "supported." I had a fairly decent webcam that worked with OS9 and I'm not willing to shell out any additional money for drivers for it.
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Izzy said 4:15PM on 6-16-2005
I use image capture all the time to selectively import photos. Usually it's for pictures I've taken on a whim that I don't want included in my main iphoto library and will probably only be used on the blog. I also use it with my scanner and it always works like a charm.
It's the unsung hero app on my mac, and is indispensible as far as I'm concerned. It's nice to see it get a little love...
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tf said 4:15PM on 6-16-2005
What makes you think it's under-used? Almos anyone with a digicam uses it quite extensively.
As for the Geoff's comment: LOTS of us HATE iPhoto! That's why. Why should importing be tied to a limited and buggy organizing app?
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Laurie said 4:15PM on 6-16-2005
tf - it's absolutely under-used. the overwhelming majority of my clients and even many of my Mac-using friends who I consider to be pretty savvy either forget it exists or never used it to begin with. The first time you plug in your digital camera, iPhoto launches and since most people want to use iPhoto they click to let iPhoto launch as the default every time they connect. And with iPhoto '05, they don't even need to make a trip to the finder to copy those video clips off the camera or media cards. most people don't think "hey i wonder if i can share this scanner" so Image Capture sits dormant in their Applications folder. You (and perhaps other regular TUAW readers) are the exception, not the norm, when it comes to Image Capture :)
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Scott said 4:15PM on 6-16-2005
Yes, I agree. iPhoto sucks compared to other organizational programs I've used. However, I haven't tried iPhoto '05, which seems like it solves a lot of problems with the old iPhoto (video clips, image editing, etc.) Is it still slow, though?
Has anyone seen Picasa by Google for Windows? That's an impressive image organizer. Amazingly elegant for a windows app.
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David Alan Gregory said 4:15PM on 6-16-2005
I do not ever remember Apple making one mention of the image capture app in any release of OS X. If they want to make it useful they might add the ability to control scanners to the app. If Hamrick can make VueScan, why can't Apple add basic scanner functionality to the OS?
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tf said 4:15PM on 6-16-2005
Laurie, it's all relative. I could point to 20 other included apps that I think are much less utilized than Image Capture.
Guess what? Apple doesn't advertise every component, feature, or app included in the basic system... They hardly advertise any of it at all.
Basically, I'm saying it's relative, but this sounds to me like someone discovered this app yesterday, and because they didn't know about it, they presume no one does.
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tf said 4:15PM on 6-16-2005
David, what do you mean? There's just as much info on Image Capture as any other feature, if not more so.
And IC supports a "fair" number of scanners out of the box and all TWAIN devices (and really, shouldn't a scanner be using TWAIN anyway?)... and Apple provides links to all proprietary scanner apps available AND VueScan:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/scanners.html
More info about IC:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/imagecapture/
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Government Drone said 4:15PM on 6-16-2005
I use Image Capture mostly for scanning; I just plug in my scanner (an Epson Perfection 1250) & the program recognizes it & does a preview scan of whatever's on the glass.
The only bug in it is that the channels (red, green, blue) are all a little out of sync with each other, & I have to line them back up in Photoshop.
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Laurie said 4:15PM on 6-16-2005
tf - everything is relative. there's no argument there. you and I are the types of people who can't want to take things apart when we first open the box. I do that with software just as well as hardware so image capture is no stranger to me. but i challenge you to name 20 - or even 5 - features/apps included in the default installation of OS X are as unsung a hero as IC. And most of what's in the Utilities folder doesn't count since the average user will never have any need to touch any of those things. The exception to that is DigitalColor Meter, which I think ROCKS and it also is mostly ignored by the average user despite its usefulness ;)
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Clay said 4:15PM on 6-16-2005
I use Image Capture as a front-end to iPhoto since iPhoto does NOT recognize the ICC tags my camera adds, and uses Generic RGB (ew) profile for everything. Image Capture can tag photos as it downloads, so I have it set to download to disk, tag, then import to iPhoto.
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Daniel Martin said 4:19PM on 6-16-2005
I am sure ImageCapture might be a fantastic application if you have a scanner that it can recognize. Why is it that the newest scanners launched by HP are not supported by ImageCapture. I have a scanjet 4670 and simply cannot use ImageCapture with it. Disappointing...totally disappointing
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Geoff Hutchison said 12:41PM on 6-17-2005
I think the greatest question is why Apple hasn't merged the features of Image Capture into iPhoto.
Take the selective download? That sounds like a feature iPhoto should have... Same with the sharing or remote monitor features. And if iPhoto had these features, maybe madtracer would like iPhoto more?
Personally, it seems like they coded Image Capture and forgot about it as they improved iPhoto. Which would certainly explain why they don't promote the features -- which don't exist in iLife.
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madtracer said 10:49AM on 6-27-2005
Yeah Image Capture is the BEST! i have Image Capture set to be the default for when I plug in my digital camera. The machine detects the connection, Image Capture opens and i can do what i want to the photos without the annoyances of crappy iPhoto. SCREW iPhoto.
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