Here goes - my mission for this week, learn to 'go native' with Preview and Mac (plus a TB of images) -
Sorry if I'm being obvious, or Newbyish, or repetitive. But I was inspired to figure this out and think I have. And I know I'm alone, so I took notes and now share this in the hope it helps others (as the other posts here helped and inspired me!) Without further adieu, straight from my desktop via text editor!
OK… With Lion OSX 10.7.3 and Preview 5.51. To title. Thanks to all from whom I've drawn...
1. Have image on desktop. Yes, and it may not open with Preview if you're using something else to open .jpegs by default, I found. So: "open with" Preview. Either way, that's definitely step 1.
Note: Although you can reverse it, step by step (using edit to undo one change at a time) it's best to use a duplicate, ready-to-use image. Why? Because you can't "save as" MyTrip-titled.jpg if the original is MyTrip.jpg" The only file-menu option is to "save a version" and that may do so, but the image on your desktop now has the added text, but the same name. Gone is the 'original' without text. It's not automatically creating a 'layer' and keeping the original non-destructible.
2. Here goes. Select from the main menu bar up top
TOOLS/
ANNOTATE/
ADD TEXT
As you long as you go straight away to the image (pausing to type this caused me to lose the cursor and to begin again) … and stay with Preview, it's quite easy after just a little experimentation and practice.
TOOLS/ANNOTATE/ADD TEXT - Do this and a simple cross hair (+) is now your cursor. Open up a rectangular box around the size you'd like the text, by grabbing one of its points.
Click, hold the button as you and drag open (or 'pinch'?) the area you want to insert the text. Let go.
You'll see a 'virtual text box' space, 8 points around a rectangle (if you've defined a rectangle). Very likely if you just start typing before you create the box you'll see diagrammed, you're using minuscule font size in minuscule space. Even when you stretch out an 'add text' box, unless you have set a large font size, you won't see it. Use the Font selector button to choose size and color and style, and if you've not left preview you can now do your typing and it will appear in the rectangle you've created. (Or balloon, etc., see below)
So far so good, right? As several of us have found, the text may indeed be minuscule despite several efforts. But I've gotten it to work now, and replicated it 3x, a final time making a combination of titles and text balloons and copyright, plus doing some slight tweaking of the image itself, and all very quick to do.
With the text-add area still showing after you've chosen to annotate/add text, you can choose any size text, within the area, or beyond. (If you make the text way too big in one mode it may be shaded blue. If you use 'add outlined text' the boxed off area you designate is 'reserved' for that box's space, and if you move the text beyond it, it vanishes.) Other text can't overlap into it either. But you have total flexibility with adding text, different styles and colors, all over, all in one "layer". Bottom line: what you see is what you get -
once you've opened up the add text dialogue, defined the space to use, and put the cursor within the text area (click once, no need to hold!) and just type., Way big, way tiny, or just right. That's it!
It seems simplest and most versatile to just "add text" - you can later change the size, and position, and color - in a number of ways.
I find it easiest to use the A (font) button for just about all the steps, including color, as the color sample button is limited to stock choices and your last-chosen color. But the A (alpha, slanted A) icon, leads to a whole menu concerning the text size, color, and style. (The black A on the menu immediately above the image, not the grey-box A) in a menu above that.)
The text area is still showing and the boundary where you left it while heading to the Font menu. If you type immediately after you click, without first designating the font size and text location, you'll practically need a microscope, as many have observed. Tiny. But… it's easy to just construct your text area, go to the A/font button, pick your text size, font style and font color - using a color wheel and slider, even adjusting opacity settings if you wish. Nice.
Assign any size and type away. WYSIWYG. Choose a color, appropriate size, type it in, move it, tweak it, you're home free.
Final notes, after replicating 3x. - Now 4x, going a bit overboard as a 'final exam' for myself, and composing a text-rich photo with title, subtitle, text box, and copyright. In about 10 minutes,
There actually is a lot of versatility, some extra steps possibly, but some nice features and even I am getting quicker with it after a short 'learning curve'.. For me, who likes to keep track of 'files' and pull them up in various photo editing software, this took a bit to accustom too, but I'm now enjoying what I can do 'native' with Preview. It's a useful tool. Can't 'share' easily with it, a perq of using iPhoto, but it's great for what it can do.
Note 1: After 3 trials it became super-quick to follow the above steps, getting a sense of the sizing relative to the print size and preview window, learning the font tools, and how easy it is to move the text or change it - anywhere along the way. Easy. From a title or date to copyright notice, it's really simple, as long as one keeps things in Preview during the titling.
Note 2: Saving - To me this was the biggest challenge to understand and master the use of Preview.
The solution ends up (while staying in Preview the entire time) being -
1. Our photo, ready to title, is on the desktop, opened by Preview. (sorry to repeat).
2 Immediately use the menu to "duplicate". You'll now see two identical images, same name still, side by side.
Do your thing adding text, to one of the two only. (It's very easy to change size/location of the text box, and it 'remembers' the color last used, displayed next to the font "A".) Click the A to choose a custom color and font size/style. Make sure you're looking at a bounded area for text, and type.
LASTLY: File/Save the one you've just worked on. (You can click on the image if it's still displaying the boundary lines and they'll disappear so you can see the final result. But it's still not saved.)
A menu will prompt as to what quality/size to save as *and* what to name it. On the one I've now changed, I retitle it "picture-titled" the pre-duplicated original having been "picture". Save, and it's done. Close. The first time I tried in vain to find the right "save as" vs. save options, but for me this now works easily. On one trial I found the first of the 2 same-named images (one, the duplicate, which I was working with) was "locked" so I just closed it. The other originals had a "save" or "save as" option and I saved as themselves (originals).
At first I found the image I'd titled was the image I saw on my desktop, and the original (pre-text) image had been replaced. I could still use the edit menu to walk it back step by step until it was the original without text. I saved this original state as a "copy" (of the 'original' with text!). EIther way…. options.
Been a long day/night here, but I saw the comment from someone struggling as I did with the micro-text experience of Preview. So with apologies to the masters, for redundancy, and not meaning to be pedantic, either (just a hard-core scientist and sharer-type who is tired and fast-typing) -- I was motivated by this post and having the day off tomorrow to do battle with Preview for once and all. I do believe I got it, it's doable, and it turns out to be quite a versatile tool for image manipulation, beyond and in addition to iPhoto.
It's quite an annotator! (Wish I could post my funny result, but I'm sure others have seen better photos!)
Thanks all, happy imaging, and hope this helps others who seek and find this thread, as I did.